Memoir 1

I've always been a quiet, shy, and introspective person. I've never had many friends. And those friends I do have, I hold dearly. That being said, I've always hated being alone for extended periods of time. Though quiet, I crave to be around others. Even being a silent observer is better than being alone.
Perhaps that is why my Junior year Spring Break was so hard. My plans had fallen through, so I would be spending a week plus alone at Sojourners'. Being only 20, I had my roommates buy my three handles of liquor - Vodka, Gin, and Tequila - before they left. The 3 Wise Men, I called them, in mockery of the faith I had once held so dearly.
Knowing that none of my friends would be in town for the week, I made ambitious plans to work on several big end of term projects and papers. I was convinced that I would find the will to go to Calvin each day and hunker down in the library for research and writing. If I did so, I wouldn't have to worry for the rest of the semester - it would be a cake-walk.
Alas, the 3 Wise Men stared me in the face, I could not tear myself away from their gaze. In those days, it took much less in order to get me tipsy or drunk. Nowadays, where it takes 9 to 10 drinks (roughly half a fifth or more), a scarce 3 or four shots would suffice. So, I drank.

At first it was just in the evenings, but soon I was drinking as soon as I woke up. I would then pass out in the early afternoon, only to awaken at night and would resume my drinking in short order. This went on for the better part of 9 days. Awake, eat, drink, pass out, arise, drink eat. pass out, repeat.
Five days in, things were not going so well. I had not been outside for longer than my shortened memory could recall. The only sunlight I saw was through the half pulled blinds. And I was growing increasingly paranoid. Paranoid to the point that I had tracked down my housemates' various knives and weapons and placed them strategically throughout my bedroom...just in case.

Towards the end of the week, I tried to break free of my self-imposed shackles, and I went out to get some fresh food. During my brief time outside, I ran across my friends who lived across the street. I suggested we use their grill for an outdoor Barbecue. I said that I would provide the burgers, this being at the point in my life when I had just developed some culinary talents and was convinced that my burgers were superior to anyone else's.

The cookout happened later on in the day, and I was in bad shape. Six or seven days of straight drinking had been hard on my system. Though it was an unusually warm Spring, I was shaking. Jaundiced and pale, I stood over the grill. I stood my ground firmly for an hour while the five or six of us at the cookout ate burgers and drank soda for an hour before the sick feeling welling up inside of me was too strong to ignore.
I excused myself as politely as I could before running back to my house. I threw up everything I had eaten in the past day. The burgers were still recognizable, though, thankfully, everything else was muddled and obscured. When I was done, I collapsed onto the bathroom floor and shook violently, partly from the strain of the vomiting, partly from the lack of sleep/exhaustion, but mostly from the fact that it had been nearly 24 hours since I had drank anything.

I collapsed into my bed and spent the next 48 hours there, only venturing forth for water and bread. I played movies on my laptop, but even the effort of watching them was too exhausting - I had to lie facing away from them with my eyes closed and simply listen to the sound. I was broken. My week long bender was at an end.

When my roommates and friends came back and asked me how my Spring Break had been, I lied. There was nothing else I could do. I invented stories of productive days spent working on papers/projects and reading books. Days spent under the warming Spring sun. Biking under blossoming trees.

Not wasting away, wasted in my basement.