passing out at house parties, a talk with emma
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I hate to dampen the mood already, but today I'm going to be sharing with you two absolutely horrific stories. These events happened to me a few years ago, and I've hesitated to tell these stories because I wasn't sure up until now if they would be useful to people. But I've come to the conclusion recently that I think they can be useful for people for a few reasons. Number one, because these events could have been prevented.

if I had been a bit smarter about some of my choices. And I hope that you can learn from my mistakes. Number two, a lot of times we think that certain things won't happen to us. And so we can live naively in a way. And I think it's a good reminder that we need to keep our eyes peeled and we need to be aware of the dangers of the world.

It's obviously not good to consume yourself with them, but it's important to acknowledge that they're out there and they can happen to you and they can happen to anyone. And last but not least, there's something beautiful about knowing that other people have been through similar challenges to you. There's just something inherently comforting about it. And so hopefully one of these three, or maybe all three, if I'm lucky, will make this episode and these stories worth hearing for you.

These are two party horror stories. And I don't know exactly how to describe them because I'm still sort of unsure about what happened.

It'll make more sense as I tell the stories, but these are two stories about me going to parties and it ending really badly because I accidentally consumed something that ultimately made me unconscious. Okay. That's, but it's, but nothing bad happened to me. Okay. I mean, bad things did happen, but no one took advantage of me.

I'm so lucky and so grateful that I had people around me to take care of me when I ultimately passed out in these two scenarios. I cannot even express how grateful I am for that. But there's a lot of mystery still with these stories. This episode is brought to you by Walmart. Walmart has unexpected styles and trends that match your dorm aesthetic at prices you'll love.

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So the first time this happened was at a college party. It was one of my first college parties. I knew someone at the time who went to this college and they invited my friend and I to this party. And I was sort of excited because at the time I was young and I hadn't gotten to experience college.

because I obviously decided not to go, if you know that about me. And there was something intriguing about entering into this sort of college experience while not being at school. It was sort of scratching an itch for me, and I was very excited about going to this college party.

And at the time, I was single. So I was very excited about the prospect of potentially meeting, you know, a cute boy my age or something because I'd been hanging out with a lot of people that were a bit older than me. And so to set the scene, it was me, my friend who's a girl my age, and a boy who's also our age. I remember this party was kind of a

of a long way away from where I lived. Like I really had to drive to this party. And I remember just being so excited, but also a little bit nervous because I was kind of intimidated by college kids in a way. I didn't feel like I could relate to them very well. I felt kind of like an outsider, kind of like a weirdo. And so I felt a little nervous, right? Like, like, you know, all these kids go to school together and they all have friend groups and stuff. And obviously I have my friends that I'm going with, but

I just don't feel like I'm going to know how to chop it up with these kids. Like, I don't know how I'm going to talk to them. It's just, it's, I feel like an outsider. So we get to the party and we walk in and immediately my anxiety triples. I'm even more nervous.

As I suspected, there's all these different friend groups. It felt like there was a culture going on that I was not a part of. Like everyone dressed really similar and had the same vibe and knew each other. And I kind of was dressed different. And I just felt like I was not fitting in right in a way. And my girlfriend and I were like, let's go try to find alcohol so that we can have a drink.

This is a house party. So we're sort of just looking around like the kitchen or, you know, there was like this table outside. We're looking at the table outside and we could not find anything. And so we start asking around, like if anyone has any alcohol and nobody was really offering anything up. This is when things get out of control. My girlfriend and I spot this bottle of vodka behind a bush.

Now, in retrospect, this is a horrible idea to pick this up and drink it. Okay. It's a fucking terrible idea. But in my head at the time, I was like, we're at a house party. These are a bunch of kids. Somebody probably just put this vodka behind her so that nobody would drink it. It's probably perfectly fine. It's in a bottle. Like it looks normal. You know, what could be so wrong about it? And so my girlfriend and I take this bottle.

And at this point, we had consumed no alcohol. So we are completely sober. We both take a swig out of it. And I remember not being able to even swallow it. Like it was so strong. The alcohol was so strong. It was like ridiculous. Like I literally was gagging on it. And then we bring this bottle of vodka over to our guy friend. And we're like, hey, we found this. Do you want some? He takes a swig out of it.

