The Reason Some People Just Shouldn't Drink.

Two Quick stories from past days. Story One - Day Release. Back when I used to play American Football, we had a guy on our team whom we nicknamed Day Release. The reason he got this nickname, was because he'd been known to miss or turn up late for matches. This occurred as he was usually in jail after being in drunken brawls. On one of the other guys bucks nights, he tried to start a fight with some of the team, for no other reason than the fact he'd been drinking. The rest of the team decided to just leave him and when the animal bus drove off, they made sure he wasn't on it. [Way to make friends and influence people!] Moral of the story - if alcohol makes you violent, then don't drink. It'll keep you out of jail and make you socially more acceptable. Story Two - When Alpha Males Fight. This occurred at Lola's in Sydney. We went up the pub. On one table was a group of people from work, and on the other was another group. I sat with one of the groups. Both groups had people I'd never seen before. One of the guys at the other table (whom I didn't know) suddenly started to make fun of a guy at our table (whom I also didn't know). These guys had never met before, but for some reason, the first guy needed to boost his ego by verbally assaulting the second guy. The second guy (unknown to us), happened to be a violent drunk. So, after some Alpha Male Verbal wrestling between the two, the second guy reached for a glass, smashed it against a wall and was going to glass the first guy! Yes, only a fool would get between these two guys ... um ... in stepped me! [Positive proof that you can have an IQ in the top 1% and still do stupid things!] Fortunately, I wasn't alone. The guy was there with a friend Helen, who also stepped in. Between the two of us, we talked him out of glassing the first guy. (Though, not having met the guy before, there was a part of me that wasn't sure if I was going to get glassed in the meantime). I will give credit to Helen for most of the work in calming him down (after all, she knew him and probably knew more of what to say. I was leaning heavily on my Drug Rehab counciling experience ... which wasn't much, I can tell you.) Helen convinced him to go home. A wise move. The people at the table with the first guy somehow missed the catalyst of the whole affair. They seemed to blame the second guy entirely for the incident. On top of that, some of them blamed ME! They claimed the second guy was my friend! Um! Say what?!!! I think the first words I ever spoke to that guy was, "I think you might want to put that down before you accidentally hurt someone!" Still, some stupid girl at work gave me an earful of how irresponsible I was to have this "friend", even though I kept explaining to her that I didn't know the guy! Obviously alcohol had made her Deaf (or stupider ... or both). Morale of the story: First Guy - If alcohol turns you into an arsehole, then don't drink. Second Guy - See First Story. Stupid Girl - I always thought you were stupid BEFORE you started drinking ... drinking made you worse! Guess it's the only way you can get laid though! Alcohol does have some benefits though - like prevention of heart disease - or improving my ability to speak Japanese ... okay, I made the second one up! Supplimentary Story One - Drunken Phone Calls. There is always some drunken idiot who decides that 4 AM is a good time to call Ex-Lovers/spouses etc. Twice we've received calls from my Ex-Father here at 2 AM and 4 AM respectively. Both times he was drunk and a complete arsehole (which means he is the same sober!) ;-) On another occassion he called during the day, but he was trying to call someone else. He denied any knowledge of his previous two calls. Supplimentary Story Two - Drunken Wife. I arrived home one day (back when I was married and shared a house with my brother Jeff and an old flatmate Paul). I went in the bedroom to get changed, and found my wife (Christine - see pictures below) sitting on the floor at the end of the bed. She was obviously drunk. She had the remote control in her hand and was trying to play a video. She couldn't understand why it wasn't working. I turned the telelvision on for her! Hey Presto! It works! I asked her how much she'd been drinking. She said she'd only had ONE. ONE??? I asked her if she knew how much ONE drink was. She'd apparently filled the glass half full with Vodka, and the other half with Coke. So a 250 ml glass ... half full ... that's 125 ml of Vodka. One normal drink is 30ml ... so she had the equivalent of 4.166 drinks in one go. (You can tell I used to mix the drinks before this event!) Yes, alcohol certainly can make you dumb! Actually, I can't remember if she used one of my BIG pint glasses (I don't like small glasses), so it may have been closer to 250 ml of Vodka ... which is 8 drinks. Supplimentary Story Three - Switzerland Actually, this is more of a nice memory. Some of us love our Long Island Ice Teas. For those that don't know them, they are equivalent to 5 drinks (having 5 white spirits in them) Very yummy. I had eight of these (equivalent to 5 x 8 = 40 normal drinks) over a 5 hour period. Being with some great friends, we were all nice and toasty and it was about 11:30 PM. It was cold, but we couldn't quite notice. Someone suggested we go up under the waterfall. Cool. So Dave, Kylie, Darryn and I decided to go. So we went through the village, through a kiddies playground, through the Graveyard (yes ... almost midnight wooOOooOOooOOooOOooOOoo), up the mountain to where the waterfall was. There was a rock staircase which goes up the mouontain and under the waterfall. Very slippery, very wet. So up we went. Unknown to us, the lights go off at midnight. So there we were, four toasty tourists under the waterfall at midnight and CLUNK! Off went the lights. Four toasty tourists under a waterfall, in pitch darkness at midnight. SO, in pitch darkness, back down the slippery staircase, through the grave yard (WooOOooOOoo ah who am I kidding!), down the slippery dip in the play ground. We were crossing a bridge back into town, hen Dave decided he wanted to touch the water in the stream. It comes straight off a glacier. So we all got down next to the stream and stuck our hands in the water. Hmmmm ... Cold! Moral of the story: You can drink with good friends, have a good time and come away with good memories. Long Island Iced Tea ... Yum!