In the end, memories are all I have of the events and people I experience. It's the memories that matter most to me. They may be unpleasant, funny, or unsettling, but at least I have them and an internal record to refer to. That's why my problem with alcohol is so troubling.
I didn't notice it until two years ago. I was at a friend's party and we were all drinking. I guess that night I surpassed my previous limits because I awoke outside the house and didn't know how I got there. Even worse, I couldn't remember anything that happened about an hour before I fell asleep. My friends told stories of me acting silly and how we all laughed, but I couldn't remember. I brushed it off as an anomaly and went on with my life.
My memory lapse happened again a few months later under almost identical circumstances. Apparently I had gotten drunk with everyone and for perhaps an hour and a half before I fell asleep, I talked to two attractive women whom I had wanted to go out with. The three of us chatted about all sorts of things and they implied later the next day that some of them were somewhat personal. However, even though such an event would be important for me to remember, I couldn't recall any of it. That bothered me mainly because I wanted to know what I let slip out and if I had said anything embarrassing. In addition, the idea of going through a blackout annoyed me, as if I were above such weaknesses. But since I had essentially been under supervision, I didn't let it get to me.
These memory holes began appearing about twice a year and they all involved situations where I had been drinking enough to prevent my mind from storing memories, but not enough to set off alarms with my friends; I was always outwardly fine. Certainly drunk, but none of my friends considered me a risk to myself or others. There was even been a time I drove a friend and myself to Denny's after a night at the pub, drove back, and made it to my friend's apartment, spending the night there...the whole time driving fine and holding respectable and coherent conversations. The next day, I didn't remember a thing after arriving at the restaurant. My friend had to tell me what happened.
It was after that incident that I began to worry about the memory thing. If I couldn't remember an activity as complex and demanding as driving my car (and according to my friend, driving while an Austin police car was behind us), even though 80% of the time I'm drinking is at that friend's apartment or within four miles of it, I was concerned I might hurt something or someone and not be able to do anything about it. Or get in trouble and forget what happened. Or forget something somewhere and lose it forever. Just pick a potential horror story and play with the possibilities. None of these memory blackouts came with a hangover stronger than a mild headache and a dry mouth from snoring...to the best of my ability to remember, I did not damage property or cause pain to people. Go Ask Alice describes this more succinctly. I indeed suffer from some sort of alcohol-induced periods of amnesia. Still, it hasn't changed my behavior to any great extent. It's been this way for a while now. I was comfortable with it.
So last Saturday, some of my friends went to an early St. Patrick's Day party off 51st street between Airport Blvd and Lamar Blvd, to the east of Whitaker Fields. The plan was to visit and hang out for an hour or two and then head over to the Poodle Dog Lounge to check out a band performing that night. We got to the party when it started at 8pm. The friend I drove with believes we left between 11pm and midnight. I don't remember when we left.
I do remember trying the ice luge with Rumplemintz, Jägermeister, and Hpnotiq. I had two cups of beer mixed in between and I munched on some of the snacks. I had finished off three bottles of ZeigenBock before we left. I was not sober by any means, but I don't remember stumbling around, slurring my words, or throwing up and neither do my friends. I remember acting like a fool and directing traffic along 51st street; just waving cars along whether they were stopping by for the party or not. I remember not drinking any more after my second beer. I remember it lightly raining all day and part of the time we were there. I remember having fun and meeting a few new people. I remember a particularly attractive woman and how I wanted to draw her away from what I can only presume was the guy she came with.
And then I remember waking up at my friend's apartment.
My throat was a little sore, I was thirsty, and I had to piss. I sat up and looked at my watch, noting that it was early. Waking up at 9am after a party wasn't anything new to me, so I stood up and stretched and walked to the bathroom. When I got there, I became aware of a growing pain in my left knee. I looked down and my jeans were dirty and torn over the spot that hurt; it looked and felt like I had fallen on my kneecap. As I finished in the bathroom, I was seized by the realization that I didn't remember how it happened. I sat down on the couch and examined myself closer. The cut in the jeans was unusually "clean" and straight; it looked as though it had been done with scissors or a knife rather than a scrape with a rock or concrete. There was dried mud mostly below the cut, but it wasn't clumped in any quantity; rather, it looked as though it had came in contact with a slightly dirty wet street. My knee wasn't on fire at this point but the pain wasn't anything I could ignore. I pulled up my pant leg and gave it a look. It had scabbed over hours ago and the scab covered most of the skin directly south of the patella. There was light bruising around the sides and the whole joint was beginning to get stiff.
I couldn't remember what happened at all. Worried, I stood up and peeked in my friend's room and he was there, sleeping. The things we brought in when we got back were strewn haphazardly about the floor in the living room. I picked up my keys, put on my shoes gingerly, and walked outside. I semi-limped over to my car and gave it a once-over. I didn't remember parking it. I didn't remember driving it. And I did not remember what had happened to the right front wheel well and bumper.
