I want you to try an experiment right now. Open a new tab on your browser and type in drunkkknazi.com and see where it takes you. You aren’t imagining it; that domain now takes you to my site’s homepage. Yes, this is real life. How did we get here, you ask? Feel free to sharpen your pitchforks. But first, some context. And for that, I’ll have to rewind the tape a bit.
Origin
As I’ve mentioned before, I was born and raised in a deeply-Blue state; from birth until a few months shy of turning 25 years old. I formed and calcified much of my inner-circle group of friends between the ages of 15-21. While mere happenstance (high school, friends-of-friends, neighborhood, et cetera) were the inciting incidents, there was more that kept us together. It first started through some mutual love of pop culture; whether it be crude Millennial internet humor of the 2000’s, video games, sports, music, or some other uniting interest. Further curing this glue was eventual hardship and us having each other’s backs; helping with moves, 3AM study sessions in STEM, being fired from the family business, nearly dying of acute diseases, and so on.
I considered myself a genuinely lucky bastard for having five close friends that I could call at 3AM (or vice-versa, which has happened more than once). Life wasn’t always great (in fact, from 18-25 it was downright shitty) but they were constants. And nothing said from here on out nullifies the fact that good times happened and my life was made better at the time because of it.
For much of this time, politics wasn’t really a relevant factor. After all, pre-Obama, politics was just something that most teenagers didn’t concern themselves with outside of yeah, Bush is kinda dumb sometimes and the economy sucks right now; tame takes for that era. In 2012, there were some disagreements, but nothing ever devolved into serious beef; I was a Romney voter while most of the group preferred Obama. I then sat on one homie’s couch a few weeks later as we challenged each other to a contest of who can eat a 2 million Scoville unit pepper and not be a pussy for the next ten minutes? You know…guy shit.
Alcohol
I grew up in a dry home (for a long-winded reason that I will not air out here, because those involved are not relevant to this story), thus alcohol wasn’t a part of my upbringing. With that said, being separated from my parents via death and eviction gave me some distance to engage my ethanol-based curiosity when I came of legal drinking age.
Like many American college students, my alcohol consumption was normalized, and at times even celebrated. In my early twenties, much of the friend’s group would gather at a mutual friend’s apartment for drunken video game night. It wouldn’t be uncommon for me to crush a 12-pack in a few short hours, on top of inhaling over 2000 calories worth of pizza or fried chicken. I’d follow that by waking up African-village hungry and then going to the gym and grinding out a hard session. Call me Jocko because it was no factor!
With that said, I had deservedly developed a reputation as the group drunk when I was under the age of 25. I would drink noticeably more than my peers in a given night, and they’d find my drunken-though-lighthearted antics entertaining. One time while intoxicated and freshly 23 years old, I wandered over to a swing set, sat down, and started to backpedal to launch myself. A member of the friend-group intervened by barking to GET THE FUCK OFF THE SWINGS! DrunkMe made him repeat his plea, this time with the suffix please. He did, and I relented. He then pushed me/I fell down the incline these swings were on (depending on whose side of the story you believe!). It was all in good fun.
I then worked the shittiest job I’ve ever had, and alcohol became less of a source of entertainment and more of a coping mechanism. Every routine task that I did outside of work that didn’t involve driving or working out featured a beer in my hand. Searing chicken? Beer in my hand. Fixing the vacuum? Beer in my hand. Filling the dishwasher? Beer in my hand. This was on-top of continued drunken video game nights that I would host. Leaving that job circa 2018 and going to the greatest job I’ve ever had directly after caused my drinking to plummet; I had lost 15 pounds without even trying.
Fast forward to last summer and I had quickly secured a new job following a layoff. The pay bump was substantial, and I lost some of my discipline. I developed a habit of drinking a pint or two of 9% IPA while I wrote. And given this blog’s track record, that piled up quickly. I had also developed a habit of eating an entire family sized bag of dark Russett potato chips every week.
I do not have auto-correct on my phone, because it had (still has?) the tendency to correct misspelled/fat-fingered words into a different word choice entirely. My friends would see the occasional misspelled word or the late-night quirky shitpost from me as evidence of alcoholism. Worse yet, they would double-down and accuse me of Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome over trivial things, despite any supporting evidence (you know, because people with wet-brain can hold down six-figure management jobs and publish literal book lengths of articles year-after-year?).
