Deafness made me drunk!

A few years ago, I went to visit my friend in Birmingham for a night out with another uni mate. It was a very civilised affair – we had dinner in her lovely Jewellery-Quarter flat and a few glasses of wine. And then we hit the town…

Less than an hour later I was sat on the floor in a bar, vandalising a plant by pulling it’s leaves off, and generally being a deliquent, which for those of you who know me will know is quite out of character (honestly!!). Of that night, I remember little else…

The next morning I woke up, head crashing and convinced I’d done something terrible. With shaking hands, I checked my phone. No drunken texts to Boy-Who-Did-My-Head-In-But-Who-I-Still-Liked (I’m over him now), which was a relief. But, sat on a sofa, with my relatively unhungover friends, feeling like death, it lead me to question just why I had got drunk so much more quickly than them.

After much deliberation, it was Clever Katie who came up with the reason, apart from lack of self control, as to why I had gotten inebriated that night and guess what!?
I can blame it on my deafness!

You see, in the quietness of a living room I never get steaming drunk ahead of everyone else and, unless there is red wine around – which sets me off on the successful path to talking rubbish – I am the model of good behaviour.

But, once outside in the loud world of nightclubs and bars, I can’t hear anything so therefore I am often left stood there, nodding and smiling away pretending that I am following things, when in fact I am not. Bored and in need of something to do that makes me look less like the nodding Churchill Dog, I drink my drink. And, hey presto, I am on my fast-track journey to Pissedville.

And, so armed with this knowledge, I have spent the last two years trying to find other things to do in clubs, other than suck through a straw, when I can’t hear… it’s been a rocky journey of accidental kisses, dancing on tables and falling downstairs (actually it was Nikki that did that) – but the good news is, not all of this is done in the first half hour anymore and I remember nights out. Who would have thought that it was deafness getting me so steaming drunk in the olden days… naughty deafness – does that atone my behaviour at my Grandmother’s 80th birthday I wonder?

You know what the best news of all is though? I haven’t demolished any pot plants since either. Soil under the fingers nails is not a good look!