Your favorite color is wine.

“Taking the edge off” sometimes transitions into “Good morning! Where the fuck am I?”

You like to have a drink between drinks.

Once a year around Xmas you drunkenly assert, “You know why these tree ornaments are so ridiculously easy to smash? Because that’s the way the Tree Ornament Cartel likes it!”

Some days you can barely stand to be around sober people. Especially when that sober person is you.

Your hangovers feel like they were written by Tom Waits.

You’ve had occasion to wistfully wish you’d followed Mencken’s First Rule of Moderation: Only buy as much booze as you can carry on your back for four blocks.

In Costco you’ll repeatedly ask your spouse, “Are you sure that’s a good deal?” But in their liquor mart you’re all: “THESE ARE ALL GREAT FUCKING DEALS.”

Contrary to conflicting testimony from a large number of unreliable sources, you were a perfect gentleman last night.

You set elaborate traps for your hangovers.

You tried convincing yourself that it’s not so much a hangover as a refreshing counterstance to unmitigated joy. A brutal yet crucial view into pure horror.

Since “sober up” suggests something positive and fun is happening you think the phrase should be changed to “sober down.”

 


 

Your Plan B is a lot like your Plan A, except with more liquor.

Plan C is getting your hangover drunk.

The NSA is pretty sure you own that liquor store.

Detox vans always drive by you reeeeeal slow.

Day bartenders are certain you’re a day drinker and night bartenders are positive you’re a night drinker.

While you agree “wino” can be a misnomer, “at-risk public inebriate” just sounds like your public defender is trying to be careful and clever at the same time.

You thought you said, “Give me another shot of whiskey,” but the bartender heard, “Ithaca New York Taco Johns.”

You won’t give change to panhandlers with “Clean and Sober” on their signs because it’s like backing an expedition to Peoria.

Every week the recycling truck salutes your home with a glorious symphony of glass bottles cascading into its belly.

That old saw about life being too short for cheap whiskey doesn’t ring true. If anything, there seems to be a large surplus of time for cheap whiskey.

You wish you could sit down with tomorrow’s hangover and say, “Let’s work out a deal.” Then you’d shoot it in the face.

There is nothing more kind, calm and reaffirming than an empty bar with a quiet bartender.

You have never met a crappy day that could not be righted with a sharp crack of booze across its snout.

 —FKR, Troy Baxley


When booze does its taxes it lists you as a dependent.

The distance between “Impossible!” and “All we need is a free weekend and some kind of rocket motor” is about 10 drinks.

You can see the Make-Your-Own Bloody Mary Bar through your Bloody Mary.

“Well, you don’t look like a drunkard” smacks of grave insult.

When your friends go on the wagon, you expect them to give you rides to bars on their wagon.

The amount of time spent waiting in line for a drink is inversely proportional to length of time it will take you to chug it.

You’ll start calling bartenders “mixologists” when bartenders start calling you “Sir Boozington, Esq.”

Unexpectedly weak hangovers always whisper, “Bender.”

So long as there’s a glass of bourbon in your hand, you’ll put up with one helluva lot of bullshit.

You can’t believe a bar exists until you have drank in it.

Bars call the bar you’re drinking in, wondering when you’re coming home.

When you were born the doctor slapped you with a bar tab.

The drinking will continue until your liver’s attitude improves.

 —FKR, Dustin Miller, Troy Baxley, Agent Mule


Tequila not only has your number, you’re on top of its speed dial.

It takes only one person to convince you to go to party but at least four strong men to get you to leave.

Your last drink of today is your first drink of tomorrow.

When you look back on the beach that is your life and see only one set of footprints, you realize that that was when Bacchus was sleeping it off.

Apologizing for last night would be like Oswald offering to pay for Jackie’s dry cleaning.

Whenever someone tells you they don’t “appreciate” your drunken behavior you become very sad because you were really banking on that asshole’s appreciation.

You didn’t leave the party. The party left you.

You shout, “Turn up the goddamn jukebox!” in a department store.

Your idea of codependency is splitting the bar tab.

You open a friend’s refrigerator and are bewildered to find food where the beer should be.

You got laid off and had to live on nothing but food and water for a whole week.

A real woman could stop you from drinking. A real big woman.

You got held up by two guys last night. All the way home.

 —FKR, Troy Baxley, Dudley Moore


Winos have stopped asking you for change. They just nod and give you that weird half-smile.

Wild Turkey 101 neat tastes watered down.

The liquor store clerk looks in your cart and says, “Woo! That’s gonna be some party!” And you think, “Party?”

It doesn’t bother you when you wake up with an empty wallet because all those bartenders and waitresses probably deserve that money more than you do and HOLY SHIT HOW THE FUCK DID I SPEND SO MUCH FUCKING MONEY?

Your hangover has a hangover.

Your binge drinking gets in the way of your benders.

There’s a garbage can in your living room.

You think it’s perfectly reasonable to waive the “a gentlemen never drinks before noon” rule so long as the gentleman in question is still up from the night before.

You sometimes like to start the morning with a hearty, “Who the fuck are you?”

You have no memory of ever eating a 7-Eleven jalapeno dog and you’ve eaten about 50.

You sometimes misplace yourself.

You know that black carbon smoke from a forgotten pot of Top Ramen makes for an excellent alarm clock.

