Pay very careful heed to Herr
@mokele 's advice because
exactly all of that (minus the brain spilling out) has happened to me.
When I first hung-around with Barleycorn, I was a pathetic fool. I was a young, naive, and incredibly reckless man after getting drunk. My capacity to drink was above average but sometimes I would get drunk very quickly because from early on I preferred alcohol (mainly bier) over food. I ignored eating because I wished to buy as much alcohol as possible. The excuse was that drinking beer is like consuming liquid bread. This is a grossly mistaken view and although it is not relevant to the story, I must mention it here for possible harm reduction purposes, because what the breweries do not add to the beer is one of the most essential nutrients required for the proper and full functioning of the memory centre in the brain called Thiamine. The lack of it causes Beri Beri and Wernicke's Encephalopathy. Continued drinking slowly diminishes the thiamine reserves of the brain, and alcoholics tend to have the worst diets, so inadvertently they end up wiping out their short-term memory skills, among other things. There is a point of no return in the alcohol-abyss and before Korsakoff's psychosis, you have reached the Encephalopathy stage, if not taken care at hospital, then only God can save you.
After the end of the last class on the day of the incident, I was strolling about a little in campus, not doing much but feeling restless, irritable, and discontent. For a couple of months I had my eyes set on a nice brown Asian girl who was known to like it dirty after a couple of drinks. We had exchanged numbers at my home before in a party and things were getting off for me. On that fateful day I met her outside campus while smoking a cigarette. She was with her friend. By some unknown miracle I stuck a conversation with both and not long after we were off to a local bar getting some beers. My luck was off the hook that day because the girl's friend was taking my side! She was happy pairing the two of us off together.
It felt all right for her to take a leave and for the two of us to head into the night together. After a short drive I decided to take us to a club on the fringes of the town. The evening was just settling in and the sun had vanished not too long before we made out way there. More drinking ensued and the beers stopped flowing to give way to good ol' Grey Goose vodka. I was keeping good because I really wanted to lay this girl and had been on a dry spell for a few months before the prospect had taken pace. We were having conversations and some of it became personal too, to the point that it seemed something more could come off of it than a fūck-date. I have always been the guy who prefers a longer lay than a short-term one. But slowly and slowly I was getting keen on forgetting most of my scruples and simply heading in for the kill.
Things seemed to be in favour. The party started a couple or so hours afterwards, and the house DJ was playing some cool techno music; ideal for a nice night-out but without thorough binges. Four of my friends from class showed up and I took a leave to join them for a bit whereas the girl found one of her apartment-building friends there. The break seemed a good idea, but something did not bear well about it for me at first, and I ignored the call of my instinct and went on with smoking a cigarette and making useless banter. One of the guys among the four was a regular and knew the staff at the club, and because the night had been somewhat special, the guy who runs the place, perhaps the manager, was there. I was introduced to him, a casual bloke, but to me fresh out of the nursery, the acquaintance held meaning as if I had known a kingpin.
He was happy to have met me and showed me around a bit and told me to join everybody at the dance floor, but I resisted and was happy being at the lounge, when, as my luck would have it, the guy proceeded to offer me a pink capsular pill, definitely a barbiturate, and in spite of all the alarm bells going off in my head, I resisted saying no, and took it with me. I was in two minds to take it or not and at this point I am still alone and the girl is chatting away and having a good time. I stopped to drink for a bit and was hanging around getting more and more lonely when I decided to say fück it, downed the pill, and went on to get myself more drinks. My memories start to get hazy from now on.
I have no other memories of being in the club. I remember around mid-night getting away from the crowd with the girl (whose friend decided to accompany us) and taking her back home because the three of us were out of our minds. I do not remember driving my way half across the town till we reached her friend's apartment block and got out to leave the two of us alone. Maybe, I thought, we could have one last bit of a drive because going home, and then call it a night. The thought came, I acted on it almost immediately, told my friend of the idea, who of course loved the sound of it, and sealed our fates within a flash.
I took a circle around town and as we were minutes from reaching home, on a narrow strip of road, a little stray dog was busy eating left-over foods on the side, and I fell asleep at the wheel, when the girl's loud shill woke me up and I hurriedly turned left to save the little creature's life, and crashed right into an electric pole on the side of the street. I fell asleep for a couple of more minutes and then realised what had happened and got out to see that the dog was dead and the girl was weeping over it. I assume she felt responsible somehow and a friend of hers came not long after and picked her up from the spot and took her home.
I blew it because of my criminal negligence on the handling of two very serious substances. It set me straight for sometime. The girl and I eventually reconciled and had a nice time but nothing more came of it because I could not care after I was left alone. Then I woke up one day, after about a year, and noticed a lot of people had tried to call me. The girl was dead in a motorbiking accident in the middle of the city highway.
I had a very narrow escape with the law and my life. Keep a very safe distance from mixing benzos with drink. The combination will turn fatal tomorrow if not today.
