The Diggs Report

I am posting this in the Broca’s area since, if you fit this, then that is how you sound at the end of the night ( Google Broca’s aphasic if you want to know more )

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Sometimes you look back on your life and have to think about the days you lost while you were consumed by alcohol. Do you ever think “what would my life have been if I didn’t drink that night” ? I look at a handful of people that I know, once knew and, of course, used to be in the group of ‘drinkers’ that would lose a weekend without a memory.

Now, I look at all of my friends and past friends and see that 10 years later, they are still carrying on the same as they did all those years ago even after life has changed. Many have kids now, mortgages, multiple car payments and are near broke on a weekly basis. Not because of the kids, mortgages and car payments but because they save every nickel in a jar or sprawled in a pile on the table just waiting to change that all in for a weekend of lost time. I say lost time because they waste the week away working just to look forward to the few nights that make the feel good but then, they really can’t remember them. I think that is why they do it every weekend, and then some do it every night. I fear for these few since I know they can do better with the money that is lost these nights. One is practically broke every waken day due to mortgage, truck payment and child support but yet, even when other payments cannot be made, he can still go out many nights a week, for hours at a time, and throw money at a bartender hoping it will make his days better. It doesn’t. You look at them and want to tell them “hey, you have kids and bills as well as many other responsibilities” but, then you just want to say “hey, dipshit, you are 30 …. get responsible”.

Do the math
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Average Consumption in one night ( from 8pm - 2am => 6 hours )

Beer = 2 per hour ( 12 x $3 = $36.00 )
Hey bud… put that one on my tab => 1 per hour ( 6 x $3 = $18.00 )
Huh… wha ? Shooters, 1 per hour ( 6 x $5 = $30 )

[ if you think my numbers are too conservative, then you need to rethink your priorities more than others ]

hmm…. so that is $84 dropped in just a few hours and that is just one night. Take that and average it out through a week and it can add up to about $150 - $200 a week, on what ? Oh yeah… nights we cannot remember and have nothing to show for.

$150 x 4 = $600 a month x 12 = $7200
( many of my friends have a 10 year running record on this )

$7200 x 10 = $72,000.00

Shit… I forgot one other major expense. Many of them would also increase their tobacco intake and smoke one pack in that same 6 hours ( you know alcohol prohibits the absorption of nicotine ). So add another $4 to every night or, $12 to every week or, $624 per year. I know, smokes have gone up over the years so lets make this easy when we look back over those past 10 years.

$500 x 10 = $5,000.00

Now, not sure about many out there but if I had an extra $77,000.00 in the bank, my life would be easier on a day to day basis. Almost to the point that I would not have to drink 4 - 5 nights a week to forget about the debt that I can’t pay tomorrow and what phone calls I will answer, and which ones I will not. But wait, that’s not right. $77,000 sounds a little low so lets say we did this. Lets say we took that “numbing money” and put it in a savings account every week instead of drinking it. That would have equaled an average or $600 a month, every month, for 120 months. After interest, you would actually have about $83,000.00 after 10 years. Either way, it’s money that you drank and literally “pissed” away at the end of the week.

For those who’s lifestyle matches what I have outlined above, and you are drinking in and pissing out every last dime you have every week. The next time you are standing over the toilet, puking or pissing out that nights “fun”, look at it very closely since that equal $80. And when your kids want that special toy for their birthday or, better yet, Christmas, look back at that porcelain money exchange pit and remind yourself why you cannot afford it for them. When you lose your house, remember to take your toilet with you so you have at least one reminder as to where all the money went that would have saved the house. You might let the repo-man take the car but, take the floor mats with you since you did deposit some of your money there. Remember, it was the night you did Kamikazes all night, chasing them with a Tequila shot every hour and at the end of the night, you were feeling a little ‘espanol’ and stopped by Taco Bell. You remember ? Remember ? Well, take the mats anyways since I am sure it will come back to you sooner or later.

So with this, I ask you, my friends, those who are close to me or, once were, slow it down. It was fun 10 years ago but now, it’s just a sign of where you’ll be 10 years from now. Drunk, broke, homeless, car-less with kids that visit when you are sober ( about once a month ).

The one thing many do not understand is that when your mind begins to display to you more than you can handle, you have two options to take with those thoughts.

[1] You can let those thoughts die, as many do with all dreams, and live the rest of your life in the ‘what if’ stages that many do. When you feel as if you are living your life in the ‘what if’ stage, then most likely you did not take the risk of jumping in with both fee when your mind tested you.

[2] You actually stop, write down everything that has just crossed your mind in this thought process and being to think outloud “hmm.. if I can do this, then I can do anything as long as I at least try”. That is what I call the ‘no blueballing the brain’ process. Why go so blunt as to call it “blueballing” ? Since you get a serious brain cramp everytime it happens and it will only go away if you actually do something about it. If just let these stack up on top of each other, your life will be in a constant ‘headache’.

Since your mind is full of many, many thoughts and many ideas that you have either observed at one point in time or, while you were sleeping it took over and showed you what you could be doing if you only stopped blueballing it. Us, as humans, go through each day looking to either learn something new, build something new or, watch someone else do what we hoped we could be do or should be doing. So before I start posting more to this blog of the random thoughts, you must first classify yourself into one of the following categories.

[A] I am a learner
[B] I am a builder
[C] I am a watcher
[D] umm.. what ?

Let’s have some fun and see where this takes us in the future.