A Pompous Lecture on the Curve of Drunkenness, Illustrated

TR recently opined on various states of drunkenness. My experience with this subject matter leads me to conclude that it can best be described as an inverted parabola with disposition as a function of fun along the y-axis and drunkenness by time along the x-axis. The slope at any particular point on the curve dictates how you're doing--this is why you should've paid attention in calculus. As a general matter, the upward slope from time 0 is euphoric, the peak is the fabled “sweet spot of drunkenness,” and everything after that is literally downhill into dysphoria.

Here's a curve for the principle generally.

As you can probably imagine, there are lots of other things you could overlay onto this plot. To wit:

Things can get really bad too. Then you're in the negative. This is "abject misery" and includes vomiting, bed wetting, waking up in jail and so on. This is where "too drunk to fly" happens.

We've all been there.

via GIPHY

Further, the shape of the parabola varies from person to person, and it varies for a person depending on the conditions at hand like hydration state, nutrition levels, degree and nature of concomitantly administered substances, health status, age, and so on. One’s drunkenness parabola can therefore be used as something of a fingerprint for their general drinking capacity, or a snapshot of a particularly memorable round of boozing. I’ll show you what I mean.

Much like Costanza in the pool, the SSOD of drunkenness shrinks with age. In my twenties I could drink a lot, sometimes even epically, before I tipped over the edge of the SSOD into dysphoria. My SSOD was a broad plateau, a mesa of fun. In my thirties the SSOD shrank to a mere hill. Now, in my mid-forties, my SSOD is like the dip of a dull spear and about as useful. So it goes.

As a result, I frequently and accidentally fall into the dysphoria side of the curve nowadays. I assume you're similarly situated. Here's a graphical representation with some examples from your inner monologue along the downward slide into abject misery.

As I said before, some people have wildly different curves. Here's TR circa 1994:

When we were kids TR had an egregiously large bad decision zone. It started at the end of his SSOD and ended well into abject misery. Apex TR was often the coolest guy in the room, picking out great music, making funny jokes, playing pool and beerpong well. After that things could get weird. He might do something that isn't that funny, but you let it go. Then it gets stranger and stranger until you find yourself with a dead woodchuck propped up in a lawn chair with sunglasses, a cigarette and a handful of naked lady playing cards and telling people "This is Lambo's new shake, they nicknamed him Chuck!"

TR's curve was also unique in that he had this amazing plateau of negative fun which coincided with a certain look in his eyes. Many of you recall The Look. When you saw it you knew anything could happen. Anyway, at a point where any normal person would have passed out, TR powered through, wreaking havoc and causing mass discomfort. Naked bike rides in hurricanes? Head positioned between two speakers blaring Bathtub Gin on repeat? It's enough to give another guy a panic attack and make him to pass out.

After the negative plateau phase things got dark. Someone usually wound up on the wrong end of a beating, perhaps with their own flip-flop, or there was a trip to 7-11 for diarrhea dogs. None of this happens nowadays.

Here's a curve for FOG:TB Ian:

Ian still has the capacity for epic drinking. His SSOD is broad and flat. That said, his descent into dysphoria is a thing to behold. For hours he can be the life of the party, cracking jokes and telling great stories. Then, in a flash, he's suddenly breaking things. Seconds later he expresses tremendous remorse for his outburst and engages in self-flagellation. He then staggers away into the night and eventually passes out someplace familiar like the back of his truck or under the Martha Wood. But because of his amazing ability to metabolize alcohol, this negative fun plateau can get dragged out for hours.

Feel free to print this post out and carry it with you so you can identify where you are on the curve of drunkenness the next time you go out. Then you'll know where you stand. And knowing is half the battle.

via GIPHY

Advice for Young Men

You and I never met Robert Littell. He passed away in 1963 after a career in letters, highlighted by a run as the senior editor of Reader's Digest (which meant a bit more then than now). But I think we'd get along with Mr. Littell handsomely.

In 1933, inspired by watching his then-seven year-old son climbing high into the branches of a tree, Littell penned a lengthy meditation on the things a young man should know to be a successful member of society. As he himself put it in an essay in Harper's, "What are those abilities, skills, or accomplishments, those extra-curricular proficiencies that every man should have in order to be rounded and self-sufficient, and when can he acquire them, and how?"

Many of Littell's 'extra-curricular proficiencies are those that would come immediately to most of our minds. Things like cook, drive a car, swim, and speak in public seem somewhat self-evident.

But Littell had an advanced sense of what it takes to be a man, whether during the Depression or now. As he writes:

American social habits being what they are, there is one indoor skill which seems to me not only far more important than bridge or dancing, but actually compulsory — drinking. A young man who could convince me that his lips really would never touch liquor might be let off my required course in drinking. But he would be an exceedingly rare bird, and alcohol is so much more evident a liquid in the United States than water that it is probably quite as necessary for a young man to learn how to drink as it is for him to learn how to swim. If the youth of the country had been taught how to drink, just as they were taught not to eat between meals or swallow before they had chewed, we should never have had Prohibition. It is a more difficult art than most, for every man reacts differently, and every man should know, long before the time when (according to our customs) he indulges in his first collegiate binge, whether liquor goes to his head, his legs, or his morals, whether he is the type that sings, fights, weeps, climbs lamp-posts, or pinches the girls. Furthermore, he should learn his capacity and stick within its limits; he should know something about the different kinds of drink, and which drinks produce chaos within him when mixed. By all means let him leave drink alone if he wants to. But since, nine times out of ten, he will drink, let him do so sensibly. 

Other than the 'stick within his limits' nonsense, I endorse Mr. Littell's advice wholeheartedly. Bear this great American in mind this week, gentlemen (and ladies, be sure to stay away from girl-pinchers), as you celebrate our great nation's independence. Since ten times out of ten, we will drink, let us do so sensibly-ish.