I was missing my VW wheel cover and a piece of plastic bulkhead separating the wheel well from the engine compartment. The bumper had been knocked out of alignment and there was a puncture-crack from the inside. Looking closer at the area where the plastic was missing, I saw what appeared to be my intercooler (it's essentially the radiator-looking thing in this picture) and one of it's corners was aligned were the puncture came through the bumper. The street grime had been wiped away from the right corner of the front bumper and the lower piece of black trim under the bumper had been dislocated. The black steel rim had a rather nasty dent in it along the edge where it contacts the tire, which was dented and scraped as well. I had left my car stereo faceplate attached to the stereo and my cell phone had been left on the steering column in front of my gauges. I have those things in place when I drive and I religiously remove them when I arrive at my destination.
None of this I remember. There wasn't any blood or damage to the interior. No airbags had deployed. No vomit or broken glass on the floorboards. I was stunned and slowly limp-walked back to his apartment. I poured myself a small glass of water and nursed it for a few minutes, wondering what I had done.
He woke up shortly later and I immediately asked him what happened. Unfortunately, he wasn't in any condition to remember much because he had consumed too much hard alcohol too quickly and spent the last half of the evening sitting down, occasionally vomiting and sipping water. He couldn't recall what happened to my knee, but he did remember parts of the car accident. We talked about it for a while and decided to get something to eat and stop by the house the party was held at to see if the street we parked on had any clues.
After quietly eating at Schlotzsky's, he and I visited the crash site. The best we could figure out: when we left, I drove straight down that street we parked on, driving away from 51st. The street T-bones into another street and I didn't slow down and make the left turn properly, sliding into the curb and bouncing up onto someone's property. The right front tire left a trail leading up from the curb in an arc back down to the street through the grass. He and I were damn lucky. An inch to the right and I would have hit a tree. A foot to the right and we would have hit a telephone pole. Had I driven straight over the curb, and we would have plowed right through that person's fence and into their front lawn. Judging from the dent in the rim and the trail my front tire made in the wet grass, I was probably going about 10-15 miles per hour. I didn't see any slip or skid marks. We found and picked up the hubcap and the piece of plastic separating the wheel well from the engine compartment. Both were cracked.
My friend said after the accident I drove on and pulled up to the next stop sign and checked my car. I don't remember any of it. I know that normally, I would have gone back to pick up my wheel cover after losing it, but I guess that didn't occur to me. Maybe I didn't see the wheel damage. Perhaps I had wanted to just get the hell out of there. Upon driving around the area again, I noticed that another, much more obvious, route back to 51st street (an immediate left onto a connecting road rather than driving to the T-bone) would have been a better idea than going straight.
As for my knee, we still have no idea. Everyone I've talked to said I was acting and talking fine before we drove off and when I said my goodbyes. I wasn't hurt anywhere else; no scrapes on my palms or anything. My jeans had only one spot on them where there was blood and dirt, and that was over the knee that got hurt. The material was also cleanly cut right across the knee cap...no way the "fall" could have caused that cut. There was some dirt ground into the wound. No marks in the car leading me to think it happened during the accident. Fucking thing still hurts and I don't have any bandages big enough to cover the wound in one piece. I contacted the other friends we drove with (they took their own car) and they don't remember what happened to us either, though they did say I wasn't acting any differently that I had in the past when drinking.
This is damn scary, dear readers. At least two significant events happened to me that night and even after attempting to jog my brain by revisiting the scene of the accident and the house that hosted the party, I cannot remember anything. Even worse, now that I've been able to visualize what might have happened, I can picture the car wreck occurring. I can't tell if what I might be able to remember is any different from the mental projection of what probably happened. I can't be sure anything I recall now (if I'm able in the future) can be reliably compared to what happened. A few hours of my life were "disappeared." My friend and I could have gotten badly injured, I could have flat-out wrecked my car; any number of ugly things might have taken place.
I used to have a principle to which I held firm from high school until I moved back to Austin in 2001. I promised myself that I would not drink AT ALL if I were driving. I would abstain entirely from drinking and any other drugs if I was the designated driver...and I was the DD quite often. I still am to this day as I took it upon myself to be in charge of transportation. I'd rather be in control of my life than leave it to someone else whom I couldn't be certain of. I've long since violated that principle regularly over the last few years because I knew I was able to handle, two, three, up to five full pints at the pub and still be completely fine to drive myself and my friends home.
I recognized that it was too strict to deny myself alcohol on every occasion because I had demonstrated many times over that my capacity to drink responsibly was large enough to fit short range, city speed driving into my plate if I wanted to. And after months and months of being the sober guy, I wanted to participate as well.
I'm not screwing about anymore with drinking and drinking. Not after this. I've spent a good deal of time reflecting how lucky I was things turned out the way they did. The party was hardly a ten minute drive from my friend's apartment, but a cab should have been called to take us home. Taxi fare split between us would have been so much better than the body shop estimate I fear I'll face. We should have slept over and handed my keys to the host and hostess. I can't trust myself beyond one or two drinks anymore, if even that. If my friends can't distinguish between my normal demeanor and my blackout demeanor - and I certainly cannot - then I need to dramatically lower the bar and raise my standards.
I have been deeply irresponsible and getting the fruits of my irresponsibility repaired is something I deserve.
