Apple Jacks

It was stupid. Part of me knew it then, but didn’t care. It was also dangerous, but that never occurred to me then. I thought I was in control. I thought I was choosing to get drunk. I could handle it.

We’d been skiing all day. It was my first attempt at skiing, and it hadn’t been all that much fun. Everybody else already knew how to ski, and nobody wanted to waste a rare day of skiing babysitting me on the bunny slope, so I’d been by myself. I took a lesson, then tried to make it down the icy slope without killing myself. I hated the tow rope, so I tackled the chair lift. Somehow or another, I made it off the lift without mishap, and started down.

There’s a reason skiing was rare among my friends; the snow conditions in the southern Appalachians weren’t very good. The weather warmed up too often, turning the runs to ice. Not exactly the best conditions for a beginner, and I struggled. When I lost control on an icy patch and collided with another skier, wiping him out, I was ready to give up. With his kind help, I made it down the rest of the slope without wreaking any more havoc, and headed to the lodge to wait for my friends.

So, by the time we made it back to the apartment, I was ready for a drink. When someone suggested Apple Jacks, I was game. He explained that Apple Jacks were a shot of apple brandy followed by a shot of Jack Daniels. I didn’t care, I just wanted to stop feeling like an idiot.

So, to stop feeling like an idiot, I made an idiot of myself. I tossed down the Apple Jacks, determined to keep pace with the guy who had suggested them. I was used to being able to keep up. I don’t know how many shots I drank, because I don’t remember anything until about 4 the next morning. That’s when I woke up, or came to. I was very confused. I wasn’t sure where I was or what had happened. I was on the couch, not in bed, and I was wearing my pajama top, but still had my jeans on.

The next morning, my friends told me what had happened. I drank so much so quickly that I passed out. After I lost consciousness, I started throwing up. Fortunately, my friends had been there to take care of me. I had thrown up on my shirt, so the girls had changed my shirt for me, and since I was passed out, they had decided to just let me sleep on the couch rather than try and get me to bed. The fact that I could easily have choked to death on my own vomit, as inevitably happens to some drunk college student every year, never really penetrated. I was, however, embarrassed that I hadn’t been able to hold my liquor, and I apologized to my friends and thanked them for taking care of me. Mostly I remember being relieved that I didn’t have the wicked hangover I deserved after that much alcohol; evidently throwing up had cleared enough of it from my system so that I felt fine.

The only thing I learned from the incident was to not try and keep up with Mr. Apple Jack. He could outdrink me. I felt bad about my friends having to take care of me, but I didn’t think it was any big deal. I didn’t think it was a sign that maybe there was something about my drinking that wasn’t okay. Didn’t all college students get drunk? Yes, technically, I could have died, but only if I’d been drinking alone, and if I’d been drinking alone, then I wouldn’t have been trying to keep up with anybody, and it wouldn’t have happened. And I didn’t die, didn’t even come close to dying. Don’t be so melodramatic. I was just having a good time. At least while I was conscious.