You think the world revolves around you, especially when you lie down.

—FKR, Aquarius


You got lost crossing the street.

You reckon that returning an unfinished keg is right on par with your father watching you gettting your ass kicked by a mime.

You get that weird tingling in your groin when you walk past a liquor store.

You take off your hat and strangers drop change into it. Not that you’re complaining.

You have proof the Bud Bowl is fixed.

Your blood will run a lawn mower.

Future generations will call you an urban legend.

 M.A.D.D. has a budget line with your name on it.

 You’re quite good looking when you’re plastered, and you have the mug shots to prove it.

 You can sniff out a hidden bottle of scotch in under two minutes. One minute if it’s been cracked.

 You don’t believe in conspiracy theories, but  it seems a pretty big coincidence that none of the bars in town will let you stay after hours.

 Your bar tabs impact the international price of wheat and barley.

 Your hangovers can be seen from space.

 You’ve heckled A.A. meetings.

 You think you can influence the outcome of a football game two time zones away by yelling at a television.

  —FKR, Richard English.


You can see your breath in July.

You can’t say the word sober without making air quotes.

You feel incredibly sexy despite the vomit stain down the front of your shirt.

Gin never gives you a hangover, but martini olives absolutely murder you.

You figure the cab companies are making a fortune off the cell phones, lighters and all that other shit that falls out of your pockets.

You know to put extra ice in your cocktail when you take a hot shower.

Contrary to popular opinion, you don’t drink all the time. You just enjoy having a few civilized night caps, day caps, afternoon caps and morning caps.

After eight drinks your “hugs” bear an uncanny resemblance to UFC take-downs.

You fell into a whiskey vat and bravely fought off your rescuers for three hours.

The first thing you think when you can’t find your wallet is, “Great, now how am I going to buy beer?”

You failed CPR class because your breath set the dummy on fire.

You’re having a little trouble reading this because the bar’s lighting sucks and you’re kinda loaded.

You called the cops on yourself but refused to testify because you “didn’t want to get involved.”

—Spencer P., Miss Conception, John-Erik P., Brad H., FKR.


You use spearmint schnapps for mouthwash because it eliminates that whole spitting hassle.

You employ a booze-based monetary system, e.g.: “I’d loan you the money but all I have is a liter of Evan Williams and a twelver of Hamm’s in the bank.”

You seem to think you can restore that classic car in your garage by drinking beer while staring at it.

Your dishwasher’s glassware-to-plate ratio is roughly eight to one.

You’re seriously considering learning how to play the bagpipes because, hey—nobody gets more free drinks than bagpipers.

You’ve worn a kilt to ladies night in hopes of beating the system on a technicality.

Tequila makes you lose your mind and howl at the moon, so you only drink it in the morning.

Most days you’re up and at ‘em at five in the morning. Then you pass out.

If you died, went to Heaven and found out it was dry, you’d casually inquire: “So, what’s the deal downstairs? They serving or what?”

Your friends know the best way to bring you down is yell, “Last call!”

You have ten ice cube trays in your freezer and they’re all empty.

You have made cocktails with ice chiseled from the inner walls of your freezer.

When the guy at the door yelled, “Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms,” you assumed it was someone bringing more supplies.

You inform the arresting officer that gravity is the only law you feel compelled to obey.

You take pub crawls very literally.

Crying in your beer increases its alcohol content.

You’ve invented a Sesame Street drinking game so you can spend more time with your kids.

You start your morning by reaching to the night stand, picking up your phone, pressing re-dial, and apologizing to whoever answers.

Some bastard always manages to slip a Mickey Finn in your 30th drink.

You regularly shout constructive criticism at the winos holding cardboard signs on street corners, e.g.: “It’s too political! You’re alienating half your demographic!”

All your finest athletic feats were executed after six or more drinks.

Your golf bag contains more beer than clubs.

You complain to friends that you “got really sober last night.”

—FKR, Barcillo, Chopper, Brian Normant, Mike White, F. Odin


Your friends accuse you of “acting weird” whenever they meet you sober.

You want to rid the world of booze—one drink at a time.

You fall off the wagon and it backs up and runs you over a couple times.

You’ve flunked the wine-tasting class at the local free university four times this year but still keep giving it the ol’ college try.

You don’t get “falling down drunk,” you get “gravity-challenged.”

You don’t call them birthdays, you call them “a-free-shot-at-every-bar-I-can-reach-in-the-next-24 hours-days.”

You think the only thing worse than warm flat keg beer on Sunday is no warm flat keg beer on Sunday.

You know that in Heaven the bars open at 6am and close at 5:59am and in Hell it’s the other way around.

You’ve convinced your boss that your cologne is called “Eau de Cheap Scotch.”

You can identify most of the bars in town by the underside of their barstools.

You try to buddy up to the arresting officer by offering him a drink from the open container between your knees.

You’ve gotten so loaded you cursed the DJ for refusing to play “Muskrat Love.”

Youv’e tried to lay down on the ceiling.

—FKR, Frank Bell, L. Safian


Bouncers have a special headlock named after you.

Gin is your tonic.

You joined AA because you heard you could get sponsorship for your drinking.

Your first tree fort had a wet bar.

You’ve never been out of the country, but you frequently visit Twevlepackistan.

You like to think your friends call you a “big, fucking sponge” because you can absorb so much alcohol.

