The Bender Defined

[Clark]

Sir, your point is well taken. But may I suggest that you speak of "performance-enhancing drinking" and not the, "I'm so sh*tfaced drunk that I will blindly drive my car into and through a large retail store!" sort of drinking that lands one in jail long enough to learn to enjoy the taste of Kitty Dukakis cocktails.

I know that when I take to the links at my Country Club I am a terror to behold when I have been properly lubricated. My swing is true and I can read the green in the same way that a cheetah can read the savannah.

My objection was to confusing drinking with athletics as if the purpose of drinking was to compete in a marathon of consumption against your fellows. That is a waste of booze in a misguided rite of young adulthood. The goal is not to drink one's self blotto in order to be crowned with laurel. In fact, they generally don't give out medals and prizes to people who are passed out in a pool of their own vomit and urine. Such people only receive scorn and laughter. Sometimes they are given funny haircuts when they are passed out just to teach them the folly of their ways.

Mr. bluebottle, I understand what you are saying and agree: It is good to put a finer edge on a sporting pursuit with drink, but drinking itself is to be enjoyed and should not be a matter of competition in and of itself. This is just a waste of booze, liver cells, and what could be a good buzz if there were no need to prove one's capacity to drink other people under the table.

For me, the maintenance of an optimal glowy buzz is more important than drinking to a point where the brain shuts down the body. I am at my most jovial and productive when I maintain the "sweet spot" which has been for some decades now. When I seem glum, my staff urges me to have a few drinks and take a nap in my office. I follow this advice and have found the afternoon nap to be crucial to maintaining the sweet spot.

[daphne]

The difference between the Modern Drunkard and the run-of the mill drunkard or"alcoholic" is our control of the alcohol. In the hands of the weak, alcohol becomes a dangerous and seductive djinn, promising greate things but slowly taking control of your will and your soul. In the hands of the Modern Drunkard, alcohol is a tool, as simple as a wheel or a fulcrum and as powerful as a cyclotron or a library.

I want this on a tee shirt with the MDM logo in shades of opaque dark grey behind it, on a black fabric, with the words in white and red, made like a definition one would find in a dictionary. It must be on the back of the shirt, and a tiny MDM logo should be on the front left breast. If it doesn't come to be, I think I'm going to have to use the fabric paint I have and get creative.

It's beautiful, Barca. Brought me to slow down while reading this thread. Alas, I have nothing decent to contribute to this thread, as I can not bend at this time in my life to any great degree if at all. Not that I haven't been on a bender during my life, but I find that the kids are what I must "bend" towards when I'm on my own and Mr. Daphne is gone. I sit on the porch, reading and watching the big dogs run and long for the comfort of the pack. Sigh.

EDIT You know, the bender takes on a spiritual quality here, and I'm thinking that one's alcohol is a portable sweat lodge.

[Elijah Craig]

A drinking bender would not be fully complete if one did'nt pass out cold by 10 or 11 pm from hard drinking only to wake up around 3 or 4am and breaking out another beer (as a chaser) and hitting the ol' bottle again, at least 3 to 4 nights out of let's say a 7 day bender. If your not drinking like your on a vengeance; passing out, blacking out, pissing off, or disappointing friends and company your definitely not on a so called bender.

I used to drink 6 to 7 days a week SOP and go to work and I'm talking 3/4 to a full bottle of whiskey, tequila, or gin a night, always straight doing shots with beers as a chaser. One of my favorite things to do when I drink is watch a movie with a lot of drinking going on in it and do shots every time a character in the film does one. By the end of the movie YOUR ROCKING ROLL PARTY HAS BEGUN. After about 7 straight years of this it really began to catch up with me and now I only drink hard 2 or 3 nights a week.

