It's no secret alcohol lowers inhibitions and sometimes messes with people's self-control.
Since I never saw the appeal of passing out, losing my memories of a party, or waking up in a strange place the next morning with nothing but the clothes on my back, I never drank myself past tipsy. That policy, however, enabled me to bear witness and remember the crazy things my friends did while drunk.
When I was in college, my roommate and I liked to cut across the woods to get to places faster. This was before every smartphone came with a built-in flashlight, and when flashlight apps were basically jokes. In order to get through the woods safely at night, we bought small, powerful flashlights at the start of the year.
We cut across those woods to get to a party one night, and my roommate got extremely drunk. There was an unexpected blackout during the party, so in addition to candles and battery-powered lanterns, my roommate turned on her flashlight. She was so drunk, she thought it was a person and fell in love with it. Every time the light shone on her, the flashlight was telling her it loved her too, but every time it shone on someone else, it was cheating on her.
By the end of the night, she was drunk that she dropped and broke the flashlight, and cried because she thought she killed it. I had to surrepticiously throw her flashlight out and replace it with mine, pretending that it had passed out, but wasn't dead. By the time we got back to our dorm, she broke mine too, but had fallen asleep right after, so there was no more crying.
Looking back, maybe it was a good thing this happened when smartphones didn't have built-in flashlights...
I'm not the only one who has witnessed someone doing something ridiculous when they were drunk. Redditors have both done stupid -- and in some cases, really bad -- things, and seen stupid or really bad things, and are eager to share.
It all started when Redditor S4phire34 asked:
"People who have been really drunk, whats the worst thing that you have done?"
Classic
"Had a Christmas party and there was a different party next door that was having an awards type event, I got up on stage and starting singing Jessie’s Girl. Even to this day I am mortified."
– princesssmurfet
"If it makes you feel any better, at least a handful of people at that awards show probably thought it was hysterical."
– TheMilkmanHathCome
"I was in a bar, thought it was open mic. Went on stage with the band (it wasn’t open mic) and sang ‘Brown eyed Girl.’"
– judgymom
Away From Home
"Fell asleep in the alleyway. It was dumb and dangerous. Friend found me."
– hotoatcereal
"Yup! Slept in a parking garage one time."
– Moneyshot_ITF
Nothing Good Happens After 2 AM
"It was a birthday and my friends brought me a shot for every year."
"Unfortunately I got sick on the side of a major highway in Rochester, NY @ 2:00 in the morning. Even worse I wanted them to leave me there to sleep…did I mention that it was in the middle of winter?? Lucky to be typing this post."
"I lost a lot of self respect and the moral high ground in any substance abuse conversation I will ever have with those friends."
– nytocarolina
Speech!
"Telling my girlfriends mother that i couldn't [sleep with] her daughter that evening cause i was too drunk to get a condom on."
– Various-Ostrich-5664
"This would keep me up at night for decades."
– Lukealove
"Wedding toast stuff. Obviously not directly but that deserves an inside joke nod."
– commitpushdrink
Ick!
"Went out drinking with fellow booksellers and got very drunk indeed. Had the brilliant idea to sleep close to the bookshop rather than go home. Walked around and eventually found a little hut near the car park for the attendant to work in during the day. Climbed through the window and slept in his chair."
"At some point in the night I felt very ill and rather than make a mess, I puked in the little drawer in his little desk. Filled it completely to the top, closed it, and went back to sleep. Woke up with a terrible hangover and went straight back to work. Remembered halfway through the day about the puke and have felt terrible about it ever since. Still find it hard to read Goldilocks and the Three Bears with the kids."
– MikeSizemore
Liar, Liar?
"Got arrested after puking on a cops shoes swearing i wasn’t drunk."
– BrushNo1369
"I'm thinking if he already had to have the conversation with a cop that he wasn't drunk, it was probably for whatever started the conversation."
– garbagedisposalpasta
Awkward
"My buddy told me he'd take me home after a night out. He got too drunk and didn't want to drive (good choice), so he called me a cab and got me a hoagie from Wawa."
