The Night I Spent in Detox

I love this story. Not for my sake, mind you. This is embarrassing stuff. People seem to like the story, though, and I am nothing if not a performer. Like a drunken puppet, I am here to amuse. This is an absolutely true story, and it occurred in the fall of 2005.

I was a sophomore at the University of Minnesota. My friend Dave, and his teammates on the sailing team, were throwing a back-to-school toga party. I had RSVP'd a resounding yes, and as that Friday approached I was eager to get my party on. My friends in C-Hall and I started drinking around 5 or 6 that day after class. A 1.75L bottle of Karkov and some beers down, we were ready to get going. That's just what we called a Friday--the party was icing on the cake.

Anyhow, after consuming an evening's worth of alcohol in a few short hours, we were ready to get going to this party. My only sheet to wear was blue, and I haphazardly threw it on, toga-style. You haven't been to college until you've walked a mile or more blitzed, dressed in a toga, so that you can keep drinking. In any case, we had a blast. Ample beer, lots of people (many of whom were good looking girls in nothing but a sheet), Captain Morgan shots--Hilarity had no choice but to ensue.

After drinking to the point of blacking out, and then drinking much, much more I lost the next 9 hours to a void. I let a resident physician at Fairview hospital explain what he knew about my night.

Angry Resident: "The policemen that dropped you off found you lying in a bush in your toga, which is in this bag."

He hands me a bag of my belongings and keeps talking.

Angry Resident: "You were passed out, drunk. Your toga was sopping with urine. You lost control of your bladder. Your friends were nowhere to be seen. There was nothing they could do for you, you had to be brought here."

I looked down at the IV needle in my arm, and all I could think was how I felt well-hydrated and not the slightest bit hung over. I need an IV stand and a nurse by my bed every time I drink. I looked in the bag. Urine soaked boxers and my blue bed sheet. I am fucking stupid.

Still drunk, and pressing to fill in the voids in my evening, I inquire.

Me: "So how drunk was I?"
Angry Resident: "I don't know, we didn't test your BAC. I'd guess up there, maybe 0.3-0.4"
Me: "No shit? Huh."
Angry Resident: "This is a very serious matter. You could have gotten alcohol poisoning. You were not in control of your actions, and you could have passed out anywhere. You're lucky you were just off the sidewalk and not in the middle of the street. You need to drink FAR less and be more responsible. People your age are rarely in here, it's usually the younger people in your condition."

I had a fake ID in my wallet that night. It was my picture, and my real name and my real address. The only piece of information different from my actual license was the birth date, which was my real birthday, only two years off. I looked down at my wristband.

Neuman, Jeffrey S. 10/4/1983.

Hahahahaha. I couldn't help but laugh. Dodged an underage there, baby! I collect myself.

Me: "How did I not get a drunk and disorderly, or anything like that?"
Angry Resident: "The policemen felt sorry for you. You were covered in your own urine and were whimpering rather pathetically."

I have what I think was a flashback to that evening. It could have been a dream. I see police officers, and I feel the cold fake leather of a seat that could only be in the back of a police car.

Officer 1: "Where do you live?"
Me: "I don't...... I can't.............. Uhh. Wha? I'm not.........sure. I go to.......I'm a student."
Officer 2: "We gotta get him to Fairview."

And so it was. I woke up with a needle in my arm, but no ticket anywhere in my possession bag. I was worried.

Me: "So can I go now? What's the deal here?"
Angry Resident: "You have to get someone sober to come pick you up."
Me: "It's 6:30 in the morning. All of my friends are still drunk."

I look through my phone.

Nate: Still drunk
Dave: Still drunk
Britt: Still drunk

You get the picture. Who am I going to call to bail me out of the hospital at this hour? My parents? Of course not. I finally sucked it up and called my cousin. He was my roommate at the time and never drank. Talk about an awkward phone call.

Roommate: "Hello."
Me: "Hey, I'm at Fairview. Can you come pick me up?"
Roommate: "That's a five minute walk. Why are you at Fairview?"
Me: "It's a long story. I need to have someone sign me out."
Roommate: "Fine, I'll be there in 15 minutes."

The ride home was more awkward. I was in hospital scrubs, as my clothes were still wet. I was, understandably, not in a talking mood.

Roommate: "Your mom is on her way over."
Me: "Oh... fuck."

Someone at the hospital decided it was his job to call my parents. I think that might be illegal, but I guess I wasn't in a position to stop him. When we got back to our apartment, I immediately crashed. As refreshing as an IV is, I had had a disturbingly eventful night.

My mom got to my place and, as I had expected, used every form and synonym of the word "idiot," and just like Brad Neely's Harry Potter, she spouted fuck-word after fuck-word. I was not a-vailable. How did I get in this position? How did I end up in that bush? Is my mom ever going to stop bitching me out? She was always a rampant kid-caller, much to mine and my brother's dismay. In the three weeks after that night she was calling me seven times a day. One day she called me at 2pm on a Tuesday.

Mom: "Are you drinking right now?"
Me: "Of course not. Goodbye." (I might have been.)

I have since managed to (almost) live down my night spent in the hospital. My friends don't call me Detox anymore. My mom still thinks I'm a drunk. I guess showing up smelling like booze, in the same clothes as I wore the day before, to family Christmas didn't help my case. I have since not been back to the hospital, and have had few run-ins with police. A girl I was seeing at the time broke up with me, and told me I was too reckless and it wasn't fair to her.

Yeah. Apparently I ended up with the police while I was on my way home, stopping every so often to pee on something or throw up in the street. The girl guiding my drunk ass heard there were cops around, and decided there was too much risk involved in being seen with me. She assisted me to a bush just off the sidewalk, where I laid down and then proceeded to piss myself and whimper. If she ever reads this, fuck her.