So yeah, Kanye West totally dissed country music sweet-heart Taylor Swift. Now, the talk is centering around why exactly Kanye would go crush a teenager who seemed starstruck at the VMA’s. On his blog he blamed it on Beyonce’s video just being too good, then on Leno, he blamed it on the pain he’s feeling for the death of his mom. We say, blame it on the alcohol.

It should have been obvious he’d probably end up embarrassing himself when he was seen drinking cognac from the bottle on the red carpet (see photo on left). While Kanye’s outburst can just be another “jackass” way to get attention (hey, that’s how Obama described him), we think that the alcohol probably didn’t help. So here are the 3 simple steps to make sure you don’t end up pulling a Kanye at your next outing:

1. That’s what friends are for: Go out with friends and stick with them throughout the night. Encourage your friends to tackle you when you’re about to pull a Kanye, and to let you know if you’ve had too much to drink. You should have their backs too. If Kanye has any friends left, I’m sure they’ll bolt him to his chair at the next awards show.
2. Pace and Space: Good rule of thumb for moderate drinking is to drink no more than one alcoholic drink per hour. You should also drink at least one glass of water for each drink. This simple rule can help keep you from drunk dialing, throwing up on someone’s lap, or even posting that embarrassing update on Facebook.
3. Magic Number .06: If you want to keep that happy, mellow, buzzed feeling you get from drinking then don’t go over a blood alcohol content (BAC) level of about .06. If you reach .06 BAC and you keep drinking, you start feeling dizzy, get sloppy, and even feel some anger (hear that Kanye?). You can figure out how many drinks it takes to get you to .06 on this BAC calculator.

For more tips on how to handle your alcohol on your next outing, check out MAP’s tips on drinking / partying.