Why Am I Still Alive Pt. 23: The First Time I Tried Alcohol

It was time.

It was the spring quarter of my junior year in college. I was 20 years old. For nearly 3 years I’d been in and around campus parties that featured alcohol as their center point. However, I had never tried alcohol - indeed I scoffed and had mild contempt for those who did. Even though Stanford required “EANABS” (Equally Attractive Non-Alcoholic Beverages) at their parties, the reality was that part of my tuition was going to fund the beer and liquor that flowed in the ubiquitous campus parties held every weekend.

Finals were over early for me and I’d be driving back home to Michigan in two days - what better time to finally face the enemy head-on and see how things would fall out? It was time for me to officially get drunk.

Sadly, when I made my decision to try to drink, my friends were not much help, those that drank did so lightly and socially and were not particularly informative in terms of what, and how much, I should drink to “get drunk.” But the decision had been made, and I had decided that if I was going to do it, I was going to “go big.”

We drove to Safeway where I bought a liter of “Winner’s Cup” vodka for probably $7. “This should be enough, right?” Sam, at 135 lbs who had had 3 beers in his life nodded. Shawn shrugged as a teetotaler. I purchased the vodka and returned to the dorm. In attendance were Sam, Shawn, and, the only drinker of the bunch, Chris. “OK, try it,” he said with a knowing smirk. 

I took a slow small dribble out of the odd flow-controlled bottle and immediately nearly retched, gasping and wiping my mouth. “Oh god, no… No no no. I can’t possibly drink that! No way… I think this experiment is over.” They were laughing but Chris leaned in and said, “That’s why people MIX their drinks - you can’t drink straight warm vodka!” I quickly retorted, “then why did you let me do it!??” He laughed and said, “I just wanted to see your face when you tried it - let’s get you some orange juice or something as a mixer.” 

We went to the cafeteria which was open late due to finals, but sadly all of the juice dispensers were empty. All that was left was coffee, milk, and chocolate milk. I said, “how about chocolate milk?” Sam and Shawn just shrugged but Chris said “well I guess that is similar to a ‘Black Russian’ - that might work.” He shrugged. So I got two large plastic cups of chocolate milk and returned to my dorm room. I poured in a decent amount of vodka into chocolate milk plastic cup #1 and slurped down a big gulp. “Well, it’s palatable if still gross,” I said. I then waited a few minutes and tried again. Eventually, I finished cup #1 and poured an even greater amount of the disgusting clear liquid into cup #2. I didn’t want to admit it but I was feeling a kind of rush - of confidence, of giddiness and I wanted to prove my ability to conquer this demon. “I’m going big,” I said and glugged down the second glass in a matter of a minute or two. 

My audience watched in fascination to see what would happen. I was already a person known to have boundless energy and was somewhat notorious for a series of events involving homemade fireworks, nearly setting my room on fire, and a police chase or two. Was I going to run about? Do something crazy? I was determined to hold my liquor but to also make sure I got drunk. This is where my friends had a complete fail. After some conversation about how I was feeling, and admitting that I was feeling it, I held the bottle up and let it drain into my mouth for a very long pour. I did it again and I suspect I was talking about nonsense but they didn’t stop me. I began to slur but poured more into my mouth anyway but they didn’t stop me. I think I finished more than 2/3’s of that bottle. 

Finally, it all caught up with me and a wave of nauseous vertigo rolled over me and I said, “I have to go to bed now.” I’m sure they probably asked if I would be OK, and I’m sure I assured them I would be and then I started to climb my ladder to my loft as they exited to pretend I was fine, knowing full well there was not a chance in hell I was climbing up there. I was not sure I could get back down. Things were spiraling downward, literally.

After they left. I grabbed a spare pillow and collapsed on the floor and briefly fell asleep, in the spinning room. 

Not long after that, I woke to head spins and vertigo so bad that the room was flipping before my eyes like the cherries on a slot machine pull. Within seconds I realized that I needed to puke, indeed, that I wanted to puke. Fortunately, I was only about 12 feet from the men’s bathroom directly across the hall. All I had to do was stand up, walk to my door, walk across the hall and walk into the first stall and I could empty the contents of my stomach to my heart’s delight. What I DEFINITELY did not want to do was to vomit in my own room. I still had a semblance of pride - which would shortly be eradicated with the coming events. 

