Going to try and keep this one short and honest:
I used to drink a lot. Too much in fact. When I was at University, I would wake up in the afternoon and start drinking from a bottle of vodka I kept next to my bed. I never went to any lectures. Despite this, I completed my first year, but then quit. I spent nine months looking for work to no avail. I felt like I had fucked my entire life up by dropping out and failing to get work. I would drink all day because I was hideously depressed, for a variety of self-pitying reasons. I nearly joined the army (part of me still regrets not doing).

After nine months, I reapplied to university to study film. I was accepted back and saw it as being my second chance at doing something with my life. But, for whatever reason, I could not get my head together to actually apply myself to the course. I missed lectures regularly, missed coursework deadlines and was basically a law unto myself. I had a shaved head at this point, looked like a scrote, and spent all day every day feeling pissed off without ever knowing why. This was when I met my girlfriend, although we didn't start going out until two years later, when I grew my hair long and got my shit together. She told me years later she was not attracted to me in any way at this point. I also had my arm in a cast from a fight I'd gotten in where I shattered the knuckles on my right hand. Definitely boyfriend material.

Eventually my attitude caught up to me, and the University decided to kick me out. I was dragged up before a senate committee, where I had to explain to a panel full of people who I had never met, why I thought I should be allowed to stay. This was a humiliating and uncomfortable process that involved me speaking about things I had never spoken to anyone at all about, and now they were taking notes on me. This largely consisted of me explaining why I fucking hated everyone around me and why I couldn't cry at my Grandad's funeral that had recently taken place (I don't mean that in a dodgy way...) and a whole host of other self-pitying topics that I was not comfortable discussing at that point. It's no exagerration to say I had never talked to anyone about how I felt about anything at that point.

They let me continue on the course, providing I was under report. Basically if I fucked up, I was gone.

This should have been enough to kick me into touch but it wasn't. I was in my second year by this point, and still not falling in line. I received several more cautions over the next few months.

How does this have any relation to this week's QOTW?

My morning-after souvenir was not a pleasant one. A few months after the meeting with the senate, I had gone back home to Manchester, and went out with friends. At some point in the night I got into an argument with someone, then got into an argument with my mates who were trying to calm me down as I had over-reacted massively and flown off the handle. I stormed off apparently. I don't remember it.

I woke up the next day, still dressed and covered in blood. I had no idea if it was mine or not. This is one of the scariest things that has ever happened to me. I could not remember for the fucking life of me what had happened. I genuinely thought I might have killed someone, or beaten the fuck out of someone. There was a lot of blood.

I looked down at myself, and saw a shard of glass about three inches long sticking out of my hand. That was where the blood had come from. I pulled it out, winced for a while, then had a bath.

At that point I felt like I had a complete lack of control over myself, and that scared the shit out of me. I decided there and then - in the bath - that I wouldn't drink any more. Out of all the things I felt were wrong with my life, that was one thing I could control. I literally stopped drinking on the spot.

From the second I decided that, I was completely teetotal for the next three years. I didn't touch a single drop of alcohol whilst I forced myself into sobriety, and more importantly, adult responsibility. I was 21 at this point and it was like being reborn. I went into my third year of University completely sober, and actually managed to apply myself for a year. I got a 2:2 in the end. I could have done better. I spent the next few years rediscovering a love for learning and educating myself, and I found a lot of things to replace drinking; martial arts, film-making, writing music... I can drink in moderation now, and do. To be honest, I don't really enjoy it though. I don't think I ever did. I'd much rather be sober now.

So, that's how a morning after souvenir changed my entire life.

By the way, eventually I remembered how the glass got stuck in my hand. I had put my fist through a bus stop on the way home because I didn't have a constructive means of dealing with or venting my frustration. I remembered this a couple of days later when I walked past said smashed bus stop. I was a fucking idiot.
( PMGT -Bacon., Fri 27 Apr 2012, 4:21, 7 replies)

That was in no way short.
Ah well.
( PMGT -Bacon., Fri 27 Apr 2012, 4:21, closed)

Seems pretty honest though.

(Poppet some assembly required., Fri 27 Apr 2012, 4:50, closed)

To be honest as soon as you said 'senate'
I skipped to the end to check it wasn't a star wars trick post
(Natrix, Fri 27 Apr 2012, 6:04, closed)

Ha!

( PMGT -Bacon., Fri 27 Apr 2012, 14:15, closed)

Very inspiring though
This shows that problems can often be of our own making, but at least that means we've got the chance to do something about it!

Have a click.
(Kliper Filllets Getting noticed by twats on the internet since, Fri 27 Apr 2012, 8:33, closed)

This ^^
*click*
( splorp ®, Fri 27 Apr 2012, 10:42, closed)

A
Click for the honesty here. You only punch glass once, had 55 stiches in my elbow when i was locked out of my house and stupidly tried to break in.
(bROKEN aRROW PUA HVI Master, Fri 27 Apr 2012, 9:20, closed)

Good story
Nice to hear of a souvenir more inspiring than a traffic cone. Have a well-earned click.
(ubergeekian, Fri 27 Apr 2012, 9:56, closed)

wow, replace 'film' with 'graphics'
and replace 'after nine months' with 'after two and a half years' and you've pretty much got my story of uni, minus a scattering of massive drugs. have a click
(UppityDamnPrimate LET'S OPEN THIS F*CKING PIT UP, Fri 27 Apr 2012, 10:14, closed)

I never bothered with drugs.
Alcohol has a frightening capacity to act like a mood amplifier with me. If I'm in a bad mood, which I frequently am, it makes me 10 times worse. I don't ever want to know what I'd be like if I did coke or something. That would be a seriously bad idea.
( PMGT -Bacon., Fri 27 Apr 2012, 14:22, closed)

Fuck, I like this, inspirational.

( skeltonator Needs some new daps., Mon 30 Apr 2012, 14:58, closed)