The first time I got a little "rosey" happened when I was fifteen. I visited my brother, Ben, for a weekend. Ben was already in his second year of college and well acquainted with the recreational side effects of alcohol. He seemed anxious to get his younger brother on the alcoholic learning curve, so my first night there he unleashed upon me bottles of khalua and tequila. I started small with a khalua and cream cocktail. That ended up being it for me that night. I might have graduated to the tequila shots Ben and his friends were maniacally pounding, but I was a little turned off after witnessing Ben's roommate, Giddeon, turn green and then spend the remainder of the night in the bathroom with a screaming case of dry heaves.

So I entered college without ever really having gotten plowed, and as fate would have it I ended up living on the most inebriated floor in the entire community. My first night at school I was privy to the drunken antics of half my dormmates, including one guy who threw up into a drawer full of his roommate's shirts.

I pretty much steered clear of all this activity until the whole floor organized a formal party. We cleared out an entire room and made a surrogate bar out of a desk. Everyone chipped in and got gallons of alcohol in all shapes and sizes. Being a "formal" party, we were required to dress up. I had absolutely no fashion sense then (like I have fashion sense now), and didn't own any nice clothes. So I arrived at this party wearing black pants, a white t-shirt, and a faux tie which was really the belt from my bathrobe.

My friend and floormate, John, more or less babysat me this entire night. We arrived at the party together, along with his roommate, Brett, who was the most inexperienced person I have ever met in my entire life (Example: Before college, he had never heard the song, "Stairway to Heaven").

Upon entering the party we were all handed kamikaze shots. I had never done a shot before at this point in my life, especially one with such an unfriendly name. I held the shotglass in my shaking hand for about fifteen seconds before throwing all caution to the wind and tossing its contents down my throat. As the alcohol soaked into my tongue and my esophagus I became blinded by the memory of the last time I threw up.

It happened about five years ago, when my mother and two sisters were away, vacationing in Detroit. I could sense my father teeming with excitement about having the women away, so the Lebofsky men could bond, be pigs, and not have to clean anything up after ourselves. In fact, the first night alone we didn't even bothering cooking dinner - we got McDonald's to go. I ordered the 9-piece chicken mcnuggets and a large fries. Normally, I would have gotten only 6 mcnuggets, but tonight I was feeling like a man amongst men, and how could a real man be satisfied with only 6 measly mcnuggets?

We brought our greasy booty home and feasted like kings. It felt great up until the last few fries which I crammed down into my stomach. Soon I found myself lying on the couch, moaning, clutching my bloated and aching gut. Ugh. My father entered the den, checking my condition. I rolled off the couch and onto the floor, and quickly belched a pile of used chicken mcnuggets onto the carpet. My poor dad, hoping to spend the week free from housecleaning responsibilities, now had to deal with puke of all things. He picked me up and threw me into the bathroom where I finished the cleansing of my system. Ben, with the razor wit, laughed throughout this episode, happily announcing that his younger brother "mcgurgitated."

The memory faded and I returned to the present day, holding an empty shot glass. I felt no signs of nausea or brain damage. I felt no desire to run screaming towards the bathroom. In fact, I felt like having another one of those kamikaze shots, and quickly did so, chased by some vodka/sprite concoction created by my roommate, Pete.

"So this is what it's like to be drunk," I thought to myself, surrounded by my peers who were acheiving the same buzz. I now fully understood what friends previously mentioned regarding the lack of balance and the shedding of inhibitions associated with the consumption of alcohol. John seemed to be having a good time as well, and we left the room full of sweaty young men to enjoy our high elsewhere.

It just so happened on campus this night was a midnight showing of the movie, "Altered States." How ironic. John, Brett, and I made it a plan to go see this flick earlier before the party, but Brett drank a little more than he could handle and crashed out for the evening. We instead enjoyed the company of Greg, a huge, heavy guy with long blonde hair who played bass and listened to Metallica all day and night.

After Greg stuffed his face with pretzels and popcorn to soothe his queasy stomach, we headed out across campus to the lecture halls where the movie would be presented. On the way we passed the main quad, and Greg found this to be an appropriate place to empty the contents of his full bladder. John and I stood there, pretending not to notice anything, as passing students gasped at the sight of Greg pissing on the Student Union building. Once finished he zipped up and we were back on track.

We reached the lecture halls safe and sound and waited in a long line with fellow movie-goers. Though I hadn't imbibed anything for an hour or two at this point I was still pretty much out of it and not very talkative. While closing my eyes and concentrating on the din of people chatting around me in line, I was approached by Jaime, a girl who sat near me in homeroom back in high school. Outside of this shared experience, we had nothing in common, we never spoke to each other, I hadn't seen her since graduation, and would've been just fine never seeing her again. However, she chose to be friendly and say hi as she recognized me in the crowd. Unfortunately I couldn't return the gesture, as every utterance that fell from my lips made no sense to anyone, including myself. She quickly disappeared and I then realized I still had the bathrobe belt draped loosely around my neck.

The theatre finally opened and John, Greg, and I poured in with the crowd. We found seats near the front and I let Greg sit on the aisle as to yield extra room for his monumental frame. I talked with John and we kept talking, even as the movie started. Greg, however, passed out in his seat.

The first ten minutes of the movie were intense, and I remember not knowing what the hell was going on, but being completely rapt as well. But I soon became distracted by the sight of Greg rolling happily in the aisle, as he fell out of his seat. With all my strength I pulled him back into his chair, and then his big ol' head landed on my shoulder. I leaned him forward in his seat as to lower his center of gravity and hopefully keep him put. John didn't notice any of this.

About twenty minutes into the movie, Greg's eyes shot wide open and he turned to me with an expression of deep sorrow and apology. He then twisted away and let fly the longest stream of projectile vomit I have ever come to witness. Barely digested vodka, pretzles, and popcorn flooded the aisle as people within seven rows of us screamed and scattered. Had I not been so sedated I might have panicked or swooned from embarrassment. Instead, I got John's attention, notified him about the situation, and we made the quick decision to leave.

We picked Greg up from the ground as people stared in horror. We carried him out of the lecture hall with his arms around our shoulders and into the foyer, where Greg took one look at the stunned students still selling tickets to the movie and yakked onto the floor by their feet.

All told, Greg vomited seven times on the long trek back to the dorms. Several times he told John and I that he could make it home himself and we should return to the lecture hall and catch the end of the movie. To my way of thinking, it would have been foolish to return to the "scene of the crime," so to speak.

Once back we plopped Greg in his bed, and revealed the details of our little escapade to the few dormmates who were still awake and wandering around. I drank some water and headed to my room, thereby ending my first experience of being drunk and promptly beginning my first experience with painful bedspins.

The bedspins evolved into a glorious hangover which I dealt with upon waking the next morning. John, Brett, and I washed up and dragged our sorry asses to the dining hall where I could barely touch my pancakes and hash browns. Instead I sat and listened to the people at the neighboring tables discussing the guy who threw up all over the place during the movie last night. Oh, my head.

Greg didn't remember anything the next day, which is sad, since this turned out to be a significant piece of history at the University of Binghamton. For the remainder of my college career I overheard people discussing Greg and the "Altered States" incident, and some even recognized me as one of the guys who helped carry Greg away.

So that's the first time I got faced. To this day I have been completely successful in knowing when to stop drinking once I've started, and have only thrown up once in the last twelve years during a non-alcohol related adventure. But that's a different story..