Your donated blood is only given to people over the age of 21.

Your best friends and worst enemies are all bartenders.

Your favorite dive is so dark you can’t tell when you’re blacked out.

Your dentist is afraid to drill in your mouth for fear of an unexpected spark.

“Taking the edge off” usually means waking up on your lawn.

You’ve stopped drinking, but only when you’re asleep.

When making punch, you dilute the rum with vodka.

Your plan to move to New Orleans during hurricane season is based entirely upon the possibility of getting “trapped” in a bar.

 FKR, Troy Baxley, Keith W., Roomie, Zot, Beto Sanchez, Sean Higgins, John O.


You can judge what time it is by looking at the shelf you’re buying drinks from.

The bars send out a search party when you don’t show up at opening time.

You use your cuff links as curb feelers.

You’ve stepped on your own fingers.

Everyone thinks you’re bilingual.

You’ve told a priest, “Make it a triple this time, and hold the wafer.”

You walk into a new bar and ask to see the finance manager.

You have a reserved parking space in front of two different liquor stores.

Your birthday is a holiday in Scotland.

You favorite brand of vino comes with the disclaimer, “No grapes were harmed in the making of this wine.”

The fire marshal fines you every time you yawn near an open flame.

You get so loaded it takes two trips to get it all home.

You walk into a new bar and they already know what you drink.

You invented a drinking game for A.A. meetings.

You match your outfit to the liquor you plan on drinking.

You buy a lamp because you need a hat.

— Sam Wagner, FKR, Dogboy, S. Hendron, Geoff Lilley, M. Young, Nicholas Kochems, JR Lighthall, Scsigrrl, & Rowdydrunk.


FEMA declared you a national disaster.

You’re not sure when Mary Ann snuck out your apartment last night, but you figure it was about the same time Mrs. Howell snuck in.

You resolve to call your local councilman and complain about the city’s ill-advised policy of putting lampposts in the middle of the road.

Uncontrollable vomiting, falling out of a tree and a heavily overdrawn bank account may very well be elements of “the most awesome weekend.”

You call an ex-friend at 3am to ask what he meant by that remark last July.

You receive divorce papers from your liver and it wants full custody of the kidneys.

You were genuinely excited about Cingular’s “More bars in more places” promise until you found out they were talking about cell phones.

You don’t have to imagine what a spilled gin and tonic sucked from a shag rug tastes like.

You stub out your glass in the ashtray and ask the bartender to fill up your cigarette.

You drank so much beer last night you single-handedly wore out a fresh urinal cake.

 Sean Higgins, Venita Louise, Luke Schmaltz, FKR


All your character witnesses are in the drunk tank.

You have attempted to wring out a rum cake.

The cops set up a DUI checkpoint in your driveway.

The rattlesnake that bit you yelped.

You once woke up with a new job.

Your menage a trois fantasies include a bartender.

Your DNA is shaped like a corkscrew.

Your streetside recycling company has to bring an extra truck.

The ATF has a You division.

You catch yourself rambling on about Thunderbird’s “delicate, yet audacious bouquet.”

You swallow your mouthwash because it reminds you of spearmint schnapps.

You drink tequila to get the taste of rum out of your mouth. And visa versa. For hours at a time.

You’d never steal a fellow drunk’s drink, but you do occasionally “adopt orphans.”

Your local liquor store lets you put bottles on layaway.

You’ve attempted seppuku with a cocktail sword.

— Rich English, Walter, FKR, Troy Baxley


You have to go to court to find out what happened.

You’ve talked the monkey on your back into chipping in on bar tabs.

You’ve been 86’d from detox.

The only time Shane MacGowan looks sober is when he’s standing next to you.

You see nothing ironic in chasing your daily vitamins with a water glass full of whiskey.

Your office chair is a barstool.

You own three beer bong patents.

You only drink socially, except when you’re alone.

You can’t stand tomato juice but love those Bloody Marys.

You don’t need to hire a personal trainer to encourage you to start running because cops do it for free.

Your PhD. thesis in political science was titled, “I Could So Outdrink Ted Kennedy.”

You get indignant if a wedding reception has a cash bar. Especially if the reception was hard to sneak into.

The simple act of returning an empty keg can spiral into an big emotional scene.

You started taking scuba lessons when you learned that the Titanic went down with 500 cases of Bass Ale.

 Troy Baxley, Vince, FKR, Jason Becker, Luke Schmaltz


If a party runs out of booze, you sock the host and drink his nosebleed.

Your wife asks you to pick up a canned ham, and you show up with a case of Hamm’s in cans.

Interventions have become so frequent that you just leave the folding chairs set up in your living room.

 The arresting officer tells you that you have the right to remain silent and you waive that right so you can finish singing Enter Sandman.

 You know how to say “Where are my pants?” in seven languages.

 You have a lot of respect for that 80-year-old guy at the end of the bar, but you know from experience that he’s a dirty fighter.

 You go on week-long benders just so you’ll have a cool story to tell at your AA meetings.

 You got in a fist fight with a wino over how long a bottle of Thunderbird should be allowed to “breathe”.

 You’re willing to go on the wagon, so long as it’s heading for a bar.

 You got pissed off when you forgot whatever you were drinking to forget.

— Lorin Partridge, FKR, Randall Greenland, Frank Bell, Rev. Steven F. Scharff, Keith W.


