R-KV-R-Y Quarterly
How to Become a Drunk
by Amina Hafiz
Start drinking sometime between the ages of eleven and thirteen. A few
months after you start smoking is fine.
For your first time, spend the night at a friend's house and sneak out
after her parents fall asleep. Walk out of sight and sit on the curb and
gulp gin out of coffee cups. Make a face each time you put the cup down.
Do not throw up. You are drinking to get drunk and you need to keep it
all in. It will be another ten years before you learn the art of timed
vomiting. Drink and smoke and feel you are so cool. Drink to get drunk
every single time. Think it's cute when you're drunk. Wake up and think,
"I want to do that again!"
Decide you just like drinking. Continue drinking even when you know that
you're already drunk. A good rule of thumb: If you can feel your teeth,
you're not drunk. Practice until you can out-drink big drinkers. Learn how
to get drunk more than once in a twenty-four-hour period.
Blackout often.
Think it's funny that you are frequently covered in bruises and scrapes
that you have no recollection of getting. Think it's hilarious when you get
cut off or thrown out.
Figure out a way to add alcohol to every event -- discover it's fun to get
drunk at the movies and at an 8-year-old's birthday party! Sleep on the
bathmat at least three nights a week. Call friends to make sure you
weren't an asshole. When you start developing a high tolerance, switch
your drink.
Accidentally get drunk, especially when you've promised yourself you
won't. Like at family events. Or when you go out with your coworkers
and return with the nickname "this many," they'll have to tell you why.
Avoid certain establishments due to faint recollections of embarrassing
events.
Lie about the frequency and volume of your drinking. Drink alcohol that
you don't like. Wonder why you can't remember who you've hooked up
with.
Go through a lot of friends.
Show up to work hung over and think nobody notices. Spend at least
half of your weekends feeling like crap. Be ashamed of how you behave
even if you're not entirely sure why.
When other people worry, lie. Justify your behavior due to circumstance.
If you can't convince them it was a one-off, decide not to drink hard in
front of them. Have a Valium or Xanax with your drinks when they're not
paying attention.
Drink alone.
For New Year's, resolve not to drink and drive anymore. By the month's
end, modify that to "don't drive drunk when you are also throwing up
out the window."
Fail to understand why you don't like yourself.
Go to a therapist. Lie. If they want to discuss your drinking, break up
with them. Clearly they don't understand you. Decide that bad things
happen when you are drunk because you are unlucky. Like that time in
high school when you were raped.
You won't allow yourself to call in sick when you are hung over, so you
go to work reeking of alcohol or sometimes still a little drunk from the
night before. If it's real bad, go home at lunch and nap.
To become a drunk quicker, find other drugs to do while drinking. Like
coke. Discover that, on coke, you can drink as much as you want and
still not pass out! In fact, you will not able to sleep even if you want to.
Make sure you have hard and fast rules about drugs, like never search it
out or never pay for it. When those are discarded, start free basing and
drinking with a working actor about ten-years older than you.
Dream about getting drunk and the smell of the day's first line. You
should be drinking, planning to drink, or hung over at all times.
To be a good drunk, drinking must consume your life.
Amina Hafiz is a graduate student in
the Creative Writing MFA program at
American University, where she is the
fiction editor of Folio: A Literary Journal.
She holds a Bachelor of Arts in English
from Loyola Marymount University. Her
work has appeared in The Washington Post,
the feminist news journal off our backs,
American University newspaper The Eagle,
and the entertainment monthly On Tap.
by Amina Hafiz
Start drinking sometime between the ages of eleven and thirteen. A few
months after you start smoking is fine.
For your first time, spend the night at a friend's house and sneak out
after her parents fall asleep. Walk out of sight and sit on the curb and
gulp gin out of coffee cups. Make a face each time you put the cup down.
Do not throw up. You are drinking to get drunk and you need to keep it
all in. It will be another ten years before you learn the art of timed
vomiting. Drink and smoke and feel you are so cool. Drink to get drunk
every single time. Think it's cute when you're drunk. Wake up and think,
"I want to do that again!"
Decide you just like drinking. Continue drinking even when you know that
you're already drunk. A good rule of thumb: If you can feel your teeth,
you're not drunk. Practice until you can out-drink big drinkers. Learn how
to get drunk more than once in a twenty-four-hour period.
Blackout often.
Think it's funny that you are frequently covered in bruises and scrapes
that you have no recollection of getting. Think it's hilarious when you get
cut off or thrown out.
Figure out a way to add alcohol to every event -- discover it's fun to get
drunk at the movies and at an 8-year-old's birthday party! Sleep on the
bathmat at least three nights a week. Call friends to make sure you
weren't an asshole. When you start developing a high tolerance, switch
your drink.
Accidentally get drunk, especially when you've promised yourself you
won't. Like at family events. Or when you go out with your coworkers
and return with the nickname "this many," they'll have to tell you why.
Avoid certain establishments due to faint recollections of embarrassing
events.
Lie about the frequency and volume of your drinking. Drink alcohol that
you don't like. Wonder why you can't remember who you've hooked up
with.
Go through a lot of friends.
Show up to work hung over and think nobody notices. Spend at least
half of your weekends feeling like crap. Be ashamed of how you behave
even if you're not entirely sure why.
When other people worry, lie. Justify your behavior due to circumstance.
If you can't convince them it was a one-off, decide not to drink hard in
front of them. Have a Valium or Xanax with your drinks when they're not
paying attention.
Drink alone.
For New Year's, resolve not to drink and drive anymore. By the month's
end, modify that to "don't drive drunk when you are also throwing up
out the window."
Fail to understand why you don't like yourself.
Go to a therapist. Lie. If they want to discuss your drinking, break up
with them. Clearly they don't understand you. Decide that bad things
happen when you are drunk because you are unlucky. Like that time in
high school when you were raped.
You won't allow yourself to call in sick when you are hung over, so you
go to work reeking of alcohol or sometimes still a little drunk from the
night before. If it's real bad, go home at lunch and nap.
To become a drunk quicker, find other drugs to do while drinking. Like
coke. Discover that, on coke, you can drink as much as you want and
still not pass out! In fact, you will not able to sleep even if you want to.
Make sure you have hard and fast rules about drugs, like never search it
out or never pay for it. When those are discarded, start free basing and
drinking with a working actor about ten-years older than you.
Dream about getting drunk and the smell of the day's first line. You
should be drinking, planning to drink, or hung over at all times.
To be a good drunk, drinking must consume your life.
Amina Hafiz is a graduate student in
the Creative Writing MFA program at
American University, where she is the
fiction editor of Folio: A Literary Journal.
She holds a Bachelor of Arts in English
from Loyola Marymount University. Her
work has appeared in The Washington Post,
the feminist news journal off our backs,
American University newspaper The Eagle,
and the entertainment monthly On Tap.
