So most people are pretty surprised when they hear this, but I don’t really drink. At least, not anymore. I used to be a huge drinker, and I know that the general consensus on freshman year alcohol consumption is that it’s an expected part of the transition to young adulthood, but seriously, I was drunk and/or hungover more often than I was sober during my inaugural year at Harvard. I probably drank three or four nights a week (heavily at that) and spent my flight home from the first year of college puking my guts out for six hours. It was intense.

Anyway, then I started writing my blog and became incredibly fucked up, thus leading to the first of many therapy sessions to come. My therapist that fall told me that my drinking was affecting the accuracy of any diagnosis that could be made on whether or not I had a mood disorder. Basically, who knew if the cause of my depression was the empty bottle in my hand or some fucked up brain chemistry? So after one particularly terrible incident that landed me in the hospital, I stopped drinking. Second semester of sophomore year was relatively calm for my digestive tracts.

That summer, I went to New York, met my friend Jules, and got regularly hammered. I think they call these things “relapses”. My 20th birthday was a particularly boozey occasion. I hadn’t been that drunk since freshman year, and of course, I puked my guts out. Again. But come fall and junior year, I somehow lost my taste for alcohol. And parties. And most social interaction. I already had my closest friends so what was the point of boozing it up to ease the awkwardness of meeting new people? If I was going to drink, then I was going to do it with the silly girls I cared about, and luckily for my liver, we were usually too collectively busy to really make much of a partying effort.

So now I’m in Germany where beer and wine are cheaper than water and 8-year-olds can drink me under the table. It’s only been a year since my epic New York summer but I cannot imagine ever consuming as much as I did then. I’ve long lost my taste for alcohol beyond the occasional glass of riesling and prefer a cigarette to a shot as a nerve-calming remedy. In a month, I turn 21 in Laos (yeah, that would be Southeast Asia) and I’m thinking shrooms may be a cooler way to ring in American adulthood than my former substance of choice. I was in London this past weekend and everyone seemed so surprised when I sipped tentatively at my very full vodka orange (I had maybe two gulps worth). I’ll order wine, never cocktails, and even one glass will be enough to render me tipsy. It’s kind of cute that I’m a lightweight. It’s even cuter that this could be the one area I’m considered prudish.