You have so much alcohol in your system that your cabbie has to be HazMat certified.

If a wino jumped off a building, you’d bravely leap forward to break the fall of his bottle.

You install shag carpet because it’s easier to hang on to.

Embalming fluid would be an improvement.

Your last Breathalyzer reading was “No Fucking Way.”

Distilleries fight over the billboard nearest to your place of residence.

The state has installed a Breathalyzer interlock device on your shoes.

You drew up a living will that states very clearly that you do not want the booze tube removed under any circumstances.

Your friends often substitute “Good night” with “Hey, you can’t sleep here.”

When you donate blood they store it in oak barrels.

You openly commit crimes just to learn new pruno recipes.

Your name is police code for Public Intoxication.

You’re fairly sure a letter to Dear Abby signed “Want To Leave the Bum, But Can’t” was written by your liver.

Barca, ssapals, maddog, FKR


Your favorite drinking game is Do A Shot Every Time You Do A Shot.

Your idea of a seven-course meal is a six-pack and a pizza.

TV beer ads have started addressing you by name.

Someone offers you palm wine and you think they’re out of glassware.

You brush your teeth with bourbon. It hasn’t helped cut down on cavities, but who cares?

When a panhandler asks, “Can you give me a quarter for some beer?” you reply, “Okay, but I want to taste it first.”

You know heavy drinking makes you smarter because you can never remember doing anything stupid while blacked out.

You have a split personality—every time you meet someone with booze you want to split it with them.

You were so drunk at the office Xmas party that you kissed your own wife.

You’ve never been to Afghanistan or Pakistan, but you’re a frequent visitor to Imtoodrunktostan.

You become sexually aroused by the tapping of a keg.

You know you can use Jagermeister as cough syrup. And visa versa.

Your 86s are passed down to your grandchildren.

—D. Tostenson, FKR, Luke Schmaltz


You have a sweet tooth for alcohol—in fact, your whole mouth likes it.

You spill so much booze at home your dog slurs his barks.

Your credit history is composed entirely of bar tabs.

When you get a cold you get a bottle of whiskey, do shots, and it’s gone — not the cold, the whiskey.

You’re always shaking hands, even when there’s no one else around.

Whenever you bend your elbow your mouth snaps open.

When your boss asks you to work overtime you demand time and a fifth.

You get held up almost every time you go home — in fact it’s the only way you can get home.

You’d be happy to go on the wagon if you could find one with a bar.

Your favorite bar is four blocks away — six blocks coming back.

When you order a hound for the rouse.

The Red Cross uses your blood to sterilize their instruments.

You’re half scotch, and your ancestors aren’t from Scotland.

You know how to handle your liquor — with both hands.

You hate the very sight of liquor, which is why you hide it in your stomach.

—FKR, Troy Baxley


A liter of scotch isn’t enough to invite a friend over for a drink.

Your first science fair project was a still.

You know most the of people in a bar and can’t remember one of their names.

Anyone who kisses you must legally wait half an hour to drive.

They have to mix your blood with tonic water before giving it to anyone.

You’ve filed assault charges against a coffee table.

When you’re out in the street, you are literally “out” in the street.

You think of drinking beer as “sobering up,”

You can say “Whiskey, please” in 34 languages, but can’t understand “Last call” in English.

Your liver takes sides against you during an intervention.

You know better than going near an open flame while you’re bleeding.

Your bed looks a helluva lot like a park bench, and your bedroom looks a helluva lot like a park.

You need a blood transfusion to legally enter a dry county.

Your flask is spring-loaded.

You judge cologne by its bouquet and finish.

— SJP, Will Butler, MidSummer Cocktail, el pulpo, barcalounge, DJF, FKR


Your liver is in the Federal Witness Protection Program.

You enjoy cooking with wine, and sometimes you even put it in the food.

You’ve only been drunk once in your life, and so far it’s lasted twenty-three years.

You liver has a restraining order on you.

You can tell the difference between a bottle of Jack and a bottle of Jim by the sound they make hitting the back of your head.

Alcoholism doesn’t run in your family—it takes its own sweet time.

You’ve been cut off during communion.

You wonder why they call it Southern Comfort when they know damn well there is nothing comfortable about being handcuffed in the back of a squad car.

Growing-up means buying better booze, getting older means getting used to the cheap stuff again.

You miss the old days when you were younger than the cop that finds you sleeping in a dumpster.

You were excited about the Olsen twins turning “legal” until you realized they still aren’t old enough to buy you a drink.

You resent it when people call you a raving alcoholic, because you’ve never been to a rave in your life.

Keith, W., Billy, Pat Murphy, DrunkenJackFlask, Zaknaldrett, FKR


You keep a bottle of liquor next to your bed so you can have breakfast in bed when you wake up.

You consider anything less than 80 proof a chaser.

You’ve eaten 87 packets of honey mustard because on the label it lists “white wine” as an ingredient.

You have convinced yourself that you’re not drinking alone so long as your friends Jack, Jim and Johnnie are over.

Your wardrobe is divided into Summer, Winter and Things You Woke Up Wearing. The third category includes a number of thongs.

Your BAC is measured in proof.

You measure time by drinks, as in: “Hold on a shot, the movie doesn’t start for another four bourbons.”

