While in college you’re going to face a good amount of problems you’re not used to, and one of the most common (and annoying) is taking care of your friend who gets too drunk.
It happens at least once a week (or night, depending on how “cool” you are): you’ll be out and realize that your role for the night has turned into that of the babysitter. It helps to know the warning signs when you suspect your friend is getting to that point, just in case you get the chance to prevent the inevitable.
The easiest opportunity to determine how drunk your friend has become is by observing how much space he takes up while dancing. Anytime you go out to a club you’ll notice at least one guy who is “really feeling the music” and has started his own one-man-show on the dance floor.
It’s not even really dancing as much as it is a drunken march or a fight with an invisible person. Given that some people are just really obnoxious dancers, a sure sign to tell that someone is overly drunk is when you notice they don’t even have their eyes open anymore. Then it’s time to intervene.
Start asking your friend questions, like “Hey, how’re you feeling?” If he responds with something normal like, “fine,” “good” or “great,” he’s probably got things under control. But when the answer becomes “So good! So, so good right now,” “The best! You don’t even know,” or “Oh my god, bro. I love you,” you need to try and slow down his pace or stop him from drinking anymore altogether. Be careful how you go about this though; nothing offends a drunk person more than telling him he’s drunk. Even if you say something as simple as,
“Hey, maybe you should slow it down; you seem pretty drunk,” don’t be surprised if your friend decides to make an announcement to the room like,
“Hey everybody! Sorry for my behavior. According to this guy (points finger in your face), I’m too drunk right now and I need to stop! I thought everything was fine and we were all having fun, but I guess not! Everybody say ‘sorry’ to this guy!”
Next he’ll try to prove to you that he’s still sober by doing something that should prove it, but that in reality only furthers the point that he is in fact wasted out of his mind. It’ll be something like,
“Oh yeah? Well, if I was drunk, would I be able to do a back-flip off of this dumpster?” And even in the rare amazing chance that he executes the stunt, never in the history of time has anyone said the next day,
“Yeah, I thought Danny was drunk, but then when he did the back-flip off the dumpster in the alley behind the bar, I knew he was fine.”
Sometimes he’ll try to prove it with something even more counterproductive, like
“If I was drunk, would I be able to drink these four shots?” That’s a bad question, because if he were drunk, physically his body shouldn’t be able to take down another four shots, but you can’t ask him to prove it, no matter how good of a Youtube video that would make.
Once your friend realizes he’s lost the argument and admit that he “might be a little drunk,” his final attempt to get you off his back will be to say something completely irrelevant as a last excuse. He’ll get serious all of a sudden and say, “Hey come on; my dog just died like three months ago and you’re really going to come to me right now telling me I’m too drunk? Come on, man; just let me have fun.” As long as you don’t fall for it, he’ll have to give up.
As you’re walking your friend back to his room, remember: a drunk person is like a child: he’s going to try to touch everything and will say whatever he wants to anyone in earshot.
Make sure to be one step ahead of him around fire alarms, fire extinguishers, anything made of glass and anything with bright colors, because those are the things your friend will inevitably find the most interesting and try to grab.
Also, make sure to avoid any contact with girls as you’re walking back, because in your friend’s mind, he’s “the man” right now and whatever he says to this girl will be golden. He won’t hesitate to yell something classy like,
“I want to nail you right now!” Not only will it be offensive, but borderline sexual harassment in most cases.
Once you get back to your room, just put your friend to bed. So he doesn’t try to escape just say,
“Hey, we’re going to take a break for a bit, but we’ll go back out. Don’t worry!” Before he realizes you’re not going back out, he’ll probably pass out.
Finally, before leaving him for the night, just make sure to hide his phone, because if he wakes up in the middle of the night, he’ll most likely drunk text every ex-girlfriend from the past four years telling her to “comm ovarr grl,” which he’ll definitely regret the next day.
When he wakes up the next morning and asks what happened, just tell him
“You had a great time and everything went well.”
It’s never worth it to try to explain the trouble he put you through the night before, because he either won’t believe it or appreciate it. It’s better to let him think everything went well.
John Jacobs can be reached at jjacobs@spartans.ut.edu.