Drinking.

So. I have been doing some thinking lately. And drinking. But what I've really been doing is thinking about drinking. Ironic, isn't it?

Anyways, lets start this story yesterday morning.

Woke up, ate breakfast. It was bright and early, left my house at 7 am to meet up with some friends and head up to the ski hill. So I went up there, had a super fun day, and then a friend invited me to go to his house for some drinks. Like any sane person, I accepted, and showed up at his house around roughly 8 at night, having eaten a good meal at home, and drank some water to rehydrate.

Now the fun starts. I said to myself at the beginning of the night "I'm going to keep my drinking mellow tonight, I'll just have a few and then enjoy being a little bit tipsy."

Unfortunately this didn't happen, and about 5 beers and 10 shots of Jaeger later I decided that I would force myself to puke in the toilet so I wouldn't feel as bad. This unfortunately backfired and my stomach became overly acidic the next day, resulting in one of the worst stomach aches I have ever experienced in my life. Combined with a hangover, I couldn't stay standing for more than 10 minutes because the stomach pain and nausea would become so extreme that I had to sit down.

I drank water all day today, I probably had well over 6 litres, and I have peed twice as of yet. I am dehydrated as fuck, and to top that off, I sent a not-so-great text to someone yesterday which I very much regret. Fortunately, we're still on good terms but I feel super bad about it.

Sitting at home today with my hangover, sore stomach, and feeling like an idiot, I decided that something needed to be done about this. I am by no means an experienced drinker, and when I decide that I want to limit myself, it tends not to work. So how can I go about ensuring that I don't end up sitting at home feeling like shit on sunday night and not remembering drunk calling people on saturday night? I develop a system.

Part 1 of the system: The phone. When I go drinking, I generally drive myself and stay over at that person's house, or get a ride from someone else. However, I tend to send stupid texts and drunk call people, which I think is a bad thing. Solution? Before drinking, turn phone off and remove battery. If at someone's house, leave the battery in my car. If at a bar or something, put my phone in one pocket, and the battery in another. This prevents me from doing anything stupid, but still allows me to use my phone in case of an emergency.

Part 2 of the system: The tally. As a young man with a lot of european heritage, I have a naturally high alcohol tolerance, and when I decide to send it, I tend to drink everyone else under the table. However, I don't want to completely send it any more, as it wastes a shit ton of my time due to hangovers and such. So I have developed a method. When drinking, bring a pen with me. Keep a tally of drinks on my left wrist. For each alcoholic drink tally mark I have, I have to put a tally mark underneath it for a glass of water. BUT when the tally hits 5, the drinks stop flowing. I can easily ensure that I cut myself off at that point by keeping a tally. This keeps me hydrated, and just between sober and tipsy, at what I like to call my "happy point," instead of becoming a sloppy mess.

With this 2 part system, I am confident that I can limit my drinking effectively, and keep myself under control without having the usual amount of experience needed to be able to do that.

This is an option, but there is also another option: don't drink at all. Next time I go somewhere that people are drinking, I will have my tally pen on me, my phone battery left in my car, and I will try to enjoy myself without drinking anything. If I'm not having fun and I do start drinking, then I'll use my system and prevent complete alcohol destruction.

Not sure if this will work, but its my plan and I intend to stick to it. Wish me luck and I'll update another time saying how it went. Thoughts anyone?