From there, we all proceed to take one more. So I would say in total, I probably consumed a shot and a half. Now that's at max. Like I could barely swallow it because it was so alcoholic tasting that I don't even know if I got like a full shot and a half. I might've even just been a shot.

Either way, I have taken at that point in my life, many shots. Like I am aware of my limits. And honestly, for me at the time, taking one shot wasn't going to do much. It maybe, maybe make me feel a teensy bit buzz, but I'm not necessarily a lightweight. That won't do that much to me. So I wasn't expecting much to really happen. I was just expecting to maybe feel a bit warmer soon. You know, that was it.

Okay. I remember walking around the party for a bit longer and then I remember waking up in my bed and that's all I remember. Now, I remember waking up in my bed and being like, how did I get here? Only had like a shot. Like, how is this even possible? And

The two friends I was at the party with were also asleep at my house. And I was like, they didn't go home. Like what's happening? What is happening? And so the three of us sort of meet up and we're like, do you remember what happened? And we were all kind of like, no, wait, what? And so our guy friend calls his friend and was like, hey dude, like what happened last night? Like why, how did we, what happened? How did we get home to Emma's? Like what, what happened?

He was sober the whole night and he recounted the whole thing for us. So from what I can remember, he said, basically, we all started to get drunk or so it seemed kind of all over the place, kind of messy. And so he was like, OK, I think I need to take them home. They're starting to seem really, really fucked up. And so he put us all in an Uber and he got in the Uber with us to take us back to my place.

And apparently, we all started throwing up. It got so bad and we were all throwing up so belligerently that the Uber had to pull over at a gas station and the three of us just proceeded to vomit for like 15 minutes. Finally, when the vomiting stopped...

We got put in another Uber and ultimately got taken home where a few of us continued to throw up. But he put us all to sleep and we all woke up safe and sound the next morning. None of us remember any of this happening, which is the most bizarre and insane part of it all. We don't remember it at all.

few conspiracies about what happened because obviously there's no way that the three of us, especially the boy in the group who was an athlete, is an athlete, is very tall, can consume a lot of alcohol without experiencing the effects. Like there's no way we all had the little, little teeny amount of alcohol that we had and then had this impact. There's a few things that could have potentially happened. What I think it was is ever clear.

Apparently, Everclear is an incredibly strong type of pure alcohol. Vodka is 80 proof, whereas in Everclear, I guess it can be as high as like 190 proof. So it's like double as strong.

as vodka. And I mean, I have no idea where they would have even gotten that or like how that's even possible. What my conspiracy is that they put Everclear or some sort of really pure, strong, strong, strong alcohol in order to who knows what they were going to and why they didn't keep it in the Everclear bottle. Maybe it was for some sort of evil purpose. I don't know. But

All I know is that something very odd happened there. And because we didn't go to the hospital to get tested and truly figure out what happened, there was sort of no way of knowing. And the whole thing was just so bizarre. I will say at the time I was very young and naive. And so when this happened, yes, it was traumatic, but I wasn't really fully conscious of how dangerous this

that situation really was and how badly it could have gone otherwise. I was still sort of naive to that. I was also more negligent with my life. Like I didn't really take good care of myself and I didn't really worry about myself at the time. Whereas now I'm the complete opposite. I'm very concerned about my wellbeing and my health and I'm

super observant about things going on around me and I'm very protective of myself now. But that was not always the case. What I wish I would have learned from that experience was, number one, don't drink random bottles of alcohol that are out of house.

you know, I'd love to say that's fine. Like if you know everybody who's throwing the party, you know, it's fine. But I honestly have made it a rule in my life to never do that again, unless it's like a small house party and it's just my closest friends or something. And I know that they're not going to do anything weird with the alcohol. I'm not touching random bottles of alcohol fucking anywhere. The only thing I'll consume at a house party is drinks that are in cans.

for the most part, you're going to be fine with drinking out of a can. But, you know, I wish I would have learned that then, but I didn't. And so I didn't really learn my lesson from that experience. And it proceeded to happen again a while later. And the second time was far worse. This episode is brought to you by Bumble. Dating can be exhausting. Even just getting to the dating stage is a little bit overwhelming. You know, I'm not somebody who loves casually dating. I like to be in a relationship.