[Johnny McAdoo]

Is the definition of bender becoming too narrow? I'm on a 2 week vacation/bender alone in the mountains and I've drank around 20 drinks (cheap beer and decent liquor, glenlivet and the goose) each evening into the night for 8 days now. A few bar drinks mixed in, but the distant/dui factor keeps me away in a sort of a fateful way. I get up, load up on water, load up on coffee, sometimes attempt to workout (detox sweats), eat and then buy booze and start drinking again by 4-5pm. It takes me a couple hours to clean up and get going in the a.m., and I feel incredibly exhausted, mental laziness is starting to creep in (which is against my quite distressing and against my philosophy) and I am having awful excretory issues, but today and one more day should cover my fill to go back to some intense productivity and prepare for another. But that is my issue, my flawed mantra is that I live by a balance of excesses.

[bluebottle]

Is the definition of bender becoming too narrow? I'm on a 2 week vacation/bender alone in the mountains and I've drank around 20 drinks (cheap beer and decent liquor, glenlivet and the goose) each evening into the night for 8 days now. A few bar drinks mixed in, but the distant/dui factor keeps me away in a sort of a fateful way. I get up, load up on water, load up on coffee, sometimes attempt to workout (detox sweats), eat and then buy booze and start drinking again by 4-5pm. It takes me a couple hours to clean up and get going in the a.m., and I feel incredibly exhausted, mental laziness is starting to creep in (which is against my quite distressing and against my philosophy) and I am having awful excretory issues, but today and one more day should cover my fill to go back to some intense productivity and prepare for another. But that is my issue, my flawed mantra is that I live by a balance of excesses.

i think there mjst be bourbon in the coffee, in the morning. also, drink all unfinshed beers too. strain the ashes. then go work out. i'll stick with my thought on keeping it going - first thing is to dive right back in with the beer or mixer with coffee. good luck in the mountains. i go there alot, most of my weight is from plastic bottles of beam and also wine sacks. keep pouring all day ithink. no breaks.

[ShinVegaI]

everythiings diff. in a 6 mot. to 1 yrs house.

[Pogue58]

Wow. This has more rules than a strip club. I always thought a bender was when you came to in a different city with a hooker and a tatoo and no idea how any of you came to be there.

[tim]

Oggar nails it with the self discovery angle.

Always,

Tim

[cannon1013]

[quote="Pogue58"] Wow. This has more rules than a strip club. I always thought a bender was when you came to in a different city with a hooker and a tatoo and no idea how any of you came to be there.[/quote]

I think that, in and of itself, was rule 14 B. I remember 'cuz 14 was "You should have at some time, unbeknownst to you, until you're informed months later, have offended beyond any reasonable repair- 1 member of the opposite sex, 1 nun, 1 airline pilot and at least 3 waiters."

[oneroundko]

Being that I've been away so long, and probably have been drinking too much to even remember about ModernDrunkardMagazine altogether, I will say that I had some rough benders last year.

I probably had at least 6 benders where I had to resort to shopping at WalMart for mouthwash with the highest alcohol content because I was so roughed up. I must say, that when one is coming down from the bender, it is probably the most painful experience of ones life. The last one (last month, straight vodka for the entire Thanksgiving week) after comming down and having to rebound to salvage a couple A's at college, I was sweating every night while I only slept maybe an hour.

In addition, my skin was almost like burnt, like I had been in te sun too long without sunblock. Also, I was sweating profusely the whole time in my sack, I couldn't sleep, and I started to fear nervous breakdowns. Coming off the bender, now that is something. It is terrible, I must admit. It probably doesn't help that I use sleeping meds as well.

