One of the oldest and most tenacious myth about drinking, this. The order you knock back the booze in will not make you more drunk, or affect how disgusting you feel the next day. It's all about how much alcohol you drink, and how fast. However, the congeners - byproducts of the fermentation process - in some drinks may well make you more ill the next day. They also contribute most towards the marvellous taste though: so suck it up. Not literally though, you horrible people.
17. It Was The Drink That Made Me Do It
Actually, studies show that when drinking, the loss of inhibition in word and deed tends to occur before alcohol levels reach a noticeable threshold. While intoxication will indeed tempt you to act before your brain kicks in, it's often a learned behavior mechanism: you know what the feeling's like, and begin to mimic it in anticipation. It's called classical conditioning, and it's a recognised behavioural response, like being awful to people on the internet.
16. Blacking Out Is Just Like Passing Out
Passing out isn't the same as blacking out. Not by a loooong chalk. No, passing out is just falling asleep, only with less forward planning and dignity and more drool and inappropriate touching. Blacking out is chemically induced memory loss while you're still awake, and is one of the most nightmarish experiences one can have without being a character in a David Lynch movie.
15. It'll All Come Flooding Back To You Later On
What occurs during a blackout can never be recalled: the part of our brain that actually encodes the memory simply isn't on. You'll find that people will say that it'll come back to you in bits and pieces - however, that's just constructed memory, pieced together from what other people have told you, or a lesser variant of the false memory syndrome that affects chronic alcohol abusers. You can take as much comfort from that as you like. Most of the rest of us will be over here in the foetal position muttering "the horror... the horror..." over and over.
Professional writer, punk werewolf and nesting place for starfish. Obsessed with squid, spirals and story. I publish short weird fiction online at desincarne.com, and tweet nonsense under the name Jack The Bodiless. You can follow me all you like, just don't touch my stuff.
