The Path of Party

My drinking career has been about 8 years running, and it has been a simple expensive but not so beneficial endeavor. My first time getting drunk was a magical evening which I remember vaguely. I was very embarrassed about it for a certain length of time afterward for reasons I'm not so sure of. Mainly because I had puked the next morning and felt that wasn't the most hardcore/cool thing that could have happened.

Over the next few years I had some very good times at party's and different events that I thought were awesome. I'm sure if I could see them now they would be labeled lame, and just plain goofy.
I don't know why, but at a certain point in time my good friends had taken a different path than me. I often questioned to myself why they had done this, didn't they want to be cool? we never were as close ever again. Maybe they were shy, maybe they really did think the 'cool people' were douche bags. Maybe, they already knew what took me so long too see.
I can imagine how they felt, and what THEY imagined I was thinking myself to be. It must have been painful if not spiteful to see me unconsciously treating them as a burden when I was trying to hang out with the people I thought were supposed to be cool and beneficial to 'who i was'. Don't get me wrong they were cool, and we had a lot of fun. But at the time, I always remember being distant to them when we were hangin' out getting high and drinking. In the back of my mind I always thought about the guys I had left. The ones I felt had shown me true friendship.

When that party ended I had to move away to a nearby city.
This, turned into a new episode. A very different and NEW episode, and once again I was feeling as I did back in my junior-cool days. With this new crowd, they had taken the idea of 'partying' and implemented it into nearly every activity you could imagine it to be a part of. Some you might not even think of.
But this was so different than before, now that these guys do... I can drink on school nights too.
I can get high everyday before class and still pass. And, I can ride my bike around town because everything is closer and I obviously can't afford my vehicle anymore. This was great, I was living as free as I wanted too for a period of time. I was young healthy people didn't frown on me as if I were an adult behaving this way. It was all going somewhere. But, it was. It was going down.

It was my only financial responsibility, partying, drinking, getting high. There wasn't much that mattered. As the time went by I started to want different things again. With the job I was currently working I had quite the scam worked out and I decided I could afford to buy a vehicle with the paychecks that I wasn't spending.
I got the truck, and almost immediately afterward lost my job. So, that same day I got a new one. I was hot shit on the pizzas, y'know?
Now that I had it figured out again I was supporting a demanding lifestyle that took me different places each and every night. There was nothing that I wasn't ready to tackle as far as a social event was concerned. I had what I wanted, but still something wasn't right about it all, I was never comfortable. But, the presence of females in my life had lessened quite substantially, and I thought maybe this is whats making me feel insecure. Although I had some hopes here and there, I didn't get to see many girls.
I turned 19 and got ready for the bar scene, I also decided to go to college for electrical engineering technology ( i thought it sounded 'impressive').
Even with all this to look forward too, nothing was right. I hated my job, I hated the problems my job created, the lack of time it left me with, I hated the repeat situations I was getting myself into with friends, and I hated that I hated all that.
I went to college though and found happiness for a short time. There, I had; different friends who's intentions seemed more righteous, potential girls to try and befriend, and whole new experience in the college atmosphere. Namely; Parties like we used to have them, there was a sense of it being fresh again. But, once again I couldn't forget about the friends who had shown me what real buddies were.
The decline from my college debut happened quite rapidly, but was constantly denied by me. I lasted the first year, barely. The second year was something of a joke.
I was in denial the entire time, I was not ready to be there. The second year was substantially more depressing than the first. I had lost my license to an impaired charge the summer before and had quit my job shortly after. In the meantime I sat in my room smoking what seemed to be an endless supply of severance pay and income tax money. That winter was a dark winter indeed.
All I could do was think, The only thing keeping me here were my thoughts.
I had no salvation besides pot and the weekend which involved a case of beer and more mass amounts of dope smoke and bullshit. For a short time I was playing music with some friends from the college that I had been working with. Also a girl which I had fallen for was part of this music project. We did have a decent time playing together but for the most part it always felt stressful.
One evening the guitarist/L.vocalist, the bass player, and myself gathered over a bottle of Jack Daniels.
This was indeed the only night we had ever truly clicked, and the feeling that I had was one of an incredible drunk. We were communicating to each other through spirit alone, and nobody would stop for mistakes because they didn't exist. There was only great music and we could all feel it.
Later on, we tried to communicate to the other band member what had happened that night. But, my two companions only tried to show her the voice of what we had done. He tried to show her the songs we were playing at the time. And, that was precisely what did not matter. The feelings weren't their this time, and we all felt awkward at best.
This situation became overly depressing as it carried on, and it just had to end.
The next little while brought a few job opportunities that I flaked off on, and their were friends that I did similar too. The whole world was on top of me.
Eventually when the spring came I began to pull myself out of the binge drinking and smoke abuse that I was engulfed in. I felt very un-educated and rough around the edges for a time.
I went away with a friend to work in remote locations harvesting a plant used for medical research. It was a job that did not pay much, but did prove to be of some benefit (personally).

When the time came, my father mentioned to me a possibility of working with him at the heavy diesel shop where he was a mechanic. Since I had just previously conditioned myself to work grueling hours with nothing but a tent and some food, I was very motivated to take the position. It worked out great the first week. Things were going great and I was undertaking a new musical endeavor on the side. But after the first week, my dad left for a vacation for 3 days. The rest of the guys in the shop were also going to be absent for a few weeks, but I had been invited to work around the shop while they were all gone. A HUGE responsibility it seemed was handed to me. How great that was. Having the owner of a multi-million dollar set just hand you the key to the city. Almost like I was proud.