Three drink limit?

How many times will we have to arrive at the same conclusion: three drinks is the limit. No more. Once you go past three drinks during an average length of stay at a party or a bar, you are entering the Zone of No Accountability. Only it's a very temporary Zone. Holiday times: people will die because they enter that Zone.

Drink #3 is the one that launches you into, “We are really having fun now,” and parts of your brain start shutting down. Parts that would normally be computing answers to “How am I gonna feel when I wake up?” or “How am I getting home?” or “Where is my credit card?” or “Am I okay to drive?” or “Am I being an asshole?”

Drinks #4 #5 and #6 –even if you’re drinking water in between – almost guarantee you are going to be an asshole to someone. Really, you are being an asshole to yourself. You may not even realize it until the next day or ever. You just feel like shit when you wake up and have a bad feeling not only in your head and stomach but the vague and unsettling feeling that you may have offended someone or done something else you regret.

You know what I’m talking about.

Last night The National at Bill Graham Auditorium: so fantastic. I’m a huge fan and it was the first time seeing them. They played most of the songs from High Violet which was my intro to them in 2010 and which dominated my playlist for several months. I like moody and layered and poetic and complicated.

Adam Kennedy in NME: “…their lyrics once enveloped twisted relationships and, prior to quitting their day jobs, office-toil hell, now moments like ‘Afraid Of Everyone’ allude to parenthood’s perils. No cheery paean to reproduction, Berninger hoists his “kid on my shoulders” before the stark, spine-chilling realisation that “I don’t have the drugs to sort it out”, ending utterly broken and vulnerable. Just when you fear the mood is unrelentingly bleak, however, single ‘Bloodbuzz Ohio’ arrives, overflowing with bombastic charisma and a longing for the open road.”

In between the sets I checked my phone and discovered that my 23-year-old son was in a car accident. The friend driving the car was “slightly buzzed” and went into a curve too fast and slammed into a tree. Miraculously neither was badly hurt, in spite of no seatbelts. The airbags may have resulted in some broken ribs and a bloody nose, but saved their lives. It sobered me right up. After The National my friend and I went to Zuni for a tea and juice. 

I was ready to crash out, but Joe, Jim and Anne picked me up to go to the Boom Boom Room to see the Funk Revival Orchestra. I didn’t need another drink, but had one.  Why? It was my third over the course of five hours if beers only count for half.

Joe was on fire on the dance floor and I rose to the occasion. We love to dance and can get pretty crazy together. Jim and Anne were right there with us. At our age we don't give a fuck about making a spectacle. Or was it that last Black Russian?

Nothing very bad happened to us last night. No car crashes or behavior so regrettable that apologies are necessary today. We lost a credit card and Joe’s hung over. Maybe someone was “accidentally groped on the dance floor,” but other than that, no one was really hurt.

But next week Ye Olde Holiday Party season is starting.  Four weeks chock full of opportunities to be assholes. Or to lose more than a credit card.

Any tips worth sharing about how to stay out of the Zone and get home safely?