To you “Last call!” sounds just like “Please don’t leave! We love you and you’re charming wit!”

You don’t use cologne or aftershave because you have a moral objection to alcohol going anywhere but down your throat.

You’d exercise more but when you sweat it smells like booze and that makes you thirsty.

You always finish your drinks because there are sober people in China.

When you come home to find your house burglarized the first thing you check is your liquor cabinet.

You’ll join A.A. when they start serving cocktails at the meetings.

Your ATM is a Dumpster full of recyclable cans.

You’ll sleep through a train wreck, yet spring awake to the sound of a bottle top turning.

—Erik Hinrichsen, Oggar, pbrstreetgang, 190 Proof, Troy Baxley, FKR


You can order a beer in 17 different languages but don’t know how to pronounce “Perrier.”

When a cop asks, “Have we been drinking?” you reply, “Do you really think I’d drink with the likes of you?”

You freak out when you wake up in your own bed.

You’d have passed the sobriety test if you hadn’t mistaken the Breathalyzer for a bugle.

Your waking thought is, “Wow, look at all the gum stuck to the bottom of the table.”

You got in trouble at work because your standard greeting is, “Hey, let’s do a shot!”

You cursed the St. Bernard who rescued you because he had the nerve to bring only one lousy liter of brandy.

You can hear someone whisper “free beer” from three blocks away.

You consider a bottle of cheap whiskey and two shot glasses a very romantic gift.

You hate it when men give you flowers because, hey—you can’t drink flowers.

You dream of the beautiful day when all races, religions, creeds and colors finally get it together and pitch in to buy you a case of decent scotch.

You show up to brewery tours wearing fins and a snorkel.

You tell your friends your dog’s name is “Time For A Beer Run” but you call him “Hurry Up.”

The tooth fairy left you shots of Rumpleminze.

You’ve convinced yourself your liver isn’t distended—it’s pregnant. With a new liver.

—FKR, Rich English


You play the same song 20 times in a row at top volume at three in the morning and are certain the neighbors don’t mind because, you know, it’s such a kick-ass song.

You think the porcelain hat looks good on you.

Your idea of karaoke is falling off the stage while yelling “Rock and roll!” into the microphone.

Your house is four times farther from the bar on the way back.

Your alarm clock is synchronized with the nearest liquor store’s opening time.

You have threatened to murder and marry the same person in the span of a single happy hour.

You are the answer to the question, “What kind of idiot pukes in a bidet?”

While in the drunk tank your friends tried to sneak you a fifth of Beam in a cake.

You’re personal trainer is a bartender.

You’ve known Jack Daniels so long you refer to him as John.

You watch Behind the Music and think “That’s really not that much alcohol.”

The bartender is in the weeds and you’re the only person in the bar.

You refuse to play Golden Tee because there is no beer cart girl.

Think box wine is great; eagerly awaiting box whiskey.

Troy Baxley, Matty G., Nick Esposito, FKR, Swamp, Oggar


You get cut off in absentia.

You won’t rent an apartment that doesn’t have a bar and liquor store within two blocks.

You’re favorite cocktail is one quarter vodka, one quarter vodka, one half vodka and topped up with vodka.

You get angry when guys who can’t hold their liquor keep stepping on your fingers.

You get nervous when there are only three bottles of liquor left in your house.

You forget how pants work.

You’re not angry about the fly in your drink, you’re angry he didn’t chip in on the tab.

You’ve never taken a lesson, but after eight drinks you’re pretty damn sure you can play the piano. And break dance. At the same time.

You hate it when your lightweight drinking buddies get so drunk you can barely see them.

You’ve put a dozen vampires into A.A.

You shake the same person’s hand five times between last call and getting booted out.

You’re entire life’s savings equals a case a cheap beer and bottle of rotgut bourbon. And you’re very excited by the fact.

You think Jim Beam is a utility company because it keeps shutting off your lights.

You never blackout. You just take a lot of “loud vertical naps.”

—FAS, FKR, A Liar’s Club Regular, Dave Schalmo, The Dirty Swede, barcalounge, Big Casino and Toondale.


You have never taken a drink of a non-alcoholic beverage without thinking, “Man, a splash of booze would fix this right up.”

You’ve apologized to people you don’t remember meeting for things you don’t remember doing in places you don’t remember going.

You think of plate glass windows as more suggestions than guidelines.

You can’t walk a straight line unless the floor is moving.

You dressed as a wino for Halloween and no one noticed.

Half the bartenders in town know exactly which porch to leave you on.

Your tapeworm joined a 12 Step program.

You attempted to have a keg delivered to your cell in the drunk tank.

Your paychecks are deposited directly into a bar’s bank account.

Instead of “Good morning,” the first words out of your mouth are “Have you seen my trousers?”

You were looking forward to your court-mandated alcohol classes until you found out there wasn’t any actual alcohol involved.

You hang an open umbrella from your drinking hand to catch the spillage.

Long Islands are your cup of tea.

The words “Last Call” physically hurt you.

Detox leaves a mint under your pillow.

—Jacko, Barcalounge, DPAW, Omar, Troy Baxley, One For The Frog, Frank Bell and FKR.


You fall down a well and send Lassie to the liquor store.

Bartenders call you when you’ve been absent for more than two days.

Lawn sprinklers are sometimes your alarm clock.

