DR. TWILITE'S RAGING 101: THE DRINKER'S GUIDE TO PACING If you're like me, you know that a night out on the town drinking is fraught with peril. On the one hand, if your buzz is too low, or you're too sober, you can sometimes find yourself withdrawn, out of the conversational loop, looking at your watch and wondering why everyone else is laughing. On the other hand, if you buzz is too strong, you find the conversations around you whizzing by, and pretty soon you are either being helped into a cab, or spending the next hour dazedly looking for your coat or the bathroom. Yes, its a fine line between sobriety and drunkeness, and we here at the Procrastinator are familiar with both sides of the pit that awaits the unbalanced. Below is a handy guide to walking this tightrope more effectively. If you follow these easy steps you should be able to drink from 4 pm to 4 am without ever stopping, getting tired, bored, dizzy, or ill. Your conversation will thrill and amuse throughout the night, even as those around you drop like flies, and when you finally arrive home, you will feel triumphant, slightly sleepy, but not drunk at all. RULE ONE: Eat first, ask questions later. Pacing is virtually an impossibility without a "bed" of food in your stomach to anchor you through the gastronomically challenging times ahead. If you're going out right after work, eat a very late lunch. Otherwise, make sure you eat dinner before going out. Lots of proteins, breads, pastas, etc. (Lay off the garlic, beans, onions, salsa and so forth unless you believe in mints.) If there is a chance you will be dining later with your happy hour crew, eat just enough that you have a functional "bed", but could still eat more. This is especially true for men. Women tend to want to eat less, if anything at all, in front of men they wish to impress. Many members of the Procrastinator staff have wound up in bed with the "spins" far too early in the evening after assuming that a happy hour get-together would lead to dinner. So unless you're the type who can order a steak at a bar when no one else is eating, and then devour it with everyone gawking at you, make sure you fortify yourself beforehand. RULE TWO: Treat Your Buzz Like a Dog on a Leash. In short, walk it until it craps. Don't stop it until then, except for a few minutes here and there to let it smell the street poles. Don't say "Okay Rover, three blocks is enough, time to stand by the curb for an hour and drink water." At the same time, don't say "Okay, you want to run, then go boy!" and take off the leash. As long as you are drinking at the clip just right for you, alcohol will be there by your side, your best friend. It is only when you stop, or let the alcohol decide the pace, that your friend gets away from you. If you stop, sobriety and fatigue slowly pull you out of your buzz, if you go too fast, the alcohol clouds your consciousness and leaves you vacant and disoriented. In both cases you are like a dog owner without the dog. RULE THREE: Set Your Pace. There are three fool-proof paces at which to set your buzz: Sociable, Scintillating, and Raging. On an ideal night you hit all three, but sometimes just one is the right note for the whole evening. Let's examine them: a) the Sociable Pace: Perfect for classy, formal gatherings, work-related parties, weddings, etc. This is the mild, friendly, get to know people of all ages and positions buzz. An ideal pace would be a drink an hour for women, and 3 drinks every two hours for men, or two drinks an hour for true Procrastinators. The fact that there is an open bar in most Sociable Pace environments can be a temptation too great to pass up. If this is the case, be sure to hit the buffet table just as hard. b) The Scintillating Pace: This is the buzz for going out on the town, meeting a friend's other group of friends at a bar, or crashing a stranger's party. This is the show-off your wit and wildness buzz, the make-an-impression buzz. More carefree than the "sociable" but less rowdy than the "raging", this is the buzz to sport when you want to have people remember you the next morning. For women, finish a bottle of wine with your girlfriend over dinner before arriving, and then consume approx. half a drink for every one the guys around you are drinking. For men, do a fat whiskey shot before hopping into your cab, and then drink 1 drink per half hour until everything is fuzzy and you say at least two things that get a laugh, then cut back to 1- 1/2 an hour. c) The RAGING PACE: This is the pace for a happy hour with your old college buddies who are still chafing under their ties after a hard day at the money store, or for a party where you know a good 40+% of the people. This state is slightly more advanced, and a little sloppier, than state b, but with the proper pacing, it shouldn't descend to out and out drunkeness. This is the most expert level of pacing, as the aforemetioned dog is on a very long leash. An important thing to remember is the following rule: RULE 4: The Rule of Alcohol-Accelertation I have learned the hard way that thinking you can catch a good, steady buzz by getting a jump on it leads to trouble. If you sit down sober to a double whiskey, your intentions might be good, but it's like cutting out the middle man and going right to the end of the night. On the other hand, if you start out slow, after a few hours you might be able to toss that whiskey down like it's nothing. This is called the Rule of Alcohol-Acceleration, or the "drinking curve." The first drink you have is like "Ground Zero" or a grade of "C" and all that come after are judged by your system accordingly. To start the buzz off with a loud bang it to set a very high watermark, similarly too mild a bracer can leave you merely feeling tired, establishing a very low group GPA. If you adopt the attitude of slow and steady wins the race, you will last longer than the hare, who needs a large water and some fresh air after wolfing down two double manhattans in one hour. In short, it's easier to switch up, then slow down, becasue liquor is self-accelerating. By bearing this in mind, you will know that left on its own, the alcohol inside you will make sure it has lots of company. Be like a cautious but permissive mother to your little, young buzz, and it will mature into a healthy, grateful big one. RULE 5: YOUR REWARD If you have followed the pacing guidelines correctly, you will be rewarded with many hours of steady, enjoyably alcohol-fueled antics. Suddenly the night will go "click" in your head, usually anytime after 2 am, and you will be in what is known as the "Free Zone". This is your gift from alcohol for being such a good buzz-bearer. Having proved your mettle and mastery, your buzz is saying, "you made it," and you can now drink with calm impunity. Why? For one reason, you have been nice and slowly pickled, not quickly sloshed, and so your body is well adjusted to the poison within. For another, the hard part of the night is over and you have proven yourself a rager and a survivor. Any time you spend still out and about at this point is extra credit. Content and with nothing left to prove to yourself, your pace is now perfect even without your vigilance. You find yourself drinking without restraint but still staying in reasonable control of your faculties. You can take the leash off the dog now, it has been well-trained.