It's All Over-Rated Except Drugs and Alcohol - Part 6

I'd like to make this day sound special, but it isn't, so I won't try anything. No fancy introduction today since I'm actually going to hang out with some friends, and I'd like to get to them ASAP. I'll stay true to my word and continue with the series today though, so here's the post:

7. Planes, Trains, and Hallucinations

During one fun summer, a few (5 or 6, this is an old story, so I can't recall exactly) friends decided to getaway and hopped on a plane to get to a nice, little resort town somewhere in America. Here, they shared a hotel room and a lot of laughs. Everyone was nice and gentle, except for one of the travelers. She was close to an alcoholic. During a dinner one night, as the story goes, the friends found themselves a bottle of wine. With parents in a completely different country, the kids saw it as the perfect opportunity to sample this magical drink that they had never had the chance to sample before. They left the drink at the hotel, and all vowed to each other to not open it until dinner time. Not knowing what to eat, or how to cook, they walked down the city streets in search of food. Somewhere amidst the bright lights, they found a pizza shop and ordered two pizzas. They got back to the crammed little space and opened their bottle.

One girl advocated for drinking abstinence, and refused to try the forbidden fruit, blindly trusting her parent-ally-imposed initial denial of alcohol. The rest of the group decided that they would only drink if everyone else drank too, so the bottle got re-capped, or, re-corked, I should say, without a missing drop.

After dinner, the lot decided to take a walk around the city. After all, they wanted to see this new American city and all it had to offer. But the alcoholic friend just couldn't bear the sight of wasted wine. She insisted that the wine be brought along. One of the friends concurred, and the rest seemed impartial. So, into a backpack it went, and off the gang went. They walked around until they arrived at some pond, or lake, or river (I can't remember exactly what body of water it was). They decided to settle here. How romantic would it be to look on the body of water while the sun set, and watch the city go from dusk, to twilight, to dark? They sat down and the girl pulled out the bottle of wine and two previously-purchased chocolate bars. They opened the chocolate first and separated it equally.

The alcoholic wrestled with her desire to open the wine. She thought about leaving it in her bag and not succumbing to the temptation in front of her, but, with one small command from the other friend, the alcoholic had it out. Around the same time, three of the members decided to go for a midnight swim in the secluded body of water. Everyone was quite familiar with everyone so that fact that nobody had a swimsuit on hand was fine. The three went for a swim, and despite it being summer, the body of water was already cooling down. When they got out, it was a little chilly. However, by now, the two alcoholics were already a little warmer, so they offered up what extra garments they had on hand to the swimmers to keep them warm.

No one was in the mood to leave yet, so they all hung around the lake a little longer. The two drinkers offered wine to everyone, but the rest of the group felt too much of a loyalty to the abstinent-drinker to drink. Nonetheless, they didn't judge the two drinkers for choosing to drink themselves. One of the group members actually took a few swigs, but then got hit with guilt and decided to remain loyal to the abstinent-drinker.

As they sat there, a lot was apparently revealed about everyone. They consoled each other's grievances, and they cried. The abstinent-drinker complained and the alcoholic consoled.

Note that, of the two drinkers, one was normal and the other was border-line alcoholic. As the two of them passed the bottle between themselves, they were supposed to take a sip each. Naturally, it didn't work that way because of the circumstances. The normal girl would take a sip and pass it to the alcoholic, who would take a good 4 sips. So, the split wasn't equal, to say the least. Mind you, the alcoholic was also quite a bit shorter than her normal counterpart, so that probably affected the outcomes. Everything seemed fine while the group was sitting at the lake, but then it came time to go back to the hotel. A few of the people actually thought they would and planned on sleeping at the lake, but the abstinent-drinker declared a fear of being attacked by wildlife, and requested to go back. The two drinkers were in quite a happy state and so they agreed.

That's when things got more ugly. The two drinkers stood up, and the alcoholic almost fell back down. The normal drinker, being in still a normal state, realized what was happening and helped the alcoholic to her feet. That was the easy part, for now they had to all walk through the city back to the hotel. The stubborn and proud alcoholic insisted that she was fine to walk alone and that she didn't need the help of her less-inebriated friend. Her friend let her go, and as soon as she did, the alcoholic began stumbling on a tangent off to the side of the road.

The problem was that, to get back to the hotel, one had to follow a road which was right beside the body of water. If you veered too far on a tangent, you would fall right into the water, if you veered too far the other direction, you would end up on the road and get hit by a car. The better friend recognized this and immediately grabbed the drunk. The drunk kept insisting she could walk, and kept telling her friend to let go of her. At this point, the friend kept nodding along, but was certain that the alcoholic would not be able to walk unaided, and refused to take the risk of allowing the alcoholic to fall into the water. They made it back to the hotel, which is where the alcoholic's euphoric mood plummeted into one of depression.

The friends first line of action was to lay the alcoholic down on the bed, which was supposed to be shared by 3 people. They brought her to the bed, and like the girl from story #6, the girl flopped herself onto the bed in a starfish position (limbs extended to all sides). Here, she began a drunken rambling about the state of things at home and began crying intensely. All the friends gathered around and consoled their alcoholic friend, who was usually the one consoling them. They waited for her to go to sleep.

One of the guys took it upon himself to hide all the knives in the house, due to fears that the alcoholic may decide to kill herself sometime in the night. Once the alcoholic declared her desire to go to pee, the same boy felt inclined to follow her to the bathroom to make sure that she wouldn't try to kill herself there. She didn't and instead went back to the bed to pass out. Once she did, the two people who were supposed to share the bed, went to sleep on the floor. The alcoholic was left with a glass of water and a lot of hugs.

In the morning, everything was normal. The alcoholic woke up before everybody else, and went to buy everyone breakfast to make up for the debacle the night prior. She served it, when they all woke up, and no one mentioned the night prior. No one wanted to make the alcoholic feel bad. The exception was the other drinker who explained the whole fiasco to the alcoholic. Later that day, the alcoholic went to throw up a few times. The whole group arrived at a restaurant for lunch, where the waiter, not noticing their being underage, offered to start the whole group with drinks. With this, a burst of laughter and a quick "no". They ate, and that was the last of the mentions of the night prior.