"The last thing I remember was climbing into the cab. I really wish I could recall the events of the night after that."
"The next morning I woke up in someone's gravel driveway, no hoagie and no phone, I only had my wallet."
"I just hope I didn't ruin that cabbies night but I can almost be assured that I did."
– LeviathanIsI
That's Unfortunate
"I was too drunk to drive so I drove my RC car to the liquor store while walking behind it and it got ran over by a drunk driver. Rip SCX10."
– Car_loapher
"Hold on just the first half of this alone is f**king hilarious. “I’m too drunk to drive, so I’ll walk there. I just need to find a car to take…”"
– IronLusk
"Let me find my keys...er...remote."
– lightningspider97
All By Myself
"Trying to walk in higher heels than usual I fell into a swimming pool at a party where I didn't know the hosts very well. Nobody wanted to fish me out as I was wearing a long maxi dress it was hard to climb out on my own."
– tinkblueyez209
"So, people just straight up watched you struggle to get out while sneaking pics?"
– NottaPattaPoopa
Sound The Alarms
"Walked away from a party, went to my friends garage and slept. Woke up, went back. They had called police and coastal guard becuase they thought I had drowned or went missing."
– Den_dar_Alex
"Nobody checked the garage? Your friends sound like the bust."
– flacobronco
"Well everyone was drunk so no one thought about it. The garage was 2000 metres and owned by his dad. So would've thought to check there."
– Den_dar_Alex
Yikes!
"I came home very drunk one time and my roommate had baked this chocolate lava cake thing with a Betty Crocker mix. I took one look at it and started f**king devouring it with a spoon. He came into the kitchen the next morning and found half of it missing with very obvious spoon marks. I don't even think he got to eat any of it. Needless to say he was pissed."
– disgruntled-capybara
"Did you bake him one in repayment?"
– Beavur
"No, but I bought a replacement box for him."
– disgruntled-capybara
""Here, more work!""
– Tshirt_Addict
"duuuuude this is where you had to buy him a nice cake or give him the box plus his labor so like $20."
– ixlovextoxkiss
Woof, Woof!
"Stole the hosts lunch in their fridge, ate it, then threw it up all over their deck and it froze over in the -30°C weather and they had to hack it off with a shovel."
– HalfChineseJesus
"This is funny because if I didn't know the question I would guess a dog wrote this."
– mro777
"I threw a chicken into a swimming pool once, and then dived in to rescue it. According to my friend, I was so distraught that I took it to bed with me to keep it warm."
"When I woke up the next morning I had no memory of the night before and found a chicken in my shower."
– massive-bafe
"I was hesitant to hit this thread cause I figured it could be really dark but this has to be one the greatest stories I’ve ever heard in my life 😂"
– capnsmirks
"Was it a live chicken?"
– SentientRock123
"Yes. It was my cleaner's pet chicken, who lived in a small pen near the pool (the chicken, not the cleaner)."
– massive-bafe
A Lucky Break
"I was 21, maybe 22. Just transferred to UW-Milwaukee. Every weekend I was going out to the bars/clubs with a bunch of international students I befriended. One weekend, we all went to a frat party where some of the guys asked me to join. I wasn’t interested at the time so politely declined."
"Fast forward a couple of weekends later, me and my buddies are at a club and I got so drunk I realized I just needed to go home. I called a cab (Uber and Lyft wasn’t a thing back then) and (in my drunken stupor) realized I didn’t have any cash on me. The cab driver was so pissed he took me all the way back to the club that he picked me up at and dropped me off."
"I started walking home, fell down and broke my cell phone so I couldn’t call anyone for a ride. While I was walking, a policeman pulled up beside me probably realizing I was completely hammered and maybe needed help."
"Not sure why, but I told the cop I was part of the fraternity that had asked me to join a couple of weeks ago. He said “wait really? I’m an alumni from there. Get in, I’ll drop you off.” Brought me right back to my dorm lol."
– niemzi
If only we were all that lucky!
Elaine Miles/Facebook
@doctor_kristinm/Threads
@PeteHegseth/X
The White House