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I was at a men’s meeting the other day and a guy was pondering why he ended up naked at so many parties back when he was drinking. At first I laughed at the preposterousness of that thought. I chuckled for a bit but then I had to sit back and wonder myself: Why did somebody always yell “Let’s go streaking!” and then I’d do it? The more I thought about it, the more I realized I had done it many times before. And as I looked around the room, I noticed a lot of heads nodding and realized, “Holy shit, there’s something about dudes getting really drunk that leads to excessive nudity for no reason.”
There’s something about that scenario that rings true, right? And it’s mostly men from my experiences. I guess I’ve been at some parties where a drunk woman is dared to flash the crowd and does it. But at a higher percentage of drunken gatherings than you’d expect, I remember dudes just deciding it’d be hilarious to strip down to undies—or less—and then run around.
I remember finding it hilarious, and I don’t remember why. I guess maybe the sheer outrageousness of a dude (or five) stripping down is a pretty universal thing? I mean, we’ve all seen Frank The Tank in Old School. I still remember watching that movie at age 26, after most of my more wild hijinks, and thinking, “Oh shit, does everybody everywhere think it’s the funniest thing ever to run naked when you get drunk?”
I didn’t get too far into deep analysis of it before settling on why I think I did that back in the day… I think I was out of control and liked the out-of-controlness of doing the most absolute batshit things within a group of people, and suddenly being naked was certainly on that list. Same with throwing things, jumping off stuff, jumping into stuff, jumping over stuff, stealing stuff… I could go on and on.
Now fast forward to today. I was sitting in that meeting, listening to the guy discuss how booze always led him to being loaded and naked at parties back in the day. He said he was glad he doesn’t have to live that way any more, and I couldn’t help but look around the room and feel grateful that that collection of dudes is sober… and fully clothed. I can only imagine at sober retreats or youth recovery conventions if people had quit drinking but still decided to run naked once in a while.
“God, grant us the serenity to… hey Ted, put some freaking pants on, asshole!”
This newsletter is a place of joy and laughter about the deadly serious business of sobriety. So, as I will often do, let me close with a joke:
AN OLDIE BUT A GOODIE
One veteran alcoholic says the trouble with "Two-Stepping" is that you usually combine the wrong parts of the First and Twelfth Steps, i.e., "My life is unmanageable, and I'd like to share it with you."
(Credit: AA Grapevine, July 2004, by Anonymous)
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