I know exactly when I lost my mind. June 1996, just south of the border in a pueblocita they call Cancún. The agent of my transformation: a stylish devil named Tequila. My senior trip was about foam parties and shady beds, not yards of beer and wet T-shirt contests. In the end I looked more like a "popcorn crab" (the words of a best friend) than Serena Atschul. Does it matter? Maybe not.

In the week before graduation, three high school friends and I journeyed down to Mexico for our first real yeehaw before we rode off into the sunset. Mostly fragments of the trip have stuck with me: the chorus of a song "you've got to lick it," the suffocating stench of foam, the cool slip and slide of my new black pants and a search mission one morning for my best friend. There were jet skis and tan lines too.

It was my encounter with tequila that had its most lasting effect. That entire summer after I returned from Mexico, I didn't think. I would sit on buses and have not a single thought flicker on my screen. Emptiness, numbness. I had never felt it before. I loved it.

You could argue that this liberdad simply marked a point at which "so many fetters" had just been removed. My life was all lightness, and no weight: I was leaving behind 13 years of history in my school, I was into college, and I was in Cancún, busting so many moves on bartops.

Más tequila por favor.

My message can only be construed as dangerous: Drink yourselves into oblivion, kiddos. Lose your mind, man. Free your soul. The rest will follow. Or maybe as a warning: To those who want to retain full capacities, stay away from the worm.

Inebria soaks through this here issue. In "Behind the Curtain with the Krokodiloes," Harvard's oldest a capella troupe reveals a few drinking habits of their own (see page 8). While beer takes a back seat to pretzels, pizza and peanuts in "Ballpark Wisdom" (see page 6), its presence is beyond required in "(Gulp!) A Brief History of Goldfish Swallowing" (see page 7).

For what it's worth, I don't really like beer. Even "good beer," whatever that it is. Estrogen, taste buds, whatever. The suds just don't do it for me.

But maybe some of you have a soft spot for a cold one. Be it a foamy Bud Lite or smooth, slithery seafood. Like a whiff of old-school Clairol Herbal Essence, one gulp of these brews can bring you back. (For a close-up on beer, tune in next weekend for The Crimson's exclusive look at the Head of the Charles weekend.)

Tequila, on the other hand, has captured my heart. What could be better than losing your mind?