You wake up in a strange city not knowing how you got there, and the three other guys don’t know either.

You need help getting the breathalyzer in the right hole.

You lost a fistfight with yourself.

It takes two shots of schnapps to wash the taste of Breathalyzer out of your mouth.

You like to stop for a drink on the way to the fridge to get a beer.

You went on vacation for two weeks and the owner of your regular bar had his boat repossessed.

You’ve asked a bartender to “freshen up” your shot glass.

Bars call in their off-duty bartenders when you walk in the door.

You’ve asked a waiter: “What sort of wine goes with vodka?”

When buying floor tile, you press your face against it to see how comfortable it would be to sleep on.

You get into a loud, enraged argument, then realize you’re alone.

—Hugh Janblack, Dave Schalmo, Barcalounge, Drunken JackFlask, Geofflilley and FKR.


After your fifth drink, you’re like Don Juan with the ladies: They Don Juan nothing to do with you.

You suspect that water, taken in small quantities, isn’t all that dangerous.

You occasionally have meals with your wine.

You wake up every morning at the crack of ice.

You drink to forget you drink.

You distrust camels, or anyone else who can go a week without a drink.

People get drunk by shaking your hand.

You never eat breakfast on an empty stomach.

Beer is the reason you get up every afternoon.

The only drinking problem you have is the two-hands/one-mouth thing.

Your house is so messy because it spins like a top every time you lie down.

You drink to steady yourself, and sometimes you get so steady you can’t move.

You never walk, you just occasionally stagger in a straight line.

You get angry because there’s always so much booze left at the end of your money.

You think that drunks are a lot like chess players, only drunk.

You forgot your fishing pole on your fishing trip and didn’t notice.

You’ve been laid out on more floors than Johnson’s Wax.

Your liver has hired an attorney.

You wish all the world’s parking lots could be somehow turned into lush rain forests, because, you know, it’s hard to hide from cops in a parking lot.

Your favorite bar installed a seat belt on your barstool.

The glass isn’t half empty or half full. It just needs to be topped off.

You don’t fall off the wagon—you leap off it while chugging a bottle of cheap bourbon.

You have two personalities: Mr. Responsibility and Mr. I-Think-I’ll-Call-All-My-Old-Girlfriends-While-I’m-Blacked-Out.

The word “rent” loses all meaning after your fifth drink.

You’re so good at “drinking to forget” that you sometimes forget how to walk.

Whenever someone in a suit spills your well bourbon it magically transforms into top shelf scotch on the way to the floor.

You laugh at funerals but weep like a baby whenever you hear about a beer truck overturning.

You’d rather be a bus driver than an astronaut because, hey, there ain’t no beer where they’re going.

You don’t mind when your wife finds you stinking drunk in a bar, because then you can hit her up for a free drink.

Pink elephants get drunk and they see you.

You can get drunk on Scotch tape.

You’re not a hard drinker. It’s the easiest thing you do.

You like to have a drink between drinks.

You’d join AA but your always too drunk too memorize the pledge.

Your sleep number is 151 . . . proof.

You quit drinking once, and it was the worst afternoon of your life.

You won’t eat an olive unless it’s sterilized in gin.

You think Beethoven’s Fifth is a bottle of schnapps.

You’re living a champagne lifestyle on a beer budget. Except you don’t like champagne so you just drink lots and lots of beer.

Gin rummy sounded like a fun game.

You’re stalked by alcoholic vampires.

You have never screwed a cap back onto a liquor bottle.

Your friends pretend to be bartenders, just so you’ll pay attention to them.

Your personal mantra is, “Where there’s a swill, there’s a sway.”

You suffer from barthritis— every night you get stiff in another joint.

You don’t recognize the difference between “waking up” and “coming to.”

You donate a pint of blood and the hospital has to card the patient they give it to.

Your liver enters itself in a Tough Man competition.

You wear Hawaiian shirts because it’s tougher to see vomit stains on them.

Going out drinking with you is covered by your friends’ insurance.

As a child your dad helped you learn math by first explaining a four-count.

Your personal math system is based on the number six, i.e.: “I’ll take a twelver of Big Macs, with a sixer of those without cheese.”

You use visualization techniques to master beer bongs.

In high school, you were voted most likely to drink in grade school.

2 for 1 is your lucky number.

A perfect date is soft music, a bottle of wine and moi.

A couple times a year you go on a “non-bender.”

Before you go out each night you consult a psychic hotline to determine which bartenders will be pouring strong.

Peeling the label off a beer bottle arouses you.

You feel a tinge of pride when someone refers to you as a “shameless alcoholic.”

You’ve discovered that teaching your dog to shoplift from liquor stores was not nearly as hard as teaching him to distinguish between Grey Goose and McCormick’s.

You were against going to war with Iraq until you found out those poor fuckers aren’t allowed to drink.

The first thing you thought when you woke up yesterday was, “Wow, look at all that gum stuck under the bar!”

Your girlfriend left you because you accidentally cried out “Glenfiddich” while making love.

Your beer back comes with a tap.

You conduct weekly “assisted short-term flight” experiments every weekend. With the help of various bouncers.

You’re regularly mobbed by autograph hungry alley winos.

You were the first person in line at the flu clinic because you heard they were giving away free shots.

You like tequila with a lime — or dirt, or a hamster or whatever, so long as there’s tequila involved.

