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| Alcohol abuse causes more
than hangovers |
Chad Treadway
Graphic Artist
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Imagine for
a moment that you drive up to your apartment to see the door
standing wide open.
Automatically you assume that your roommate has propped the
door open to air out the apartment a bit, but then you realize
they are at work.
As you step through the doorway you realize that the door
has been broken down.
Your mind immediately starts to race: Is anything taken? Is
who did this still here? Could maintenance have needed to
get in? Could I be in trouble for downloading too many songs
on Kazaa?
Well recently this just so happened to me, and when I arrived
I immediately called my landlord who then sent a maintenance
worker over to my apartment.
As the maintenance guy and I were standing outside my apartment
evaluating the damage, one of my neighbors walked up and struck
up a conversation.
It was very obvious that he was intoxicated, which was cause
for alarm since it was 11:30 in the morning. He then began
to profess that it wasn’t him and that he didn’t
do it. Not more than 5 minutes later he changed his story
to, “Well I might have done it I can’t remember.”
Anytime there was mere mention of the police he started to
squirm. At one point he agreed to pay to have the door fixed
if I didn’t call the police. I finally told him to not
worry about it, just go back to his apartment, have another
beer and lay low. He smiled and went back to his apartment.
This little tale reminds me of another alcohol-induced incident.
I was at a social gathering with a friend of mine and several
people were around drinking, being social to say the least.
Well in walked two girls, whom I knew through my friend. I
immediately looked at my friend with an expression of “here
comes trouble.”
The reason I say this is both of the girls tended to drink
too much, one of the girls was the happy drunk, which is funny
because they are more fun. Then there was the other girl who
was the mood-swing drunk; she would be happy one moment, depressed
the next and angry at some point.
On this particular evening she exhibited all of these, professing
that no one liked her and she was only there because she was
dating another guy there.
She continued to become more angered until they decided to
throw a beer bottle at her boyfriend.
At this point no one was paying much attention to her ranting.
My friend looked at her and said one of his favorite TV quotes
“Simmer down now!”
I looked at my friend and said “We’re leaving!”
Another night I was at my fore mentioned friends house and
we were watching a few movies, well he was drinking, and eventually
fell asleep in the living room.
This was just an open invitation to mess with him, so his
roommate, a neighbor and I decided to write obscene messages
on him.
Well this wasn’t good enough for us, so we decided to
put makeup on him and paint his nails. And of course we had
to document this little happening with at a minimum of two
rolls of film. He woke up the next morning, about 7:30, and
to his surprise he saw our handy work.
He called and left numerous messages on our neighbors answering
machine with several choice words mixed in with “I need
some fingernail polish remover!”
So the points of my little tales are this, if you choose to
drink, do it in moderation. Know when to say you have had
enough, be aware of your actions and don’t get to the
point where you can’t remember, because what fun is that?
And to all the friends of the heavy drinkers out there, be
a friend and when they get so drunk that they are wobbling
and about to fall down, take the time to drive them home,
help them stumble into their apartment (their apartment being
the operative words), and call them the next day to make sure
they are still OK.
And as any good friend would do stand there laugh at them
when they have pray to the porcelain goddess, have to nurse
the almighty hangover and by all means be ready for the phone
call at 8 a.m. when you have painted your friends nails the
night before. |
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