Most people like to enjoy a drink or two (or a few, or a lot) from time to time. I’m sure you’re one of those people. Maybe you drink to unwind after a rough day at work. Maybe you’re socially anxious and need a drink to relax at a big event or some large gathering. Or maybe you just like to cut loose and party, sometimes known as “getting fucked up” by us younger generations if you REALLY like to party lol. I consider myself part of that last group, but like many other things in my life, my ability to do so is greatly hindered by my disability. Allow me to explain how.

So we all know how alcohol affects us physically and not just mentally, right? Like if you have too much it’ll send you running to the bathroom to either throw up or take a dump. For me, it’s usually the latter. And unfortunately for me (and whoever is taking care of me at the time), it tends to happen after just one or two drinks. When I was younger, it used to hit me pretty fast, like within an hour or so. Now I like to think that I’ve built up enough of a tolerance to last until early morning the following day, but it’s still disruptive to my life because it forces me to wake up much earlier than normal. But occasionally I’ll drink and have no problems at all, which is even more frustrating because I can’t figure out all the factors that affect how my stomach reacts. Should I eat before I drink? Do I stop after one drink or can I have a second? Are there certain kinds of alcohol that affect me more than others? Am I drinking too fast or does it even matter? I have no goddamn clue what I’m doing.

And as I briefly alluded to earlier, this crappy situation (pun intended) doesn’t just affect me. It’s also hard on my parents and siblings who have to help me when the alcohol pretty much inevitably runs through my system. They have to lift me out of my wheelchair and onto the toilet and vice versa. They have to wipe my butt after I’ve finished taking care of business. They have to bring me a bucket or bowl to barf in on the rare occasions that I go overboard and get extra sick. For these reasons, they will oftentimes withhold drinks from me so they don’t have to deal with the consequences. As much as I understand why they’re doing what they do, it’s still really annoying.

I want to go out and party with my friends. I want to get drunk and make stupid decisions that I’ll either regret or laugh about the next day. I want to have the same experiences as any able-bodied twenty-something-year-old, but I’m not an able-bodied twenty-something-year-old. I’m a disabled twenty-something-year-old. I have to worry about things that able-bodied people don’t. I have to rely on others to help me with almost everything and they don’t. If I wake up in the middle of the night with the sudden urge to rush to the bathroom, I have to hope that someone is around and awake enough to hurry and help me so I don’t shit the bed or throw up all over myself, while an able-bodied person can usually take care of it on their own.

So how do I party it up and have fun with limited alcohol intake? That’s a question I’m still trying to find the answer to. As far as I can tell, the only alcohol that doesn’t seem to impact me negatively is wine. My mom has no problem taking advantage of that lol. She loves to have me try different wines that she and my stepdad bought, and she has often joked that she will force me to become a sommelier. But wine isn’t exactly a drink that’s made for partying, more so fancy dinners.

I’ve also been experimenting a bit with marijuana in recent years, which has had mixed results. There have been times where I’m totally relaxed and/or laughing my ass off. There have also been a time or two where I was totally paranoid and thought I was about to have a heart attack. It hasn’t completely scared me away from doing it, but it has definitely caused me to pay more attention to strains, methods (edibles vs joints or pens), and doses. So far I’ve pretty much figured out that I prefer edibles over joints and that I should completely avoid wax pens, at least for now, because they are way too strong for me. As far as dosage, it’s best if I stick with one to two puffs of a joint or a 5-10mg edible (at least until I build up my tolerance a little more). I haven’t actually learned anything about all the various strains with all the crazy names, aside from the basic knowledge of indica vs sativa, but I’m sure I can get one of my Cali friends to educate me.

At the end of the day, it seems that this situation essentially boils down to what kind of partier I choose to be. Do I party like a middle-aged woman, a stoner, continue to suffer with my weak bowels and liver, or become sober and boring? I don’t mean to insult those who are sober by choice or because of an addiction; I shouldn’t insinuate that all sober people are boring, but I would assume that it takes a big and confident personality to be fun without the aid of alcohol or other substances. As much as I like to think of myself as an extrovert, I struggle too much with nerves and confidence to be as loose and fun as I am with a little buzz going. For this reason, the last of those choices is out of the picture. I also believe that it would be difficult to stick to just drinking wine, even though I do enjoy it, because I’m sure that I would get tired of it after a while if I didn’t have some variety in my drinks (and I don’t have nearly enough skill to really differentiate all the types of wine). So that just leaves marijuana and suffering, which is kind of a funny sentence out of context. I don’t like to make big decisions without all the available information, so I’ll have to learn more about different strains and keep trying new things before I decide whether or not the stoner life is for me.

Now you’ve all learned a little something about me. I bet even the people who know me really well (outside my family) didn’t realize just how much my disability affects every aspect of my life, including my ability to party. And what have I learned from all this? Well…not much really. I may be book smart, but I’m a bit too slow and stubborn when it comes to street smarts. I guess all I can do at this point is just keep doing me and hope that eventually I figure out what my body can handle. Until then, who wants to come let this party animal out of the cage?