You come home sober and your dog bites you.

The cafeteria in the detox center has a sandwich named after you.

You can’t recognize your best friend unless he’s leaning against a bar. With a drink in his hand. Drunk.

You like a splash of coffee in your morning whiskey.

You can blow a .08 BAC from twenty feet away.

You take swim trunks to brewery tours.

You’re kept awake at night by the sound of your liver crying.

You prefer cold showers because the ice in your drink doesn’t melt as fast.

You’re shocked and confounded to discover they actually sell Coke without Jack Daniels.

When a cop asks you to walk a straight line, you ask, “Which one?”

You tried getting out of a DUI by putting a beer label on your arm and telling the cop you’re off the booze and on the patch.

You woke up on New Years Eve with the resolution of finding out which bars open earliest.

Get mad when your family calls you a 
wino because they know damn well you prefer whiskey.

You’re definition of a problem drinker is guy who won’t buy you a round.

You hate the person you become when you black out, because, you know, that fucker drinks all your beer.

You know hangovers only last a day, but a good drinking story lives on forever.

You don’t like to think of it as blacking out. You prefer to think of it as exercising the lizard brain.

The only useful thing you got out of an A.A. meeting was learning how to identify your enablers. Because, hey, those guys are most likely to buy you a drink.

You distrust any wine that doesn’t give you a decent hangover.

A good drinking buddy will bail you out of jail, but a great drinking buddy will be sitting in the cell beside you, saying, “Man, that was awesome!”

The last words you remember each night are, “Hold my beer and watch this!”

You’re disappointed when you go to a funeral and there’s no keg.

You refer to your mouth as your “booze hole.”

You’ve told Jehovah’s Witnesses, “Of course, I want to go to Heaven. I’m sure it’s awesome. God does pick up the tab every night, right?”

You once got so drunk you dreamed you got fired and broke up with your girlfriend — and it all came true!

You regularly ask bartenders, “So, how are the spill mats looking tonight? Anything good in there?”

Someone tells you they don’t drink anymore, and you bravely respond, “Don’t worry about it, buddy, I’ll take up your slack!”

You prefer vodka that comes in the handy plastic squeeze-size bottles.

The bartender asks for your I.D. just to see how long it’ll take you to find your pants.

Two weeks into the bender you found out “Drink Canada Dry” was a corporate slogan, not a challenge.

For the money you’ve spent on Thunderbird, you could have bought the car.

You know that vodka is tasteless going down, but memorable coming up.

You say when your drunk what you think when you’re sober.

You know the best beer in the world is the one in your hand.

Beer does not make you fat. It makes you lean— against bars, poles and tables.

You always drink Irish Coffee for breakfast because it contains all four adult food groups: fat, sugar, caffeine and alcohol.

You don’t drink anymore . . . of course, you don’t drink any less, either.

Your bartender never has to ask, “Do you want another?”

You recognize that vomiting is just the body’s way of making room for another round.

You distrust camels or anything else that can go a week without a drink.

You’re favorite method of dieting is the “Slim Jim”: Ultra Slim-Fast shakes made with Jim Beam.

Absolut wants to run an ad featuring a picture of your liver in the shape of a bottle.

You only drink to get rid of hangovers, and sometimes it takes all night.

You know if you give up drinking you won’t actually live longer — it’ll just seem like longer.

You spend ninety percent of your paycheck on drinking and waste the rest.

You fell down two flights of stairs and didn’t spill a drop.

You don’t mind blacking out because it makes Sunday confession much less embarrassing.

When you wake up hungover you’re afraid you’ll die. Half an hour later you’re afraid you’ll live.

You wonder why people need friends when you can just sit in a room and drink all day.

You believe the only Absolut(e) in life is vodka.

You went on a diet, swore off drinking and bar food, and in fourteen days you lost two weeks.

Booze may not be the answer, but it helps you to forget the question.

You exist in a perfect Zen circle: you drink because your wife nags and she nags because you drink.

You got so drunk on St. Patrick’s day it seemed like every other day.

You must have a drink by eleven, it’s a deed that must be done. If you can’t have a drink by eleven, you must have eleven by one.

If a man gave you a fish and you’d eat for a day. If he taught you to fish you’d sit in a boat and drink beer all day.

If it weren’t for the olives in your martinis, you’d starve to death.

When your spirits get low, you use a straw.

You’d go on the wagon, but can’t find one with a bar.

You always cook with wine. Sometimes you even add it to the food.

You drink a bottle of wine everyday. Unless you’re sick. Then you drink two.

You refer to grapes as “wine eggs.”

You can walk into a 7-11 at 2am, look at the cheese dog that’s been mutating on the grill since 8am and think, “Man, that looks tasty!”

You know liquor gets better with age, because the older you get the more you like it.

You only drink to steady your nerves. Sometimes you get so steady you have to be carried out.

You drink to make other people appear cool enough to hang out with you.

Quitting drinking is the easiest thing in the world. You’ve done it a thousand times.

You have a reserved parking space at four different liquor stores.

You woke up feeling really strange, then realized you didn’t have a hangover.

With a bottle of Passport Scotch and a suitcase of Stroh’s you can go on vacation without ever leaving your house.

You never drink anything stronger than vodka before breakfast.