[oneroundko]

Is the definition of bender becoming too narrow? I'm on a 2 week vacation/bender alone in the mountains and I've drank around 20 drinks (cheap beer and decent liquor, glenlivet and the goose) each evening into the night for 8 days now. A few bar drinks mixed in, but the distant/dui factor keeps me away in a sort of a fateful way. I get up, load up on water, load up on coffee, sometimes attempt to workout (detox sweats), eat and then buy booze and start drinking again by 4-5pm. It takes me a couple hours to clean up and get going in the a.m., and I feel incredibly exhausted, mental laziness is starting to creep in (which is against my quite distressing and against my philosophy) and I am having awful excretory issues, but today and one more day should cover my fill to go back to some intense productivity and prepare for another. But that is my issue, my flawed mantra is that I live by a balance of excesses.

i think there mjst be bourbon in the coffee, in the morning. also, drink all unfinshed beers too. strain the ashes. then go work out. i'll stick with my thought on keeping it going - first thing is to dive right back in with the beer or mixer with coffee. good luck in the mountains. i go there alot, most of my weight is from plastic bottles of beam and also wine sacks. keep pouring all day ithink. no breaks.

Unfinished piss warm beer MUST be finished. There is no compromise in that. Even when I'm not on a bender (like right now) I finish all my beer. S---, sometimes I wake up and find them laying everywhere; no waste here. Beer is too damned expensive nowadays for the average Joe trying to keep it goin.

[The Drunken Songstress]

I agree with those that say it doesn't have to be for a whole week, but if its just waking up one morning and picking up from the night before thats more of a mini bender in my book. To me you'd have to get drunk in the morning, continue through the night till you pass out, wake up repeat, wake up repeat. Once you hit that third day and are still going, it officially becomes a bender. Also, you have to black out at least once a day 'cause anyone can slowly sip on a couple of drinks for a week straight.

A bender should be a grand adventure that no one can tell the tale of because they can't remember it for the life of them. But the drinking god's will know, and one day when we reach that big booze bottle in the sky, perhaps they will tell us.

I got an idea! Why don't we do what the martial arts people do and have some sort of a belt ranking system for the bender? Learning how to become a master drunkard is an art after all!

[oneroundko]

I agree with those that say it doesn't have to be for a whole week, but if its just waking up one morning and picking up from the night before thats more of a mini bender in my book. To me you'd have to get drunk in the morning, continue through the night till you pass out, wake up repeat, wake up repeat. Once you hit that third day and are still going, it officially becomes a bender. Also, you have to black out at least once a day 'cause anyone can slowly sip on a couple of drinks for a week straight.

A bender should be a grand adventure that no one can tell the tale of because they can't remember it for the life of them. But the drinking god's will know, and one day when we reach that big booze bottle in the sky, perhaps they will tell us.

I got an idea! Why don't we do what the martial arts people do and have some sort of a belt ranking system for the bender? Learning how to become a master drunkard is an art after all!

I had a couple nights where my dad had to come down and shut my Pink Floyd off because I had Division Bell on repeat too loud. I didn't even remember the next day that he told me.

It got bad though when I left a pizza in the oven and I almost burnt the house down--prior to which I was leaving burners on on the stove and I wasn't even aware of it. Now those are genuine bender issues there indeed.

[deadpuppiesandwhores]

Employment is the natural enemy of a bender. If you want a real one spend those vaciotion days and say "Fuck Hawaii!" It's time to deplete the war chest.

on my favorite bender, employment was no enemy. i walked into work shitfaced. walked into my foreman's office and informed him i was too drunk to fulfill my duties. i quit. it was fun. it was liberating. and everyone should do it at least once. be careful though, it can be addicting.

[The Drunken Songstress]

I had a couple nights where my dad had to come down and shut my Pink Floyd off because I had Division Bell on repeat too loud. I didn't even remember the next day that he told me.

It got bad though when I left a pizza in the oven and I almost burnt the house down--prior to which I was leaving burners on on the stove and I wasn't even aware of it. Now those are genuine bender issues there indeed.

You sound like me with the music. I find all sorts of anime songs on a loop when I wake up, lol. I got the Full Metal Alchemist theme to have a play count of 200 over night.

As for the oven, I'm the opposite. I have this weird ability that allows me to wake up (no matter how badly passed out) and turn off the oven right when the food would be ready...and thats without a timer. Creeps everyone out who sees it. Now when I do cause a fire...its on purpose but I never remember because I blacked out.