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Head to squarespace.com slash Emma for a free trial and use code Emma to save 10% on your first purchase. This next story took place at another house party. I attended this house party with a slightly larger group of friends. I was with a guy I was dating at the time, maybe three or four other friends.

And this was a birthday party, but it was a very well set up birthday party. Like there was a bartender and a bar set up and it was very professionally done. And this is not a place where you would assume anything would go down. I mean, obviously...

It can, and it did. But in my head, I didn't expect anything to go wrong in this environment. In fact, I knew kind of a lot of the people that were going to be there. Like, it was not like a group of random people. There were definitely random people there that I did not know. But I don't know. I just kind of expected it to be a safe environment. I show up to this birthday party, and I will admit that I was already...

feeling drunk. I was not fucked up or blacked out or anything. I was comfortably, happily drunk. And at that time in my life, I was actually drinking a lot. It was the summertime, if I remember correctly, and I tend to drink more during the summer. But I mentioned that because I was at a place with my drinking where I knew my limits. I had been drinking kind of heavily on a weekly basis for

six months at that point. And I was in a phase where I was consuming a lot of alcohol. Like I was drinking to get drunk, which is not something that I condone, but it was just a phase that I was in at that time. It wasn't like I had come off six months of no drinking. And then this was my first night out and I didn't know my limits. So I was very good at the time and very intuitive about, you know, making sure that I didn't overdo it. All of that to say, I went into this evening and

being like, yeah, I can have like two more drinks tonight. Like no problem. Uh, and I was feeling comfortably drunk and that was that. And I went up to the bar and I got a drink and I slowly drank it. I don't even know if I fully finished it. I might've like thrown it out halfway through. And then I think I got like one more and this was over the course of, I don't know, probably two hours, maybe an hour and a half, two hours. And after that second drink,

I don't remember anything. And I woke up this time in the hospital and I was stunned. It is one of the most unsettling feelings I've ever felt in my life to wake up in the hospital and not know how you got there. I've never experienced anything remotely like that feeling. It was

horrific. And I immediately started crying. I was sobbing, sobbing, sobbing. And I was like, I was speechless. I truly was speechless. I had no fucking idea how I got there. And I didn't have my phone. I didn't know where my phone was. I didn't know where anything was. And so I asked the

the nurse, when she came to check up on me, like, what happened? And she was like, you drank too much. I was like, what? How is that possible? Like, I've been drinking way more than I did last night for like months on end. Like, how did tonight? What? I was still very confused. And the nurse calls my friends to come pick me up and I get in the car and I just start

sobbing. I'm just sobbing and I'm so upset and I feel so bad and I'm so confused and I'm so mortified and I'm just filled with emotion. And I feel like at first I was blaming myself. I was like, I guess I did drink too much. I guess I did lose control, which was just so shocking to me because I was like, I've been drinking a lot for months and I've never once had an instance where it's been lights out the way that it was before.

at this party. Like it just, it was not adding up to me. And I was so, so confused. So my friends recounted the story to me. And to be honest, it made it even worse.

basically what happened was one minute I was normal. Okay. I was normal walking around as normal. I was definitely, you know, drunk and happy and outgoing, but I was very lively and a lot of energy. I wasn't puking or throwing up. Nothing was happening. And then all of a sudden they find me sitting on a couch passed out like literally five minutes after I was acting completely normal.

they all start freaking out and they're like trying to wake me up and I'm able to talk, but barely like I'm mumbling, like I can barely talk and my eyes are shut and I'm almost unconscious pretty much. And they're trying to wake me up, trying to wake me up. And word starts getting to my parents from my friends that shit's going wrong. And even other people at the party like are like, wait, what? And they're like trying to find my friends to be like, what's wrong with Emma? And

It was completely bizarre and out of character and like nothing that's ever happened to me. Everyone was just shocked. They could not believe that this was happening and they could not explain it. So my friends basically have to carry me out to the car and take me to the hospital. And my parents were on the phone with my friends and they were beside themselves. They were so upset and so frightened, which is so...

fucked up, like really upsetting to me. Like that, that was one of the most upsetting pieces of it to me was how scared my parents were. And they felt out of control because at the time my mom and dad both lived, you know, a six hour car ride away from me. It was two, three in the morning and

It's horrific. And I felt so fucking bad. Oh my God. I was sobbing when they were telling me about that part. And then they basically only tested me for my alcohol levels. They didn't test me for any drugs because my friends were like, no, she didn't get drugged. I mean like,

whatever. So I didn't get tested for any drugs. So who knows if somebody slipped a drug into my drink or possibly it was another Everclear situation where they put Everclear in my drink instead of vodka or whatever. I could actually see that happening. Oh, I should mention this last part because I had come to the conclusion that there was no foul play, right? That it was my fault that I had probably just drank too much on accident and just miscalculated and that it was my fault.

But then I started talking to other people who were at the same party. And one girl had a similar experience, except hers was even more extreme than me, where she had one drink, one, and passed out. Then I was talking to other people and they were like, yeah, like that night, like I fully blacked out. I don't remember anything. Like it was so weird. And so I started to hear through the grapevine that a lot of people were blacking out and

at this party in an unusual way. And that was when I knew that something weird was going on. And I don't know to this day what that means. You know, I didn't get tested for any drugs. My alcohol content level in my body was high. But how did it get that high? I don't know. And it honestly, it might have been Everclear. They might have been using Everclear and drinks to get people more drunk to make the party more fun. To this day, these two instances, I don't know what the fuck happened. Okay.

There's kind of nothing I can do at this point. And it's frustrating as well because, you know, I can't necessarily prove exactly what happened. And there's something about that that really bothers me because...

It makes me feel like, did I do something wrong? Did I drink too much and not realize it? But I think in both of these scenarios, there's too many signs pointing to, you know, well, especially the first one. The first one, I can 100% guarantee that something weird happened. The second time, I'm 99% sure

nah, let me say 95% sure. And the 5% of doubt is that I was drunk. That has happened to me literally one other time in my life. And it was my fault. And I knew I drank too much alcohol. Like it was a dumb idea. And I was actually, I'll just tell you that story. So I was young. I just left high school and my friend and I were going to a music festival.

And she brought a bottle of alcohol from home. And at this point, I had barely ever drank. And every time I had drank prior, like in high school and stuff, I had gotten very drunk. Never quite like a full blackout, but pretty drunk. Like I did not know my limits at this time in my life. And

It was the morning of the music festival. And, you know, we weren't allowed to bring alcohol into the festival. So I was like, I'm just going to get drunk beforehand. And I took like seven shots of vodka.

Well, I ultimately ended up showing up to this music festival and within an hour of being there, I'm throwing up on the grass and I eventually collapsed onto the floor. And then my friend ultimately had to take us back to the hotel so I could sleep it off. And then when I woke up, I was totally fine, but it was definitely not good. But that was the only other time that I had something similar to like the lights out,

of, you know, that evening. But the difference was like I was spreading out the drinks, you know, the night of that birthday party. And I was super aware of like my limits. And I knew that I could have like one or two more drinks and be totally fine. I felt so good about my situation. And then, you know, I fully fucking had to go to the hospital. So it's just very unusual. And it's also unusual that other people had the same experience.

some way more extreme than me where it was like one drink and pass out. So it's just very weird. And, you know, I still don't really know what happened, whether somebody slipped something in my drink or if, if it was ever clear, you know, like the bartenders were using ever clear, like, I don't know, but either way, it's just made me so, so careful that,

about drinking anything in public. Like let's say I go to a bar and I just get a sparkling water. I'm putting my hand over my cup the entire time and I'm never putting my cup down on a table and I'm never holding my cup out like whatever with the top open. Like I am on it. I'm also looking at my friend's cups and making sure nobody's doing anything weird with theirs. Like I'm

so fucking on it because now I know that this shit fucking happens. For fuck's sake, I was so lucky. Far worse could have happened to me and it didn't. And I'm so fucking grateful for that every day. And I'm going to avoid ever having it happen to me ever again because it's traumatic. It is traumatic. And I'm and I've learned my lesson from it. And I can tell you now that I'm so, so anal about it. And I really recommend everyone else be anal about it, too, because

These experiences, even when the best case scenario happens like me and it's ultimately fine and no one's harmed and everything's okay. It's traumatic for me for a lot of reasons. I'd say number one, because it's mortifying people seeing me passed out at a party and

that's really mortifying for me. And, you know, potentially like moments before or moments after me being fully unconscious in these moments, like what was I saying? Like what was I doing? Like I'm out of control of my actions in those moments. And that's really, really scary for me. Yeah. I tend to get anxiety as well about what could have been, which is sort of useless because I

It's like it didn't happen. So we must not overwhelm ourselves with the feeling that it did when it didn't, if that makes sense. It's important to learn from what could have been, but you don't need to bear the weight of it because it didn't happen. But I have a tendency to do that. And so, you know, there's also this sort of psychological pain that comes with, oh, what could have happened, et cetera, et cetera. So

Listen, all of that being said, still kind of a mystery what exactly happened, but it's safe to say whatever the fuck happened was unpleasant and I hope that you can learn from it in some way. This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. One skill everyone can benefit from is learning how to take time for themselves. I have been implementing a lot of self-care rituals recently because I

I was not taking nearly enough time for myself and it was negatively impacting my brain. One thing that I've done is not allowed myself to doom scroll on social media in my time spent alone. I find that that just ruins the recharging benefits of being alone. I've been making more time to read books, do art and exercise because I find that all of those things make my alone time even more effective in terms of recharging.

Whatever your schedule looks like, it's important to do stuff for you. Especially when life gets hectic, that's when you need self-care the most. If you're struggling with that, I recommend therapy. A lot of times we have a vague idea about what will make us feel better in our lives, but it can be really hard to make a plan and set it into motion ourselves when we don't even know where to start.

Having somebody to talk to can be incredibly helpful when it comes to making a plan. If you want to give therapy a try, check out BetterHelp. It's entirely online and designed to easily connect you with a therapist. You can even switch therapists at any time for no additional charge. Never skip therapy day with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash anything today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp.com.

H-E-L-P dot com slash anything. This episode is brought to you by PNC Bank. Unlike this podcast, some things in life should be boring, like banking, because boring is pragmatic and responsible, level-headed and wise. All the things that you want your bank to be. You don't want your bank to be cool or sexy. Sexy is for red carpets, not banks.

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I still go through little phases of like enjoying a drink with dinner, you know, maybe having two or three drinks over the course of an evening if I'm really in the mood. But for the most part, I'm not really drinking anymore. And I think it's had a net positive effect on my life. And it's I don't like to make solid rules for myself like, oh, no.

I don't drink anymore because I've done that in the past. And it's been challenging because there are moments when I'm like, hey, you know what? I'd love a glass of wine with dinner or, oh, wow, this place has really cool cocktails. I really want to order a cocktail because this one looks delicious and I want to try it. Why not? But I'm trying to keep it to a minimum these days. And I've successfully been able to do that. And it's been delightful for me because

I feel in control of my life, you know, like at all times. Like when you get drunk, you lose control of your life in a way and who you are in a way because something new takes over. The alcohol sort of takes over. And that's very scary. I also am not as anxious. I don't get into these extreme anxious clouds, if you will, because...

when I was drinking a lot, I would fall into these really dark periods of severe anxiety. Like I'm already anxious, so I don't need any more anxiety, but I would fall into phases that were even worse because alcohol causes anxiety often the next day, really, really severely. Also alcohol triggered depression in me as well. And so after I would drink, I would feel really depressed potentially for even weeks after at times. And it was just horrific. And so I

I don't know. I really just pray that this happens to none of you and that hopefully you learn something from my experiences and you can drink a bit more safely out there. And I send you all warmth and protection in all ways, but especially in regards to these scary things that can happen out in the world.

Anyway, you guys, that is my story. Again, hopefully you got something out of it. And if you enjoyed this episode and want to hear more new episodes every Thursday and Sunday.

You can stream anywhere you get podcasts, although video episodes are exclusively on Spotify. You can follow Anything Goes on any social media platforms at Anything Goes. You can follow me on any social media platform at Emma Chamberlain. You can check out my coffee company, Chamberlain Coffee online, chamberlaincoffee.com on social media at chamberlaincoffee.com.

We're probably in a store near you if you live in the United States. So go on our store locator and see if you could pick us up on your next grocery run. And if not, you can just order it straight to your door. All right. That's all I have for you all. I will talk to you so soon. I love you all and appreciate you all. And I'm so grateful that you hang out with me. It is such a joy in my life. And I'll talk to you all very soon. Okay, bye. This episode is brought to you by Hydro Flask.

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