No one ever talks about the sneaky way alcoholism can ruin your 20s

Being a cute, messy, drunk 20-something has become something of an aspiration. Not like a messy-messy drunk, but a quirky, low-key kind of drunk with bangs, a job at a start-up and a boyfriend who keeps texting other girls.

Having problems is sweet — it’s human. Every female centric show you’ve seen this year has at least two scenes per episode where the roommates settle down with a bottle and vent: One saw her ex at work, another lost the promotion she wanted and the third explains she had a “fine day,” while topping off her glass.

One drink turns to two, and suddenly they’re convincing the first girl to text her ex and it’s endearing, because she reminds us of us.

And that’s just Tuesday. Because in 2017 we’re all high-key vegans and low-key alcoholics.

Additional episodes include: losing keys in the Uber, showing up hungover at work, screaming at friends in the hallway of a bar, drunk texting a boss, and acting like an all-around shit person, but it’s okay. You were drinking rosé!

But it’s not representative of what drinking is like in real life. Those actors aren’t real. Their friends always forgive them, they always magically make rent, none of them ever get fired, their boyfriends look past drunk screaming, and nobody ever seems to break out or gain weight.

In reality, needing to pregame before going to a bar is not normal; we’ve normalized it, but it’s not normal. Neither is pre-gaming dates, drinking to a point where we don’t remember what we said to somebody, telling someone we were “so drunk” we don’t remember having sex, or telling someone we don’t actually feel a certain way towards them, we were just “fucked up.”

What also isn’t normal is pretending like we don’t notice we’re out of line — brushing off a hangover on a Wednesday like there isn’t maybe something else going on. Millennials are stressed; we’re stressed about the job market, we’re stressed about making rent, we’re stressed because nobody ever seems to text back, and we’re stressed because people keep making jokes about how we can’t possibly be stressed.

So we’ve turned to alcohol.

But alcohol is a depressant. It may ease the sting of a bad day, or a bad week, but it’s not going to fix anything. Likely, it’ll make things worse.

There’s nothing wrong with drinking, and there’s nothing wrong with people who drink. Having a half-glass of red before bed will decrease stress. Going out on a Saturday is good. But binge drinking is not.

When you do have a dry week(end) it becomes apparent — watching your friends make fools of themselves, crying to past flings and going back on promises they made to themselves. Waking up and checking texts to make sure you didn’t send something risky isn’t normal, and it certainly isn’t healthy. (Forget about your liver.)

Drinking to excess is not cute, it’s not quirky and nobody is going to be more attracted to you for it. It’s just wasting time.

@carolinephinney