The First Time I Got Drunk

On coming face to face with grace

Photo by Greg Rosenke via Unsplash

It is probably no surprise to you, if you know me, that the first time I got drunk was on my 21st birthday. Always the rule follower. I had made plans to go out with two of my closest friends at the time, Jason and Doug—Jason’s birthday was the same exact day as mine, and Doug had turned 21 only 6 days earlier. Armed with what I hoped was a responsible designated driver (one of Jay’s friends), we hit the bars somewhere between Newark and Philadelphia.

I think my own father may have known what I was up to, though he didn’t mention it specifically. He only said, “Be careful,” when I left, which was strange, because usually whenever I left the house his voice followed me out the door, light and full of laughter, always saying, “Make good choices.” The “be careful” felt heavy to me, as if he knew the direction I was going, had no real power to alter it, but still wished with all of the parenting love that was in him that he could spare me any unintended consequences.

As the parent of four teenagers, I know that feeling. I recognize the intonation in his words now, the desperation to save my children from unintended consequences.

I downed three pints at our first stop, and for my uninitiated self, that was enough to lift (or lower) the cloud of my mind to a very different space. We were laughing and joking and the floor was swaying and we were here and the next place and the next place. We were sitting at bars ordering shots and smashed in a crowd listening to music and outside again, laughing at who knows what could ever be quite so funny. There were long, blurry car rides, swaying from one side to the other in the back seat, falling out the door at the next stop. And always the clear stars watching us from a crisp December sky.

We arrived back at Jason’s house in the early hours to spend the night, our previously agreed upon plan, and our driver let us out. The car pulled away, its exhaust spinning into the freezing cold night. The three of us stood there staring up at the sky, the stars spinning like a fast-forward Milky Way. The cold air was breathtaking, sobering. I fell into the grass.

It was December 20th, 1997 (actually, by then it was the early hours of December 21st). James Cameron’s Titanic had premiered the day before. Massacres were taking place in Algeria. Elton John’s “Candle in the Wind” was at the top of the charts. It feels like a different age of the Earth, when I think back on it.

We sat there like that for a few minutes, until one of us turned over on all fours and threw up onto the frosty grass. We thought we should go inside.

And then this happened, the thing I remember most: