In my early and mid-teens, I was a very awkward, scrawny and unattractive young man.  Like many at that age I was very obnoxious, disrespectful and sought attention in all the wrong ways.  I was a mediocre athlete for my diminutive size and lack of strength.  Getting bullied by older kids, while bullying those that I could actually scare, was the dichotomy of my daily life.

At 12 years old I started drinking with my friends on the weekends.  Unlike most of my friends I drank quite heavily.  Drinking until I blacked became a regular occurrence.

It started out with my friends and I drinking 40’s on the train tracks and in the woods.  Then It upgraded to party balls, bottles of shitty vodka and SoCo.  The alcohol intensified all of my worst qualities.  That’s when KRS showed up.

KRS was my sauced up, slurring, offensive, drunken alter ego.   My friends gave me this nickname in junior high.  My signature look became a blank stare with nothing going on behind my eyes.   At first they thought it was hysterical when I got that drunk.  They would encourage my behavior just so they would have something to break my balls about later that week.

Whenever we had left over alcohol from the weekend I would always volunteer to hold it for my friends.  When I said hold it, what I really meant was drink it.  Every week I had a different excuse about what happened to the booze.  It got to the point where they would just hid the alcohol outdoors rather than give it to me.

I used to love to drink before my intramural basketball games in high school.  I would show up reeking of liquor.  It would just ooze out of my pours when I would sweat.  All of my friends could smell it on me.  I would be out on the courts drunk as hell, running and gunning, refusing to pass to my teammates.  The first year our team, The Specials, didn’t win a game.

One night I recall (vaguely) drinking the majority of bottle of really shitty vodka.  It was a plastic bottle of Vladimir Vodka if I remember correctly.  The bottle was supposed to be shared among five of us.  I had other plans for it.

I bounced around that night from party to party drinking cup after cup of Vodka and lemonade.  At one point I found myself asleep in a bush.  By the end of the night I was laying in a friends bath tub projectile vomiting.  I had to be carried out by my arms and legs, down three flights of stair out of his house and into a car.  My head banged off numerous steps on my way out .

As time went on my antics became worse.  My behavior became less appealing to my friends.  Before long I was banned from most parties.  Which meant my friends were banned if they brought me.  It was high school and everyone lived for house parties.  Needless to say my unwelcome status led to me getting dropped by my core group of friends rather quickly.