Last fall I went in for a check-up and routine bloodwork. A few days later, a nurse called and told me that my liver had started showing signs of distress. She inquired about the alcohol use that I had disclosed on my intake form. She advised strongly that I cut down on my alcohol consumption. The news was met with my friends not with support, but with condemnation.
However, I abstained from alcohol fully for six weeks. I did not suffer any withdrawal symptoms nor needed any medical supervision to do so. All I needed to do was carefully examine the connection between writing and strong IPA’s, shout-out to Charles Duhigg. At the follow-up blood panel, my liver numbers returned to healthy levels.
I wish that I could say that this news was met positively when I screenshotted the result and posted it in the chat. But that would be fake news. Instead, evidence of my righting-the-ship was completely disregarded, and I was still bashed over the head with you’re an alcoholic. Not to be a definition-nazi, but an alcoholic is one who cannot moderate their drinking. I had given them evidence that I cut my drinking entirely. But hey, we all know the old journalism adage; never let the truth get in the way of a good story. To them, you’re an alcoholic became less of an observation and more of a conversation-ender when I made a point they couldn’t refute.
Radicalization and Tragedy
I’d receive complaints about Donald Trump in the group thread daily during his first administration. Whatever; par for the course. It was also no skin off my back because I voted for Gary Johnson (big shocker, I know). The moral slander got painted at the President, and not each other. Thankfully, these texts were still spaced out between shitposts and invitations to grab unhealthy slop-food (because this is America) and/or drunken video game night.
Fast forward to the Pandemic, and this dynamic largely continued. The friend group had gradually intensified their disdain of Trump, but that was hardly unusual. The shitposts kept coming, as did invitations to hang out, commentary about pro-wrestling (one of the few interests that I did not share), my annual USC now has two losses crash-out and the like.
And then, the unimaginable happened. One member of our group is a racial minority and a second-generation American. A sibling of his, someone who was well-liked by nearly everyone, tragically took their own life. It was utterly devastating in both it’s totality and how preventable it was. Without a single hesitation, I attended the funeral services. I was thanked for being the only member of the group for coming to the services in-person. Pay attention, this becomes relevant later…
2024 is when the rhetoric became increasingly more celebratory of overt violence. The infamous Butler rally is where one friend lamented that Trump’s shooter hadn’t aimed at center-mass; memes of ReeTardy Oswald flew frequently. They went through another emotional rollercoaster at the second failed assassination attempt of the 45th President. The group chat actively cheered when the United Healthcare CEO was murdered. They were mad when the future-fleshlight was caught.
I hadn’t cared that they disliked Donald Trump (and for the record, still don’t), however, their cheering for political assassination was something that I had routinely called out. This is a level of bloodlust that is unbecoming of a civilized and developed Western nation. They, of course, rejected my assertions. When the BlackRock executive was murdered, it was easily wrist-rolled as equivalent exchange; price people out of their lives, get your life taken.
TurningPoint
Charlie Kirk’s murder was basically their fucking SuperBowl parade. And that was when I became a full-fledged neo-nazi in their eyes. I wasn’t a Charlie Kirk fanboy; he had some stances that I didn’t care for (such as being pro-Israel and supporting the War on Drugs). He was also a bit too preachy for my atheist liking, even if I did agree with his stances on defending gun rights and many college students ought to be doing something else with their time. I was asked to provide explanations for Kirk’s stances on largely irrelevant platforms. My central claim of political violence is wrong was largely rejected and became further proof of my neo-Nazism (somehow?).
This past January, one friend got on his soapbox and proclaimed that America had one chance to keep the fascist out and anyone who didn’t vote against him is part of the problem. He made it a point to mention including third-party voters; a clear stake-in-the-ground.
The group was unmoved by my reasoning of I didn’t vote for Trump and I’m not happy about the fact that ICE had killed some US citizens and that Libertarians oppose his foreign interventions in Venezuela/Iran and his tariffs. Naturally, this seemed to fall on deaf ears. Every point I made that couldn’t be refuted was met with shut up, nazi (something I have in common with Tucker Carlson!). All that apparently mattered was that I didn’t vote for Harris, and that was enough for a tar-and-feathering.
