Drink Irresponsibly?

Alcoholic beverage advertisements now exhort us to “Drink Responsibly.” Booze vendors hope we will thus think more kindly of their industrial drug-dealing. When an addict wrecks his or her car, beats spouse, barfs, and misses work brutally hung over, the dealers’ hands are clean.

Knowing that alcohol destroys livers, brain cells, and lives, how is it responsible to drink any alcohol at all? What is meant by this ubiquitous new slogan? Does anyone ever plan to Drink Irresponsibly? Does anyone take responsibility for anything anymore?

No matter how the evening begins, folks become less responsible with every drink. Rules aren’t made to be broken, but they are anyway.

If you are going to drink, kids, slow down and drink like an adult addict. Eat often and plenty. Pace yourself, no need to drink your 80 years’ booze allotment before you’re thirty. Drink glasses of water between drink drinks. 

Outliving your liver means unpleasant death.

Some folks count drinks. However, 24 drinks in 24 hours won’t get you drunk if you eat well and nap occasionally. So is that responsible?

If you buckle your seat belt, and your son in his car seat, then drive home one eye closed so you don’t see double, is that responsible?

How about if you smoke a grip of weed but don’t drink at all, in order to be the “designated driver?”  Or stay slightly sober so you can drive the really drunk people home?

Drinking responsibly surely means not enough to make you barf. If you do, outside is easiest to clean up, use the water hose. Head for the toilet if indoors, or the nearest trash can if sudden. Other irresponsible excretions should be handled similarly. Always barf, dump, and whiz before going to bed, not after.

Don’t keep drinking until you want to fight everyone. The next day you won’t remember why you fought, only the painful fact that you did. Same goes for unprotected pre-marital fun; a fertilized egg and cooties are also painful facts, even in love.

Do nothing quickly. Leave the white powders be—well, maybe a little taste for the careful drive home. Know where the cops hide their cars; if you don’t know the area, assume they’re everywhere. It’s not paranoia; they announce they’re out to get you.

Better yet, keep a sleeping bag and foam mattress rolled up in the car, and sleep it off, anywhere, before you drive. Think of it as camping. If you have trouble sleeping, you’re not drunk yet. Pick-up truck beds and Cadillac back seats are more comfortable than plenty of folks’ regular beds.

Drinking responsibly finally means showing up for work the next day, even without sleep and half drunk. Shower, eat, guzzle a pot of coffee, and gut it out. Got to show up and make money for next time!