The 5 Stages of Drinking

Fare thee well, bile, you that were the taste of youth.

Stage I - Underage drinking: 13-17

Most of teenage drinking is an ongoing failed quest for booze. Thankfully, every community has one dodgy cornershop celebrated for selling spirits to minors. God bless those enterprising newsagents who value their bottom line over children’s lives.

The plan: a group of schoolmates form a tight huddle. Everyone pools pocket money into the hand of one 13-year-old with the very first etchings of a soul patch. After a few booming rehearsals of “Just these please, mate,” he steps through the beaded curtain of no return. Ding.  

A hurried transaction later, the kid returns a legend. The gang embraces him like the homecoming heavyweight champion of the world. 

If that fails, kidults skim a few cm off every leftover liquor & liqueur in their parents’ cabinet. Each week’s plastic bottle holds a new chemical discovery with its own singular burn. Otherwise, there’s always a sympathetic sibling, a bribable crackhead or a parent somewhere on the laid-back - irresponsible scale. 

With no tolerance or shelter, the chaos of underage drinking spills out across the nearest park. 

Teen drunk is like a bad actor’s improv of a career barfly. After half a can, everyone is propping each other up and slurring out proclamations of love. Any attempt at standing on the spot stumbles to a figure of eight. Each kid is closer to falling than walking, tasting wet grass every few feet. 

One young hell-raiser will piss down a steaming slide or commit a few small-fry acts of vandalism. The kid who's good enough at football might end up clattering teeth with some girl and getting the bulk of a handjob in a nearby hedgerow. 

What a time to be alive - for as long as you were. For a limp teenager, chucking up guts is often medically advisable. At least one night will end vomiting apologies onto a mate’s mum or a paramedic.

Trying to play it cool, juvenile drunks crash back through their front door - inevitably giving the game away the fourth time they ask their mum for toast.

Stage II - Clubbing: 17 - 19

At the turn of 18, or slightly before, any roofed dance floor is the most exhilarating place on earth. The fresh thrill of drinking inside is too mystical to resist, and each Saturday night is more exciting than the Friday before.

Drunk on youth and neon gloop, brand-new adults can dance past 4 am to anything resembling music. This stage is summed up by agreeing along with that wretched anthem that “tonight is going to be a good, good ni-i-ight!”

Falling about nightclubs presents an excellent opportunity for young clubgoers to get their noses force-tested. Normally, for the ever-so slightest of infractions, like dancing near some local hardcase, while small. 

Don’t kids regain consciousness in the darndest places? Youngens come to with a bouncer pounding on the cubicle - or inches away from a tray of shaven meats. 

Stage III - University: 18 - 21

Universities are learned and prestigious institutions. Here, the brightest young minds of our time engage in the scholarly pursuit of blacking out on a budget. The simple equation for collegiate boozery is: drinking as much as quickly as cheaply possible.

That takes shape in: swilling down metallic lager and off-white vodka from the 22-7 store; feeling duty-bound to gag down some hateful concoction, just because 5 or 6 strangers in a kitchenette chant some scrummager’s shanty; playing drinking games first propagated across campuses by the taxi-reupholstering lobby; draining £1 pints that bite like a child’s first sip; mainlining two-storeys of turpentine cider via a hosepipe taped to a funnel; and an average night out that consists of a bottle of Frosty Jack’s cider, 2 pills and a concussion.

It’s no wonder alcohol exits student stomachs at the same velocity it enters. In the hope of recovering, they’ll even hurry the process along with a helping hand to the gullet. 

Only in a touch-and-go taxi ride does the mysterious purpose of the car roof handle reveal itself. There is about half a unit between: so drunk you don’t need to buy a drink in the club, and not so drunk you don’t get into the club. Therein lies the greatest challenge of student life.

Stage IV: Pub drinking: 27 - ≈33

In their late 20s, most drinkers want nothing more than to fade into the background of a snug little establishment, with those few people on earth worth leaving the house for. That’s 3-6 pints of well-carbonated lager - and, if things do spiral violently out of control, some crisps.

While the buzz of unconfirmed wankers is comforting, the average booth-grouch has no desire to test out any one of them. The background noise reminds them they’re still alive, without the strain of taking part in any of the actual living.

Last orders don’t seem so unfair anymore. Someone might suggest tearing up a local nightclub, but only in a half-hearted attempt to unnerve the others. With not a shred of plausibility, they’ll all see the joke coming anyway. 

Night outs are now reserved for special occasions, music and people.

Stage V: Grown-up drinking: ≈33+

For the most part, grown-ups get discretely totalled behind closed doors. Nothing like a few glasses to soften, and solidify, everyday exhaustion. Let’s get the kids off, then crack open that red.

Boozers of a certain age polish off a bottle with every meal, citing the French as justification. Drinking in moderation - constantly. Sipping closer to the mature, respectable, sophisticated alcoholism society pretty much encourages. 

Grown-ups consume alcohol to stomach relatives, rather than celebrate friendships. Even accounting for the existence of infinite universes, and infinite permutations of our lives, going out-out is not a possibility. These eventual homeowners can no longer remember the dry tang of their own sick. Fare thee well, bile, you that were the taste of youth. 

Each stage of drinking brings its own pleasures and dangers. It’s important to not cling on to any of them too dearly - or even booze itself. There’s only a few years of lessening fun between a student bragging they’re “literally an alcoholic” and a grown-up accepting they’re literally an alcoholic.