Cautionary Tales

I read an interesting article in the Washington Post the other day. It was about how to raise kids--specifically, should you or should you not tell your kids about your past indiscretions? There’s no scientific evidence saying that it helps or hurts your chances of having an idiot teenager. Sometimes it works to use your past as a cautionary tale, but then there are apparently instances of teenagers yelling retorts of “Oh you’re one to talk smokedog!” This reminded me of that HILARIOUS (unintentionally, of course) public service announcement from the 80s where the kid yells, “I learned it from yooouuuu!” Found it!



Wow. I totally forgot they say “Parents who use drugs have children who use drugs.” Well that’s ominous.

Anyhoo, this got me thinking. If I knew more about my parents, would it have made me behave better as a teenager? Then I remembered that this is a pointless question, because my mother was a perfect angel growing up. She didn’t drink till she was 21, she “puffed on a cigarette once but didn’t inhale,” and she also...wait for it....never smoked a “marijuana cigarette.” She actually called it that.

Of course then there’s my dad, but good luck getting any info from him. Although my siblings and I joke that he was born wearing a suit and tie, I still suspect he did some crazy stuff as a kid. I had to get it from somewhere, right? So if he had opened up, would it have stopped me from getting drunk at 13? I sort of doubt it.

Then again, if my sister had told me not to drink, I probably would have listened. She is responsible for my clean lungs after all. After she started smoking in high school and quickly became addicted (she's since quit! Holla!), she begged me not to try it until I was older. Apparently if you smoke for the first time after age 18, you're less likely to become addicted. So I listened. I didn’t smoke my first cigarette until I was living in Spain at age 20, and thank goodness I listened to my sister because MAN did I like it. Of course when you wake up the next day with no voice and a pounding headache, you can thank your pack of ciggies. Someone should have told my sister the old Spiderman line though--with great power comes great responsibility--because she also wielded her power over me for entertainment purposes. She was, after all, responsible for that drink at 13. Little did she know that I'd been sampling from the liquor cabinet since 12.

Luckily for my kids, I have a real cautionary tale, and it has nothing to do with how early I started hitting the bottle. It’s a little lesson called Why Drinking Games Are Bad. It is similar to another lesson, How Binge Drinking Can Kick Your Ass. Starting at age 21, when I was a senior in college, I started getting these wicked hangovers. They are the stuff of legends really. I can never tell when it will happen, because I can drink a lot and feel fine, or I can have a few drinks and end up hating life. I can drink only wine and feel horrible, or I can savor the holy trinity (which, children, means wine, beer AND liquor) and get up at 6 the next morning to go for a jog.

This past weekend I think (hope and pray) I may have experienced my last illustrious hangover. It all started with a game of beer pong with Scooby and some friends. I played a couple of games and actually did quite well, but stumbling home, I worried I might have overdone it. I even got the hiccups, which is a sure sign of trouble.

The next morning I woke up at 7 a.m. And that’s when the puking started, which didn’t end until 6 p.m. I literally couldn’t hold down a sip of water or a single chewable Pepto Bismol tablet. I couldn’t roll over in bed, I couldn’t turn my head, I couldn’t stand up or sit down without needing to run to the bathroom to throw up. As if that wasn’t torture enough, there also wasn’t much on television, so I was subjected to a day of She’s All That, Because I Said So and Ocean’s Eleven, which I have seen 500 times.

I was luckily able to eat dinner (and breakfast and lunch) finally at 11 p.m. but I was thrown off for two days, feeling sort of lethargic, ill and depressed. I have decided to take an extended hiatus from alcohol. Clearly my body doesn't like it, so I feel like I should listed for once. The plus side is that I now have my cautionary tale. But is it wise to admit to your children that you played drinking games? What if they wonder what beer pong is, and you suddenly find yourself teaching them the rules along with all the important strategies to ensure victory?

It's a scary thought. I could end up on my very own PSA, walking in on a game of quarters to: “I learned it from YOUUUUUUU!”