A Stoner’s Trip

DISCLAIMER:  This is fictional story.  It is an instalment of a series of fictional stories involving drug use as a central plot theme.  Reader discretion is advised.  The provision of this story over the Internet, or through any other means of communication, is not to be interpreted as a suggestion or recommendation to use drugs.  The reader assumes any and all responsibilities derived from his or her actions.

2008 08 10, Drunk on Alcohol, by George Bookman (.txt)

Two weeks ago, on Friday, 25 July 2008, I got drunk for the fifth time in my life.

That may surprise some people out there.  “Only five times, George?  How can that be?”

I’ve just never been a big fan of alcohol.  Not my drug of choice.

But that may be changing.

Briefly I will describe to you my previous alcohol experiences.  I first got drunk when I was eighteen.  I was mostly just buzzed, and on a combination of Vanilla Bacardi and Vanilla Coke.

My second time was on Green Apple.  That night, I got so drunk I threw up.  I could not stand the taste or smell of applies for about six months after that.  My hangover the next day was horrendous.

My third time was on beer.  If you think the taste of liquor is bad, try beer: it’s even worse.

I don’t recall my fourth experience.  That’s not to say I blacked out—I’ve never blacked out.  Rather, there was simply nothing memorable about the evening I got drunk for the fourth time, other than that it was at Boris’s apartment, and that I had gotten drunk because Boris and some others there had never seen me drunk.  High?, yes, but drunk?, no.

However, two weeks ago, things were different.  I got drunk on, if I recall correctly, shots of vodka, which I chased with orange juice.  Han and I took a shot, and took another one fifteen minutes later.  Then I went outside to talk to Harleen.  Forty minutes later or so, I came back in, and had another shot with Han, which I followed up two minutes later with another shot, and then another two minutes after that.  Finally, after another ten to fifteen minutes go by, I had one final shot.

All in all, I had six shots in seventy-five minutes.  Interestingly, I didn’t really start feeling anything until after the fifth or sixth shot.  (Certainly I didn’t feel anything strong until after the sixth, perhaps I did feel some tiny change between the fifth and sixth.  Perhaps—although I am fairly unconvinced.)

I’d like to say that I got drunk that night because Harleen had never seen me drunk.  And likely that is indeed why I continued after my first or second shot.  However, the question must arise, why did I take the first shot.  I don’t believe I had any particular reason, other than that Han offered and I accepted.

For whatever it’s worth, this was by far my favourite drunken experience.

I see now my folly in previous drunken experiences.  I have always tried to mix liquor with other things so as to mask the taste.  However, the taste was either never sufficiently masked or was masked with something equally repulsive.  As a consequence, I was always sip whatever I was drinking, and rarely accomplished getting drunk.

I can’t say for sure why it was my favourite drunken experience, other than to postulate that my previous ones were lacking something.  Harleen has stated to me that the lacking element in my previous experiences was her.  I cannot rule this possibility out.

This weekend, I was hanging out with Harleen, and she showed me a video she had taken with her phone of the drunk me.  I noticed I was bubbly.