Booze Hound

Booze, liquor, spirits, alcohol…many names for the same substance. The most used, most abused, intoxicant on planet earth and probably anywhere else it exists. We are not going to talk about your favorite drink or good bars here today. We will not profane the holy sacrament with such banal pursuits. If your idea of a big night is drinking too many pina coladas on vacation or being forced to split a thirty rack of beer in the basement of your frat house this post is not for you. No, today we are going to talk about something far more important. A state which most of you half-cocked, in denial teetotalers will never reach, the very special delirium brought on by prolonged and repeated abuse of alcohol.

I am talking regular thirty plus hour nonstop benders of thompsonian proportions. An existence where, even excluding the physical agony, sobriety becomes the altered state. Reality starts to peel away from your experience. All of the social norms dissolve. You are reduced to some form of primality where nothing beyond your field of vision exists. Not that you can particularly trust your field of vision in circumstances like these. Once reached, this state of consciousness is addictive. It is my standard for which all other trips are judged. 

I have been what could charitably be called an extremely high functioning alcoholic since I was fourteen years old. When I was young I could drink a bottle of wine and compete in top-tier basketball tournaments the next morning. As I got older, I found that I could come directly from a bar and ace interviews, in fact, I think it made me better. During the worst period of abuse in my still young (however voluntarily abbreviated) life, I was drinking to blackout seven nights, and two days, a week for months on end. There was a rhythm to this lifestyle that I loved. Nuances to the drinking experience that only become evident to the habitual drunk. During the day, I could manage, barely, to converse with management, lawyers and accounts like a functioning member of society. However, come the end of the work day (often before) things became…different.  

I am in a period of semi-sobriety, and I have to confess to being bored out of my head. So, I am curious, are there any other high functioning drunks out there? If so, any ridiculous stories worth telling? Let’s hear them. 

 -Moburg  

P.S. I was obviously not an IB analyst during the worst of my abuse. Although I would be very impressed by anyone who could maintain this routine and work IB hours.