You make a point of never drinking before noon. Which is convenient, because you’re never up before three in the afternoon.

One of your hobbies is sitting down and calculating exactly how much liquor your next paycheck would buy at the liquormart. Just out of curiosity, of course.

Your co-workers start whispering with concern when you don’t come in with hangover.

Your boss tells you to “Shape up or ship out,” and you reply, “You mean like a cruise ship? Are the drinks expensive on cruise ships?”

The whole terrorism deal became very clear to you when you found out muslims aren’t allowed to drink.

You wish you were closer to Jesus, especially when he’s doing his wine to water thing.

A cold cement floor looks comfortable and inviting.

You wish temperance leagues still sang anti-drinking religious hymns outside bars, because, you know, it’d be a very funny thing to watch while getting hammered.

You think alcohol-fueled automobiles are the wave of the future because, hey, it certainly works for you.

You think a wrong number is an adequate excuse to go on a bender.

“Going out for a beer or two” sometimes means waking up in Vegas three days later.

You hated Ted Kennedy until you realized he can probably outdrink you.

You always confuse the words picture and pitcher, especially when someone says, “Hey, take my picture.”

You happen to share the same home town, ethnicity, lifestyle, opinions, occupation or whatever-the-hell of whoever happens to be buying the drinks.

You consider vodka a chaser.

Your roommates say good morning to you and you haven’t been to bed yet.

You volunteered to work for free for NASA when you heard about the gas clouds in space containing billions of gallons of alcohol.

You know a bottle of Jack under your bed is worth a million bottles in the liquor store after midnight.

You have told a bartender: “I didn’t hear anyone yell last call. How could I? I was in the bathroom, vomiting in your urinal.”

Half the bouncers in town know exactly how much you weigh.

You know that time is never wasted when you’re wasted all the time.

You use Calvin Klien’s new aftershave, but don’t really care for the aftertaste.

You refer to your mouth as your “booze hole.”

You wish bartenders would spend more time ‘tending’ and less time ‘barring.’

The first thing you say when you walk in a bar is, “I’m not still 86’d, am I?”

You’d go to Mass more often if they weren’t so stingy with the wine.

When you were in high school you had a poster of W.C. Fields on your bedroom wall.

You drank ten bottles of wine last week and didn’t need a corkscrew once.

You prefer Hamm’s and eggs for breakfast, minus the eggs.

The rotgut whiskey you buy is so disgusting you have to drink the first half the bottle just so you’ll be drunk enough to put up with the taste of the second half.

Whenever someone starts reading a bottle of Jack Daniels you say, “Quit cheating!”

You don’t sniff the cork, you chew it.

Your career is interfering with your drinking.

You get so drunk Bud Light starts tasting like beer.

You read this magazine until you fall asleep, then use it as a blanket.

You heard you get drunker at higher altitudes so you always drink on top of the dumpster.

Your alarm clock is a garbage truck.

You’ve worked out a devious plot to steal Einstein’s brain. So you can drink the alcohol it’s stored in.

You masturbate to the liquor ads in Playboy.

You show up at the flu clinic to investigate rumors of  “free shots.”

You have a born-on date tattooed on your beer gut.

You hold a bottle of hair spray and say, “Man, if you were ice cold.”

You’re addressed by three separate liquor store owners as “the guy who paid for my houseboat.”

You often confuse the word breakfast with Bloody Marys, i.e., “What are we going to have for Bloody Marys this morning?”

You know that liquor is especially tasty when it comes from the secret hiding place in your roommates’s closet.

You can, in a pinch, construct a fully-operational keg tap from a cigarette lighter, two clothespins and lots of love.

You get in a heated conversation with your barstool neighbor about the proper way to vomit from a moving vehicle.

At 2am you proclaim, “The party ain’t over until the fat lady says no!”

You need a cosigner to open a bar tab.

The monkey on your back is in rehab.

You know that, with a bouncer’s assistance,  man in capable of short-term flight.

You have recurring dream you’re hired by the Guinness\Playboy Research foundation to prove twenty pints a day improves your sex life.

You often take your lover for romantic strolls among the picturesque aisles of liquor superstores.

You will eat a bug for a shot.

You know wine is mentioned in the Bible over 250 times. Perrier? Not once!

You have strained cigarette-butt infested beer through your teeth.

You consider 3.2 beer on Sunday as Uncle Sam’s cruel taunt.

You can hear someone whisper “free beer” from three blocks away.

You know the heartbreak of watching the bartender dump the spill tray.

You call the bartending academy, inquiring as to what they do with their mistakes.

You refer to your refrigerator as “the stand-up beer cooler.”

You give directions with liquor stores and bars the the major landmarks, i.e., “You’ll pass Argonaut’s Liquors on the left and Scooter’s on the right, then turn right on the street between the Satire Lounge and the Lion’s Lair, then continue until you see the tree that looks like a huge martini glass.”

You think vomiting is the body’s way of making room for the next round.

The first thing you look for on a wine label is the alcohol content.

You consider Aqua Velvet a daring after-hours liqueur.

You recognize last call as a secret signal that all unattended drinks are fair game.

When someone says “expensive wine,” you think “gallon jug.”

Four years of research and three hours of writing went into your masterful college thesis, “MD 20\20: Self-Esteem Enhancer For the Leisure Classes, or Cancer Cure for the Working Masses?