Maus mentioned how useful alcohol can be. Here is a memory from when I was 19.

I had a wisdom tooth removed. Went out shopping with my sis. Later in the day, my mouth started bleeding. It was bedtime, parents asleep. My mouth filled up with blood, couldn't get it to stop, couldn't go to sleep. Had a brainstorm. I went to the pantry and got the ouzo (Greek whiskey) and took a mouthful and kept it there. The bleeding stopped. Yay.

The next day my boyfriend came over, 32, a veteran going to the Chicago School of Chiropractic Medicine up the street on the G.I. bill. He looked at my bedsheets and freaked out, said I had been hemorrhaging. I thought we were going to be married, but he dumped me. Said I was too young. I was heartbroken. But then I heard from a friend I had made when I joined the University of Chicago Science Fiction Club. He was Bob Bloch (who wrote Psycho that Hitchcock made into that movie). He said he was coming to Chicago and invited me to join him for lunch along with some sci fi/mystery writer friends of his. I went to the lunch, the only female, the only non-pro writer, and thought I was in Heaven. I began to think I could get through life without John. Thank you, Bob. He died in 1992.

P.S. About the boyfriend. I think he was just discovering he was gay. Too bad. He was great in bed.