The pro-wrestling/football/video games/shitposting texts ended. It all became Fuck Trump and fuck anyone who didn’t “vote against him” (read: voted like they did). The group’s formerly diverse interests had largely evaporated. Moreso, accusations of my allegiance to White nationalism only became more frequent and more dog-piled. Remember, these came mostly from the same friend group who no-showed the funeral of our mutual friend’s sibling (who, to remind you, is a racial minority). Yet, somehow, I was the evil White supremacist for not agreeing with them politically.
Now I’ll be honest, I wasn’t exactly a saint either. At this point, I would counter-troll whenever they started to wax poetic about Trump’s Injustice of the Week. I would even say how entertaining I found Trump at times (I mean… come on). This, of course, escalated the situation rather than defusing it. In their eyes, my callous jokes and disregard for the suffering of others became further evidence that I was somehow a member of the Klan. This was independent of the fact that mutual ribbing was something that we had all previously held in common or that I hadn’t started the engagement. Cryptic texts of how I wasn’t actually part of the friend group became more frequent. One friend openly wished that I showed a bit more compassion.
Breaking Point and Aftermath
It all came to a head this past February. I told them that this circle had become the single most toxic part of my day-to-day life. I gave them two viable options, that the group could either be apolitical or that they could start a new group chat that omitted me from their liberal circle jerk. They of course did neither while continuing on the whole Dan’s a drunken White supremacist schtick. I then wished them to have a nice life. Following that, I muted the chat, deleted their contact info, and blocked their numbers.
At first, I was hurt. It wasn’t easy to lose friendships that I had for, in some cases, nearly twenty years. With that said, the dynamic reached a rapport that I couldn’t sustain. Endlessly sponging negativity is unhealthy. I was hurt that I was shown zero assumption of good faith; it was like the sham-trials from The Dark Knight Returns.
After about three weeks, I had started to heal. I hadn’t missed them or their moral grandstanding at my expense. Admittedly, I’m still in contact with one member of my former friend group; he was the least culpable one. Did he occasionally dog-pile about me being racist (despite me being the only White friend who attended his sibling’s funeral)? Sure. But he also didn’t assign all of the world’s sins onto me for breaking rank and voting differently. Nor did he constantly accuse me of Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome. In short, he was the only one of the group who acted like a decent human being capable of some nuance.
The time away from the group since the collective exile made me reflect on other nicknames that I had collected from other friends and family. These were either nonsensical alliterations or inside jokes. However, instead of fighting most of them, I opted to fully run with them. I embraced the externally-applied label and cranked the dial to eleven, thus annoying the ever-living shit out of those who first bestowed these monikers (what can I say? I just ooze little-brother-energy!). Thus, the lightbulb went off recently. Why not do the same now?
I went onto the domain-hosting service for this website and looked up drunkkknazi.com. Shockingly, it was available, and it was only $13! Thus, I bought it without a single moment’s consideration. Thus, I’ve set up the re-direct to the main site not because I’m a White nationalist with a drinking problem, but precisely to mock those who have that cartoonish image of me.
I’ll be honest, I still haven’t replaced those close-connections yet. With that said, my schedule has also filled far too quickly for me to notice their absence. There’s no time to mourn lost friendships when I’m exploring Japan (which was an awesome trip, article to follow soon!), going to pistol-league nights at the range, heading to speed-dating, and other exploratory pass-times. I also drink far less than what I did at this point a year ago; six pints of 9% IPA’s per week has plummeted to one per month. I haven’t touched a dark Russett potato chip in months. I’m also now nearly twenty pounds lighter, having dropped my bodyfat from 18.4% down to high-thirteens. With any luck I’ll be sub 12% by the end of the year!
As for my former friends, I don’t wish anything bad on them (unlike their constant rhetoric). With that said, the next time one of them flies into a suicidal crisis (which has happened a non-zero number of times), I’m not intervening. Yes, you read that right and I’m serious. Compassion dies at the gates of exile, for both the exilers and the exiled. Maybe I’ll take a page from their playbooks and no-show their funerals while I’m at it.
