1. Rookie: 0-2 drinks in.
Whether it’s a bar, frat party, or just the house of a random guy you’re trying to bone, this is the time in the night that you have the most ambition. You head out with the mindset that you are going to have the most bad-ass night of the month. You’re basically still sober and you’re in a hurry to catch up to everyone else, or at least become the first person to see triple. There’s a slight buzz going on and you are loosening up. Unfortunately, you’re still able to tame yourself and have a lot of self-control. When people offer you shots, you throw them down your esophagus before the liquid has time to settle on your tongue. This is the time where you are playing beer pong and flip cup to speed up your buzz. The number one thing you are worried about is that you won’t get drunk enough later on and you’re just wasting all of the calories you are currently consuming.
2. Tipsy: 3-4 drinks in.
When you’re tipsy, your mouth is watering for more alcohol. You already started the drinking process, so why quit now? So naturally your jaw drops and your head tilts back as you let someone else flood your taste buds with vodka. Once you grab the mic to sing some obnoxious Taylor Swift song, you know you’re probably tipsy. Your voice becomes two octaves higher than normal and yet you insist you’re speaking in your “inside voice.” You are being consumed by your desire to locate the sexiest guy in the same vicinity as you, so you flip on your Hot Guy Radar. The eligible bachelors begin to multiply as your vision gets cloudier. You are convinced that you can send flirty telepathic signals to boys across the bar to tell them to come hit on you. Later on in the night you are bound to look like you made it out of an apocalypse. However, when you’re only in the tipsy stage you usually still look like a decent human being, so this is the time in the night that you and a hurdle of girls are taking the most pictures. About 30 tries later you’ll finally give up on your photo shoot and accept that you probably won’t have anything to Instagram the following day. You’ll give strings of compliments to the girl you usually want to slap the shit out of because you just really love her $10 shoes. And then you’ll continue to ask this chick to assist you to the bathroom because you might not come back if she doesn’t.
3. Inebriated: 5-7 drinks in.
There’s a distinct feeling that alerts you when you’re no longer tipsy and you’re officially declared drunk. Earth’s entire surface has suddenly become a balance board and you’re in the Olympics. You throw a welcome back party for your hammered alter ego, Roxy, as she begins to dance like a circus monkey on top of a pool table. Roxy (not you) is the one who tells strangers the boy problems you’ve been carrying around in your purse all night. They don’t seem to be interested, but you don’t care because in your mind they can’t judge you since they don’t actually know you. And it just feels soooo good to talk to someone about the Snapchat story your ex posted of the new golden retriever he got. You’ve convinced yourself that you “see the light” radiating because the gorgeous gentleman buying you cheap drinks is wearing light-up Sketchers. The two of you begin making out because by now you’ve lost the rest of your friends and need to stick with someone, and attacking his mouth with your tongue is a sure way to keep him around. Once your friends do find you, they try to detach you from the cheapskate who reeks of whiskey that you’ve been slobbering on for the past 15 minutes. This leads to nothing but you throwing a hissy fit and trying to bargain with your friends to let you stay with this super safe and extremely trustworthy stranger. People say you’re drinking too much and you respond, “Oh, Ally couldn’t make it, so I’m drinking for two.” Basic logic, duh.
4. Trashed: 8-10 drinks in.
Your Snapchat story is about two minutes long and consists of duck face selfies with random acquaintances that you hardly speak to, you and one other person singing, and all of the shots you’re taking. People might get one or two nip slips as you swing around stripper poles. Somehow you are slowly, but surely, losing items of clothing. Your top is stained in alcohol and it’s likely you will have to throw it away in the morning. Tequila shots are beginning to taste heavenly. And because of how often you need to pee, you’ve decided you’re pregnant. No other explanation. But the two people in line for a bathroom stall will obviously take an hour, so you’ve been peeing behind dumpsters in alleyways. Even if you are with your crew, and regardless of what they say, you insist you are completely lost. This means you have to use your own GPS (because you’re the only one who is responsible enough to notice you’re in the middle of nowhere) just to get to a bar across the street. At some point you ugly cried for no apparent reason so you’re now rocking Taylor Momsen makeup. You’re heartbroken because your “man couldn’t come thanks to a stupid cockblock” (his girlfriend). But you’re horny AF, so you whip out your phone and start scrolling through your contacts in search of the right penis. And then you start sending chains of texts to each suitable slam in hopes to get stuffed once you’re finished drinking.
5. Blackout: 10-12 or more drinks in.
Sephora can’t even help you now. You look like a complete swamp witch. It should be illegal to take any more pictures. In your mind you say, “I fucking love you” to whichever friend is currently holding back your hair as you puke your guts out, but it sounds more like, “IFUGGGGINLOOOOOVVVVVEYOUUU!” Unsystematically, you spiral into a nervous breakdown because you miss your obese cat named King Albert. You have probably been caught asleep somewhere in public by this time, usually in a random place like a booth or under a beer pong table. Either your friends or the police will have to carry you out of Taco Bell. Somehow you come up with the bright idea to purchase two vibrators, three cases of hot sauce, and a phone case with Donald Trump’s face, so you swipe your card without worrying about any judgment coming from store clerks. It’s highly likely you will be in your birthday suit, or close enough to it, by the time you get home or arrive at your hookup’s house. If you do go home with someone that you plan on banging, it’s your mission to invent new sex positions as if you’re playing the part of a drunken sexual penetration director. Unfortunately for your temporary loveboy, you basically bite off his dick. When you wake up, you have wieners drawn all over you. You try to blame it all on roofies, even though you know good and well you were never roofied.
6. WTF: literally all the alcohol.
It’s beyond impressive if you can manage to get to this stage. Very few people can make it past blackout. This is when absolutely nobody has the slightest clue where you are. You lost your phone and wallet, which means no one can track you down. As far as your friends know, you could very well wake up in a jail cell in another town. Anything is possible because your brain left your common sense somewhere a few hours ago with your other lost belongings. It’s likely that you’ll wake up on a towel in a random kitchen with a few broken bones. If you’re lucky, you’ll get ahold of the sex tape that you starred in. It’s your claim to fame, like Kim Kardashian, so you should be happy about this news. And it shouldn’t be a shock the next morning if you find pictures on your phone (if you still have it somehow) of yourself partaking in a cult’s ritual of slaughtering a pig. Bizarre things happen when you reach this level. You might even make it in The New York Times for crying out loud. It’s a complete shit storm..