The Sandlot

I'll preface this by saying I have nothing against drinking or getting drunk, as I do both. So I pose this initial question: Why do people drink and get drunk? There's no one single answer, nor is there a correct answer. There can be wrong answers I guess. I won't go into all the answers, but take a minute and you'll come up with many on your own. I'm going somewhere with this I promise, bear with me.

Now, you're average person goes out and gets drunk because they wanna have some fun and are out with a group of friends. Sometimes they drink too much and act a little out of control. Not really a huge deal. What happens though when that once in a while out of control-ness becomes the norm? What happens when a person has lost all restraint when it comes to drinking, so much so that every time they drink they're unmanageable and unbearable to be around? Normally at this point I think something should be said to that individual by his/her friends. Instead, I often see this sort of behavior encouraged or worse, ignored.

Last night I went to Canada with Moose, Rugger, Eddie and Matt Parr. I drove and didn't have a single drink. Being that it was Matt and Roogs' birthdays, they were wasted. Eddie was wasted too. Now they're all 19/20, and relatively small, so they get drunk more easily than say someone like moose, who is 23 and much larger. Nothing out of control or extraordinary happened on this outing, but I couldn't help but notice the irony. The guys, minus moose, were being slightly loud, talking shit and generally being drunk teenagers having fun. Were their actions terrible and unbearable? Not at all to me. Usually sober people hate being around drunk people for that reason. Well moose seemed very angry and displeased with the other boys' behavior that night. And I had to think to myself how it must feel to have the shoe be on the other foot. Normally its moose whose blind drunk, unmanageable and tough to be around. And trust me, his drunk is way worse than the state of the other 3 last night. So I just had to laugh to myself at his obvious disgust of the situation and pray that maybe he finally realizes that we go through the same thing everyday when he gets wasted.

I can only hope on the occasions when I am wasted that I do my best to act in a somewhat decent, non-annoying and non-out of control manner. And if in the past I have been out of line I sincerely apologize.

I also am gonna point out that you don't have to drink every night, or every time you go out. And if you feel like you can't handle that, well then I'll say ok drink if you must, but you don't have to drink so much. Its not like it makes you less cool or popular or a pussy. If anything, showing some restraint and smarts makes you more cool, not the other way around. I love it when drunks try to rationalize their drinking by saying that those who don't drink are somehow not as good as them. Such an absurd comment.

So this soapbox might make me less cool or whatever people will say but fuck it. Im tired of a lot of bullshit that occurs because of drinking. I spoke about this once before in the fashion about a year ago, foreshadowing bad things to come. Well that time is now kids.