Why is it that in the past few weeks I have heard multiple people who live in St. Augustine say, “It’s so easy to just get stuck here, it’s like a bubble,” or “This town drives you to drink.” I too have found that living in this beautiful artsy little town, I’m trapped inside a little bubble and nothing besides what is going on in St Augy matters. Well I have lived in this town for over a year now and have definitely felt trapped inside a tiny bubble, driving me to drink. Maybe looking up at the 19 plus bottles of Evan Williams Whiskey lining the kitchen cabinets or maybe that my dad is a recovering alcoholic, I have decided to do a little test. A test that can make me feel super awkward and let me find out if I really need to crave that first drink when I get to the bar in St. Augy. A test that not many college students would even want to attempt. For a week straight I have decided to go out to the bars but only to drink Coke with a lemon on the side. When people come up and ask me what I’m drinking tonight I will respond, “Oh well it’s a rum and Coke of course.”
I have come from a family where my dad was an alcoholic. My mother has always told me that I have the addictive gene in me and that whatever I do I will become addicted to. Well I have found this to be very false. For a month straight, I picked up smoking cigarettes just to try and get my mother to quit. Smoking is the only thing I think my mother and I have ever seriously fought about. I told her, “If you don’t quit smoking mom, then for a month straight I will smoke cigarettes everyday until I get addicted.” She responded to this with “Go ahead, it’s a dirty habit and impossible to quit.” So once I realized this wasn’t helping anything I decided to stop that dirty smelly disgusting habit. There was only one good result of this test; I found I do not have an addictive personality.
Now on to St. Augustine. Oh St. Augy: the Spanish architecture, the beautiful beaches, the hot girls in sun dresses and bikinis with their salty beach hair, the laid back teachers, the bums who wander the streets with not a care in the world besides getting just enough money for the next beer, and the bars. The bars where not one single night there is nothing to do. Monday it’s free drinks at dunes, Tuesday it’s quarter beers at Panama Hattie’s, Wednesday it’s Two Hundred Lounge, Thursday it’s back to Hattie’s for free drinks, Friday it’s No Name bar then roaming the downtown streets of St. Augy, Saturday it’s Local Hero’s and then Sunday it’s Reggae Sunday at the Conch House followed by Sunset Grill. By no means am I saying that I go out every night of the week. But when I do it’s usually the same groups of people, which lead me to wonder if they go out every single night and are we all alcoholics? People here do not just get drunk, they get absolutely smashed and it’s an ongoing thing. Thursday night they get blackout drunk and continue to do the same for the rest of the weekend. I think this is why I end up drinking so much when my buddies and I go out. Everyone is so wasted that if you’re not on their level, its just plain awkward.
My first two nights out with this rubbish experiment I found it actually wasn’t so bad. I didn’t feel awkward at all. I even got flashed by the end of the second night which got me thinking, “Hm, it’s my second night in with this and I’ve already gotten a pair of boobs flung at my face, not bad eh.” Everyone believed I was really just drinking rum and Diet Coke and I just carried on how I normally would usually ending up on the dance floor. Even to my best of friends I wouldn’t let them know that I wasn’t drinking the rum and Diet Coke I normally would. They would say by the end of the night, “Jay your face isn’t red and blotchy, weird.” I found it was actually easier to hold conversations with people and that I am probably more social when I am not drinking. It gave me some confidence because now when I’m at a bar I know that even if I’m not drinking, I will still be having a grand ol’ time. Every morning I would wake up earlier and earlier and feel more refreshed then ever.
It wasn’t until the second to last night of this experiment that one of my friends found out what I was doing. He asked me what I was drinking and I told him rum and Coke. He looked at me funny and said, “You’re not drinking your girly rum and Diet Coke?” All my friends know that if I mix alcohol with a drink that isn’t diet, my face gets super red. So I ended up explaining my little experiment to him and told him I have one more night of this. He got inspired by what I was doing and ended up joining me with a couple Coke’s and a few lemons on the side.
This experiment of which I thought was going to make me feel awkward, has just taught me that you don’t have to go out and get smashed every night at the bars. Hip-hop artist Asher Roth has some lyrics I used to agree with, “Time isn’t wasted when you’re getting wasted.” In the past I would hear this and think, “Hell yea, right on.” Before this experiment I agreed with Asher but now I would rather just have one or two drinks and remember my nights.
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