October 10, 2014
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6. YOUR THUMB HURTS
You don”t have to wake up covered in blood to be an alcoholic. Simply having a perpetually sore part of your body is a bad sign. Drunks sleep like they”ve been shot with a tranquilizer dart. They will fall asleep using a football as a pillow and if their thumb is crunched sideways under their belly, they won”t know until morning. This means drunks are never without some aching joint or kink in their neck. Having a swastika Sharpied on your face next to a drawing of a penis ejaculating may be amusing at parties but eventually you want to get to a point where it’s possible to wake up.
7. YOU GET THE HORRORS
In Ireland, it sounds like they”re saying the “whores” but these nightly visitors aren”t here to make you feel good. At around 2 AM you will wake up in hell. If you aren”t haunted by real worries like your business or your marriage or getting sued, made-up problems will appear, like incredibly vivid car accidents involving your children.
There are two theories regarding this trip down Jacob’s Ladder. Some believe it’s your liver running out of water and trying to jolt you awake to get more. Others believe it’s the sugar in the booze waking you up after the sedative of alcohol has worn off and leaving you alone with your new hangover. Whatever it is, it’s fucking scary but if you”re a real drunk, you”ll walk through the valley of death shrugging your shoulders and eating a turkey sandwich because you know it will all be over in an hour.
8. HANGOVERS MAKE YOU CRY
A hangover usually begins to end 12 hours after your drunkest state. It should include a headache that coffee and an aspirin pretty much take care of. When you catch yourself burping, you know things have begun to get better.
A true alcoholic’s hangover doesn”t begin until after lunch and gets so intense by dinner, he will catch himself on the verge of tears. If you get to this weakened state of giving up, I highly recommend not trying to elicit sympathy from your wife. They get really mad.
9. YOUR BATHROOM BREAKS HAVE THE COLORS REVERSED
I put this last because I know most of the older gents on this site tend to peace out when things get scatological. Traditionally, yellow comes out of the front and brown out the back. Alcohol starves your body of water because your liver needs gallons to clean your shitty blood. This means your brain is about as hydrated as a tampon fresh out of the box and it hurts. It also means you don”t urinate enough after you stop drinking, and your poor bladder is so dense with toxins that your normally yellow urine takes on a shade of brown.
Hangovers include what appears to be dysentery because food is passing through your body too fast to be turned brown by bile salts. Now your feces look like you”ve been eating nothing but melted, yellow crayons.
If your used underwear looks like you had it on backwards, it’s time to set your life straight.
10. YOU LOSE IT WHEN PEOPLE SUGGEST YOU MIGHT BE ONE
If someone called you a crocodile or a canary, your response would probably be, “Pardon?” If they said you were addicted to plant shopping or animal porn you”d either laugh or just walk away. That’s what people do when someone says they”re a thing that they”re not. If however, being accused of alcoholism sends you into a wild rage that includes ad hominem attacks on the accuser and some weird reference to cultural relativity that revolves around some secretary in Moscow walking around with a pint glass full of vodka, well, you have a problem. Doth protesting too much usually means though doth drinketh too much.
