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By Gamal Hennessy
Click Here to Read Part 1
In part 1 of our drunken guide, we gave you tips on how to deal with strangers. Now let’s get to a more delicate subject; dealing with your drunken friends.
Friends: When your friend, date, client or family member is the drunk, it’s rude to just hand them over to the bouncer and keep on drinking like we did in part 1. It is a major undertaking to save your own personal drunk from himself. Shepherding a drunken companion is a sign of true friendship, but if everything turns out ok, it is also great ammunition for funny stories later.
Once you look over at your friend and realize they need help, focus on controlling their consumption, shielding them from danger and monitoring them for more serious conditions.
Controlling Their Consumption: The first thing your drunken friend probably wants is another drink. This is a bad idea, but as we saw earlier, logic is not in your friend’s vocabulary right now. Wikihow offers some suggestions on how to give them drinks without giving them drinks. If they call for another drink, try to give them harmless drinks. Try water, a very watered down version of their drink or just a soft drink. Depending on how drunk they are, you can simply hand them a coke and claim that it contains vodka. Unless they have very sensitive drunken palettes, they might not notice, especially if you're distracting them (hint: distracting a drunk is normally easier than distracting a sober person.) Don't give them a lot of stimulating drinks such as tea or coffee since this can accelerate dehydration. And don't force a drunk person to eat, since it could create a choking situation.
Shielding Them from Danger: Your friend needs protection when he is drunk because he can’t do it himself. First, you need to make sure he doesn’t engage in risky behavior including driving a car, fighting with other people or trying to make out with random individuals. Do your best to help your drunk avoid physical injury, especially through falling. Nicole John is the most extreme example of this hazard, but even a fall on the dance floor can be dangerous. Help them find and stay in a safe seat or even sit them the floor. It’s not the cutest look, but they can’t fall very far if they are already on the floor.
If your drunk needs to visit the bathroom, accompany them and wait for them to make sure they don’t slip and bang their head on the toilet. Above all, don’t leave them alone to sleep it off in any venue. They could be molested, robbed or snatched from the venue by a stranger.
If it is possible, try to deal with your drunk’s personal effects after your drunk is safe. Make an effort to find their phone, make sure their tab is closed and collect whatever clothing or accessories they discarded in their travels.
While you are looking out for your drunk, don’t forget to look out for yourself. Avoid saying anything that could provoke or anger the intoxicated person, since you don’t want the person you are trying to help fighting with you. Do not try to physically lift a drunken person or stop someone much larger than you falling down–you may injure your back. Instead, concentrate on protecting their head.. If you need help to help your drunk, look for the operators. It might be embarrassing for your drunk, but it is better to ask them for help than to have them kick you out when your drunk gets out of hand. Besides, a little embarrassment is a small price to pay to avoid more long term problems.
The final step in shielding your drunk from danger is getting them out of the venue and back to a place where they can safely wait for their hangover to arrive. That could be their place, your place or any place where they can crash. Your social relationship might prevent you from monitoring them after they leave the venue, but in extreme cases it is advisable to keep an eye on them.
Monitoring them for Serious Conditions: Once you make sure your drunk isn’t continuing to drink, fighting with the bouncers or sleeping in the street, you have to make sure they are resting safely. It helps to lie them down in a recovery position (on their side with the higher knee bent). to prevent choking. Put something behind their back to prevent them rolling back onto their back or stomach because vomiting in either position can cause them to choke or drown. Just because Jimi Hendrix did it doesn’t make it cool.
As they sleep, look for signs of alcohol poisoning including:
● abnormally slow breathing
● unresponsive to being prodded and pinched firmly
● blue lips and fingertips.
● rapid pulse.
● vomiting while asleep and not waking up even when vomiting.
● cold clammy hands/ feet.
If your friend starts to exhibit these symptoms, then it is time for you to stop helping them and time for medical professionals to start. Call 911. High levels of alcohol poisoning can lead to respiratory failure, coma or death.
I’m offering these tips with the understanding that I am not a medical professional. I’m just a guy who has caught a couple of falling drunks in my time. We all have too much at one time or another. Hopefully these tips can help you and your drunk get through the night so everyone can live to drink another day.
Have fun.
G
2 comments:
As a nightclub owner, I can tell you that dealing with drunks is pretty much a full time job. It can be sort of a hypocritical position since we sell alcohol to make a living but tend to loath its repercussions. Don’t get me wrong I respect alcohol for its medicinal applications, its uncanny ability to temporarily mend a broken heart, ease the pain of a lost job or even a lost friend. Its also a great social lubricant, offering that extra bit of confidence to get on the dance floor or speak to a cute stranger. But there is a fine line, between drunk and DRUNK, and more importantly between being a drunk and an alcoholic. A drunk gets more and more intoxicated the more drinks they drink, and alcoholic can change their entire persona with just one or two. Either case is a very delicate situation that needs to be handled with great care. In the case of the drunk the first course of action is HYDRATE HYDRATE HYDRATE! It is amazing how a person’s entire demeanor can change with just one or two bottles of water. They tend to miraculously return to a more manageable common sense. In the case of the alcoholic good luck getting them to take any good piece of advice. Once the superman syndrome has set in there is very little to do to bring them back down to Earth. Having to deal with an alcoholic rage can be a very scary and dangerous thing.. In my experience the few things that can work is attempting emergency humor, trying to get that person to laugh really helps, the other is to distract them by getting that person to start thinking about food. “God I could really use a burger or pizza right now, couldn’t you?” It will usually take a group effort by all their friends to collectively stop the party and all go home with the main focus to get that person safely into there own bed and then hopefully and eventually into AA.
All of Gamal’s tips are right on the money, safety first, not that cute boys phone number. It can be the ultimate buzz kill when you find that your friend is completely unconscious in a corner somewhere. When that happens it is important to notify the venue’s manager right away. When we get on the scene the first thing we do is take cold water and with a rag cool down all pressure points, wrists, back of the neck, forehead, and also try to get them to drink water! If the person is not responding, and as drastic as it sounds proceed to pour cold water directly on their head, down their back and on their ankles. That usually does the trick pretty fast, if there is no response call 911 immediately.
Obviously drinking and partying goes hand and hand. The best way to make sure it is an enjoyable experience for all is to look out for eachother. Just because it’s your friends birthday doesn’t mean they have to do as many shots as years they have been alive. Make sure you all eat before you go out and don’t forget to drink water in between cocktails. Seriously. It’s that simple. Also if you know you have that one friend that always drinks too much, always starts a fight and always ruins the night, don’t think for one second tonight will be different , maybe the more you exclude them from your plans the sooner they will realize they need help.
So rock on, enjoy life, and remember every time you go out to drink there is potential for pleasure or pain, love or misery and even life and death. So as corny as it sounds drink responsibly so you can live happily to drink another day!
Thanks for the comment Ariel. We need more imput from actual club owners. :)
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