Like many Europeans, I began drinking as soon as I could.

For me, that meant as soon as I was old enough to put on a baggy coat and do a kind of

stumbling impression of an 18-year-old, so about 15.

I remember it well.

I'd always do a couple of laps of these shops, like I imagined, and adult Mike.

Going to browse an issue of FHM and consider a bag of lentils before finally deciding

on, yes, that liter of smurn-off, please.

Where I was unusual is in how much I loved drinking games.

I studied these with a kind of nerdy fervor, whenever conversations stalled at whatever

kitchen or patio or tree we were drinking at, someone would ask me for a game.

That was my role, and I loved it.

OK, I'd say a grin creeping across my face, a clink as I'd set my bottle down.

Now before we get into the best games I remember playing, I want to take a little jab at

a kind of person who's been bothering me for my entire drinking life, and that's the

one person in a group who says, I don't need a game to drink.

Why don't we just drink?

Thinking about it now, maybe this is a kind of cosmic role handed out as well, just as

mine was.

Maybe our two archetypes have been dueling across cultures, across time.

Drinking games, of course, aren't about getting drunk.

But listen to what other people might tell you, they're about taking the best reasons

to drink.

...