I tried to stand up, using the ladder to the loft as a stabilizer. Nope, room spinning, I immediately fell to the right swinging down and under the ladder until I released my grip falling flat on my back. OK, I thought, I’ll just crawl. On all fours, I aimed the spinning dial of my eyes on the door and made furtive movements in that direction - only to fall over to the right yet again. The zooming behind my eyes had a slight angle to it and I could not keep a straight path. I tried again and collapsed again, always to the right. 

Eventually, my pathetic efforts inched me to the right side of my room. There, I could actually get up on all fours and not fall to the right because the wall held me up. A hazy idea emerged - “I’ll follow the wall around to the door and from there attempt the brief crossing to the bathroom.”

Zooming vertigo aside, I was able to move along the wall towards the door, make the left against the closet towards the entryway, and make the right into the doorway. Getting my hand up to reach for the doorknob required several failed attempts and a couple of fails, but eventually, I cracked the door open. However, that required me to back up. 

Several tip-overs later I was clear of the door and had it wide open, the gleaming grey paint of the men’s room beckoning just 5 or 6 feet away. The wet towels thumping around in my innards were getting louder and I knew I was just minutes from emptying the contents of my stomach. 

I inched forward, leaning against the now-open door, head now into the hallway. I had five feet of unsupported space to make it to the men’s room. I gathered myself and decided to make a spring of it and launched forward into the hallway - only to immediately fall over like a stuck pig. I tried to get up, but could not. The world was a swirling, snowglobe spinning only one way and I could not move forward. I backed up to the doorframe and considered my options. Since I could not turn left and I could not go straight, only one choice was left - that was to go right. The hallway to the right was full 60 feet long down to the dead end at the RA’s door, and then another 60 feet back… The plan was formed. 

With agonizing slowness, I crawled, scrubbing the wall down the long hallway with the right side of my shoulder and abdomen, faltering occasionally, but making good progress. Every 10 feet I had to dodge into the cleft of each dorm room door along the way, banging into it with my body, praying to god that no one heard me and saw this pathetic drunken journey. 

I made it to the end, and then slowly and carefully, so as not to wake him, crossed the threshold of Chris, the RA’s, door slowly trying not to make noise. I then repeated the journey in the opposite direction and finally made it to the men’s room just 5’ from my still open dorm room. I pressed the door open with my right shoulder and slithered across the cold dirty tile and into the first stall on the right (thank god they were on the right!) and even had the presence of mind to swing the door shut behind me with my left heel, face and shoulder pressed into the cold aluminum of the toilet stall. Wedged between the toilet seat and aluminum wall of the stall, I leaned onto the black plastic toilet seat, and all cares aside began the purge, emptying a seemingly endless stream of chocolate vodka vomit into the toilet. 

When I finished the first wave, I didn’t bother to move. The room was still spinning and I knew there would be a second. Sure enough, it came, then a third. Eventually, I draped myself over the toilet face down and fell asleep, waking for the 4th and 5th and 10th, and 12th waves. 

The morning came and I was “discovered” by a dormmate. I was able, at this time to stagger to my room and I made a shushing sound to him before slamming my door shut and collapsing on my one lone pillow on the floor, disgusting and disgusted. 

I didn’t leave the room that day and missed the final dinner in the cafeteria with my friends. 48 hours later and it was time to begin the long drive to Ohio and Michigan with my travel mate and good friend Shawn. I was still nauseous and he said, matter-of-factly, “You probably had alcohol poisoning - you probably should have gone to the hospital to have your stomach pumped.” I nodded numbly as we loaded up the car. I could still smell the scent of vodka when I began to sweat, particularly through my fingernails. After loading the car he said, “I better drive, and you should take one more shower - you smell like you are still drunk.” This was 2 days later.

He drove us all the way to LA for our first stop and I finally snapped out of it, vowing to never drink again. Indeed it was nearly a year later before I tried alcohol again and I decided that only fine wine would suit my palate after that thanks to the proclivities of my best friend Kevin. Ever since I have never been completely inebriated and I NEVER ever want to feel the feeling of the room spinning ever again.