Never be the drunkest person in the room.

You're going to drink. I expect you to. Partly because your mother and I enjoy wine pretty regularly and you're being raised in an environment where alcohol isn't treated as some mysterious evil that you should never come in contact with.

That having been said, there's drinking and there's drinking.

I'd be lying if I told you that I'd never been drunk. I have. And I'm sure your mother has, too. Frankly, I don't like the feeling. Although every once in a while circumstances used to occasionally conspire to convince me that getting drunk was an appropriate course of action, I've come to the point where I'm simply not going to do that anymore.

What you need to know about alcohol is that it lowers your inhibitions. Which means you're more likely to say or do something drunk that your better judgement would prevent you from doing sober.

But there's another part to having lowered inhibitions: The more drunk you are, the more drunk you're likely to think it's a good idea to get.

Alcohol also clouds your judgement, so in addition to embarrassing yourself, you have a hard time realizing just how embarrassing you are being -- and just how drunk other people aren't.

Still, I expect you to drink. And I expect you to get drunk. This is, after all, America.

But when you do, I hope you'll do what works for me: Drink less than the people you're with. I do that by having a glass of water for every other drink the people I'm with are having. It's saved me from a lot of embarrassing situations, although it doesn't prevent them all. Particularly the ones where someone I'm with regrets something that he or she has done in front of me and I can't pretend to have been too drunk to remember.

I'm also convinced that staying hydrated prevents hangovers. I've only had a hangover once, but believe me, once is more than enough.