The internet is stuffed to the gills with listicles like ‘what kind of drunk are you?’, ‘the seven stages of drunkenness’, ‘fifteen types of drunk you’ll encounter in fresher’s week’, and if you’ve read as many of them as I have, chances are you’re a hot medley of nearly all of them.

From the emotional wreck, to the puker, the over-sharer and the hump-anything-with-a-pulse-er, we’re all well versed in the fine art of analysing our friends’ states of inebriation, and regretting our own the following morning. Hardcore, or regular drinkers in my world, will undoubtedly have run the gauntlet of these distinguished emotional states and will probably have settled for a tipple that sets them up somewhere between slightly stoned, and yet still able to crack a few witty jokes.

For me, I know that vodka and I are friends. Cider gets me shitfaced quickly but makes me very sociable. Whiskey makes me puke. Beer gives me a furry mouth and turns me into a human sloppy-joe. Jägermeister gives me short term memory loss, and too much gin tends to induce irrational white-hot rage followed by uncontrollable crying. Thus, and I’m sure you can understand why, I habitually stick to stick to vodka-sodas and cider (with the occasional shot of Jäger, because sometimes reckless spontaneity just goes down smoother with a tad of amnesia).

Despite my love for a G&T and pint of the good stuff, I have come to terms with the different sides of my inebriated self — and I’ve had a great deal of experience with all of them (my whiskey phase was particularly NAAASTY). Years of drinking has conditioned me to recognise each phase of each personality, and to know that sometimes when I am crying inconsolably, maybe it’s not because my life is falling apart, maybe it’s because I’ve had seventeen double gin and tonics. There is a safety in knowing oneself… but this weekend I discovered a whole new kind of drunk Louise. And this one, quite possibly, could be my favourite.

Introducing Louise’s Sarah Koenig phase!

Now, if you don’t know who Sarah Koenig is then I’m not sure why you’re even alive!

Sarah Koenig is an American investigative journalist and the voice behind the hugely popular podcast Serial, that became famous for its deep dive into the case of Adnan Syed who was convicted of the murder Hae Min Lee.  It is literally the most captivating thing on the face of the earth. But what does this all mean in regards to my drunken phase?

Last weekend, my friend and I found ourselves in the grossest, most amazing bar in Greenwich, The North Pole. By the end of the night I had consumed a cocktail of rum, beer, sake (that’s right, I’m pretty fancy), red wine, prosecco, white wine and vodka. Now even as I type out that list, it seems absurd, but that is genuinely what I consumed on Saturday night (sorry mum!).

As we were exiting the club a huge fight broke out. People were attacking each other with shoes and brooms on the stairwell, and after being let out via an emergency exit we were dumped smack bang in the middle of the overspill of the fight that had literally taken itself outside. People were getting flung all over the place and guys were throwing punches intended to do some serious damage — and many did. My friend and I watched from afar, sat smoking cigarettes on somebody’s front wall, until the police arrived and we decided it was best to ‘scarper’. En route home, however, we met some local lads who wanted to chat up my friend.

In all honesty, I expected angry Louise to make an appearance here, she can get a bit territorial, but what came out instead was full on Sarah Koenig. I started quizzing this guys about racial profiling and the cultural implications of his dress. I asked him about his upbringing, his experiences of these fights and why he was so on-edge when the police arrived. Whether he knew why the fight kicked off and whether it could have been gang related. At one point I had to pause to reassure the poor guy that I wasn’t a member of law enforcement, before launching back into a barrage of questions.

The endless hours I had spent listening to Serial, and countless other real-crime podcasts and TV shows, had obviously rubbed off on me. And aside from totally cock-blocking the guy (and possibly my mate) I don’t think he minded my interrogation.

What a delightful side effect to alcohol.

Now, because I drank so many different types of booze, it is unclear as to what could have caused me to ‘go all Koenig on that situation’s ass’ so further road testing will need to be conducted, and chances are, in the future, I may not find myself with such a willing participant. But what I do know is that, from now on, I should always carry a dictaphone — just in case.  And that I should write to the Oxford English Dictionary to see if they would put the verb ‘to Sarah Koenig’ into the dictionary.