It’s the biggest day of your young life, and it only happens once — your 21st birthday. You may be intimidated by all the options you have to celebrate, but luckily for you, we’ve created this handy guide to help you maximize your potential for legal intoxication and completely mismanage your birthday celebrations.

First of all, you’ll want to plan your day to include absolutely every kind of outing and every kind of drink you’ve missed out on during your years of being underage. Craft beer tasting? Drinking on the beach? That trendy bar downtown that serves drinks out of test tubes? You betcha. You’ll want to do all of it because you’ll never have a weekend opportunity like this again.

Begin your day drinking at 11 a.m. at an overpriced “drunch” featuring bottomless mimosas. There’s no better start to this special day than sugary, carbonated beverages that will leave you hungover by 4 p.m. To really step up your game, start drinking before your food arrives so that you’ve consumed at least two drinks on an empty stomach. By that point, you’ll be too drunk to eat enough of that $20 plate of chilaquiles to help keep you somewhat sober.

Now that you’re sufficiently plastered, you’ll be delighted to know that you still have a whole day of drinking to look forward to. Take this opportunity to break in the drinking paraphernalia and expensive alcohol that’s been gifted to you by well-meaning friends. Don’t bother saving that bottle of whiskey for another occasion — pour it right into your brand new hipster-themed shot glasses and keep the party going.

If this is the first time you’re consuming an excessive quantity of alcohol, make sure that you absolutely do not have a friend on hand to feed you bread and listen to you cry.

Finally, go classic and throw an enormous party in the evening. It’ll be just like the parties you’ve been to in college. Only this time, it’s your responsibility to provide the alcohol and clean up the place all while dealing with the nasty headache you’ve accumulated by this point from the day of continuous drinking. Can you be drunk and hungover at the same time? You’ll find out for sure somewhere in the process of trying to wake up the friends that came to help you celebrate and ended up passed out on your couch.

The next morning, when you inevitably wake up feeling like you’ve been punched in the face and everywhere else, really, don’t bother taking the morning to rest and drink lots of water. You go to UCSD: You’re a busy person, and you need to go to class or work or, hey, just drink some more. You’re legal now, and there’s nothing like staying drunk to avoid a hangover.

If you follow our guide, you’re guaranteed to have the worst birthday celebration of your life while ending up more drunk and hungover than you’ve ever been.