Editorial: Beating the Pub Crawl

On St. Patrick’s Day, the whole world gets to be Irish.

St. Patrick’s Day, celebrated every year on March 17, is symbolized with shamrocks, the color green, getting pinched by people you don’t even know, and–let’s face it–plenty of guilt-free alcohol consumption.

This year’s St. Patrick’s Day shenanigans have come and gone, with the past weekend’s memories still mind (hopefully), here are some tips to help you survive your next bar crawl.

Have a plan

You don’t have to have a fully planned out itinerary, but it’s a good idea to have a general game plan. Know which bars you want to go to, and vaguely in which order you’re going to them. Of course, even the best of game plans unravel in the bottom of a bottle, so it might be a good idea to have one of your friends act as a sort of designated babysitter, someone who’s okay with keeping the rest of the group from wandering off and being detained by the authorities after harassing fast food workers.

Eat!

Nobody wants to be taking care of the person who drinks on an empty stomach. We promise, you’ll still be able to catch a buzz after eating a decent lunch.

Pace yourself

This one is very important. Nobody wants to be the person that insists that they can keep up just to embarrass themselves because they can’t hang past 11 p.m. That’s no fun for anyone. Sure, doing a line of tequila shooters might sound like a fun way to start your evening, but chances are, without proper experience, you’re going to end up like the dude cramping up before the end of the first mile of a marathon.

Don’t get bogged down

The best way to pace yourself is to make sure you don’t get stuck in one bar for too long. It’s not in your best interest to sit down, otherwise, you won’t want to get up. It’s harder to gauge how much you’ve had to drink if you’re not up and moving around.

For the love of God, don’t mix

The bars will have deals. It will be tempting to take advantage of them all. Just don’t do it. Unless, of course, you plan on the world ending before you have to wake up the next morning. You’ll thank yourself for it in the morning.

Have fun!

This is the golden rule. Enjoy yourself. Don’t make the experience harder than it needs to be. Just use common sense, keep these thoughts in the back of your head and remind yourself to have fun and you’ll have your head above water when the unluckiest bail early.