The astonishingly dedicated Modern Drunkard Magazine can be pretty amusing, even if you’ve basically given up the sauce, as I have on account of my body threatening to sue my brain for custody of my liver. (Ah, but such fond memories linger!)
Dear old F Scott Fitzgerald, who used to leave his home on Long Island to go out for “a beer or two” and then wake up three days later in the Canary Islands, quite naked but unalarmed, would be thoroughly impressed with the people who put Modern Drunkard together. They seem an awfully sober lot actually, judging by the effort that goes into the website, and on top of that they’re also currently organising the third annual Modern Drunkard Convention for June 23 to 25 at the Celebrity Ballroom in where else but Las Vegas, that Mecca of stimulant-intensive fear and loathing.
The convention plans call for “three solid days of heavy drinking and full-bore entertainment emceed by Titsa Galore”, including but not limited to the Liquor Olympics, the Clash of the Tightest drinking contest, karaoke, of course, and, would you believe it, booze tastings.
The magazine’s website (I think there’s an actual magazine) offers rather retro Comics for Alcoholics, Gin-Soaked Fiction for people able to concentrate enough to read while they’re drinking, Dear Concerned Cad, which is sharply wry and often off the wall and straight under the table, and Wino Wisdom like this: “There’s a point where every man has to draw the line and say enough is enough. The problem I run into is that I’m a real patient person” and “The optimist sees the glass half full. The pessimist sees the glass half empty. The drunk says, ‘Are you gonna drink that’?”

Best of all, though, is a lengthy interactive piece called “You know you’re a drunkard when”. A choice sampling:
You have attempted to wring out a rum cake.
The cops set up a DUI checkpoint in your driveway.
You once woke up with a new job.
Your streetside recycling company has to bring an extra truck.
You’d never steal a fellow drunk’s drink, but you do occasionally “adopt orphans”.
You have to go to court to find out what happened.
You know how to say “Where are my pants?” in seven languages.
You got in a fistfight with a wino over how long a bottle of Thunderbird should be allowed to “breathe”.
You install shag carpet because it’s easier to hang on to.
Your name is police code for Public Intoxication.
You spill so much booze at home your dog slurs his barks.
Your credit history is composed entirely of bar tabs.
Whenever you bend your elbow your mouth snaps open.
You’re half scotch, and your ancestors aren’t from Scotland.
You can tell what bar you’re in by the bottoms of their tables.
You think of drinking beer as “sobering up”.
You have never taken a drink of a non-alcoholic beverage without thinking, “Man, a splash of booze would fix this right up.”
You’ve apologised to people you don’t remember meeting for things you don’t remember doing in places you don’t remember going.
Bartenders call you when you’ve been absent for more than two days.
Lawn sprinklers are sometimes your alarm clock.
You wake up in a strange city not knowing how you got there, and the three other guys don’t know either.
When buying floor tile, you press your face against it to see how comfortable it would be to sleep on.
You wake up every morning at the crack of ice.
You suffer from barthritis — every night you get stiff in another joint.
You don’t recognise the difference between “waking up” and “coming to”.
The cafeteria in the detox centre has a sandwich named after you.
You prefer cold showers because the ice in your drink doesn’t melt as fast.
You hate the person you become when you binge because, you know, that bastard drinks all your beer.
You know hangovers only last a day, but a good drinking story lives on forever.
A good drinking buddy will bail you out of jail, but a great drinking buddy will be sitting in the cell beside you, saying, “Man, that was awesome!”
You fell down two flights of stairs and didn’t spill a drop.
You come home sober and your dog bites you.