This letter to the editor arrived over the weekend. Enjoy.

OK. Here goes. What I am going to do right now is describe to you the night I had last night, because I think it illustrates perfectly the reason why I binge drink. Do not read on if you are the type of person easily swayed by the glorification of sex, drugs and rock 'n roll, because reading this post may inspire you to go to your nearest liquor store, buy a bottle of Goldschlager, and wake up in a ditch.

The night started off rather innocuously at Darren's house. Everyone was Snusing which means everyone was having a good time. Despite the fact that Britt's sausage smelled like a dirty gym sock and Jon's "guacamole" turned out to be artichoke dip, the appetizers were, as a whole, very appetizing. The beer was also plentiful: A guy named Patrick showed up with a keg of winter ale, and anyone who's ever had their bellies warmed by a tall glass of the seasonal delight is familiar with the following mantra: Good winter ale equals bad decisions.

The first bad decision was to put on Limp Bizkit. It seemed like a good idea at the time: "Hey, let's put on some music that sounds like an elk bleeding to death and listen to it ironically and look at each other and laugh." But then without even knowing why people started to feel aggressive, like they wanted to fight people, and the girls started sneaking off to the kitchen to take solo shots of tequila. Pretty soon two bottles of champagne were broken out, people were writing on Chauncey with a permanent marker, and some guy pranced into the room wearing a bowler hat, twirling a cane. It was total chaos.

Luckily we managed to get out of the house alive and even made it on the bus, though the driver understandably chastised me for trying to get on with an open bottle of beer in my hand (I honestly forget I was even carrying it; it was not one of my finer moments). We went to the Baltic Room but left after I accused one of the bouncers of lying to me about the cost of the cover charge and then went to The Chapel where, though hoping to "take it easy" (due in part to my last experience at The Chapel that ended with me waking up with my pants off in a storage room of the downtown Westin [we'll save that story for a different time]), I found myself taking tequila shots with the bouncer and ferrying drinks to tables of complete strangers.

Now this is where things get hazy.

Let's fast-forward to later in the night when, for some reason, I'm wandering the streets of Capitol Hill by myself. Being drunk in public is never a good idea for me, but being drunk in public and by myself is a liability. Nothing good has ever come of it. So far it has led only to: losing my wallet, taking the bus home barefoot, and waking up on a strange couch in a strange house on 25th Avenue that has a weird, framed Papa John's Pizza poster on the living room wall. But anyway, if I had had a magic eight ball with me at the moment it would have said: "Outlook not good" or, if it had a setting for it, "Outlook really fucking weird."

Fast-forward thirty minutes. There's music. Loud music. I'm in the basement of some weird warehouse/office space multi-use building in Capitol Hill. I am in a small room. I am surrounded by four other dudes, all of whom have instruments. One of them is singing. Screaming, actually. He has a voice like an Iroquois battle cry. The others are playing guitars and one is playing a keyboard. Though I don't really know how or why, it seems I have become involved in a band rehearsal. I'm kind of tapping on a snare drum to try to fit in, but mostly I'm just standing there wondering who the fuck these guys are and why I'm in a tiny room in the basement of a building in Capitol Hill listening listening to a bunch of people I don't know play instruments. This went on for at least a half hour and then one by one they all started to leave, until it was just me and the screamer, who was still playing his guitar, still screaming. We didn't even talk. He played his guitar and sang, and I stood there and watched. And then eventually I left.

And this, I guess, is why I binge drink. I do it because when I binge drink I get myself into situations that are funny to talk about later, even if they often involve public humiliation and/or urinating in my dresser. The problem is: while these things can be kind of entertaining to hear about, they're not really all that fun for me. Most of the time I just wake up feeling hungover and confused, and usually a little bit poorer. And usually I lose stuff: Last night I lost my driver's license. So anyway, I've decided to put an end to it in the only way I know how, even if it means no more late night jam sessions with hoarse-voiced guitarists: I'm not going to drink for a month. Not a single ounce. Not a single drop. Because when I drink I binge drink, and when I binge drink I hate myself.

And sometimes I wake up in a storage room of the Westin with no pants on.

A blog devoted to the vicissitudes of this man's life can be found here.