In most friend groups, each girl finds her niche. There’s the one always fighting for a good Insta, the one always fighting with her boyfriend, the one who is your mom away from home, and the one who knows how to have a good time. I happen to be the one that always has Michelob rolling around in her bare fridge, and the one who you text when you need to be drunk at 5 p.m. on a Monday: the designated drunk. I believe in getting slightly tipsy like my dad believed in monogamy and my gyno believes I’m a virgin — I don’t. I will either stay home watching Sex and The City, or I’ll go out and start with a round of shots and a pitcher.
You know the girl. You’ve seen her drunk more times than you’ve seen her sober, and when you do see her sober, she’s wearing a baseball hat and sunglasses, chugging water. The girl who eagerly takes shots with anyone who’s willing and gives your otherwise boring selfie-streamed Snapchat story some spice.
But that’s only one dimension of the designated drunk. With the fun, sometimes comes one or two or seven negative consequences. Occasionally my drunk habits turn me into an obnoxious, self-destructing, dangerous beast. While I’m a constant at pregames, I’m often MIA at the post-night out Waffle House binge. Even if my body may be there, my blacked out and lifeless eyes reveal my soul was lost three drinks ago.
I consider myself a resilient person. I can deal with fuckboys and upper-level statistics courses. I can handle running eight miles without slowing down, and tough through some deeply-rooted daddy issues. But my BAC is something that I can’t always control, and for that, I apologize. I don’t know if it’s a shitty luck of the draw. Maybe its the way my body is built, or a bad genetics wiring. Most likely, I just don’t know when to stop, which is why I sometimes can’t handle my alcohol.
So this is a thank you to the friends who don’t blink, bitch, or blackmail me on the nights that I’m out of control. Thank you for all the Taco Bell trips, tissues, and the talks that had you constantly repeating “No, you really are pretty.” Thank you for being there when I was standing on the table at the pregame, and thank you for being there when I was on my knees, clutching the toilet five hours later.
At times, the alcohol can strip that part of you that knows which way is right and left, along with right and wrong. So when the new friend you met in the bathroom abandons you, it’s your best friends who peel you away from the bar and towards the cab. These are the girls who consistently steer you away from crossing the line, or doing one in the bathroom stall. They suppress their sighs until the next morning and navigate you towards the door protectively. When strangers see you stumble in the bathroom and cringe in secondhand embarrassment, these girls are the ones who march you past them and sacrifice their night to make sure you’re okay. When you’re hiccuping and mumbling about that stupid fuckboy, these are the girls who tug your phone out of your hand and replace it with a Cheesy Gordita Crunch.
No one likes the bad drunk, which is why we should all watch how much we drink and try to avoid losing control as often as possible. But it’s nice to know that there are girls who will be there to help control the situation, and barely mention it at brunch the next morning.
Despite my occasional lack of judgment in alcohol intake, I thank God that I had pretty damn good judgment when it came to picking friends..
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