Ah, how dreadfully polite it’s all become. Once upon a whiskey-slicked fever dream, journalistic debauch was considered noble, even essential. You drank to write, wrote to drink, chased enlightenment through smoke rings and barleywine, and nobody batted an eye—least of all the editors, who were too busy laundering rum stains from their cravats. But now? Order a mid-strength saison at lunch and Susan from HR clutches her ergonomic pearls, as if you’d just licked the copier. We have, it seems, bartered away our Dionysian inheritance for ergonomic desk chairs and “hydration reminders.” The great American hangover—once worn like a badge,
