Look at who you’re with after midnight. That’s usually where the stories you’ll regret come from.

Judgment thins out late, and the people around you at that hour end up making a lot of your decisions for you. It is rarely one dramatic choice, it is a slow drift toward whatever the group finds normal, at a time when nobody is at their most careful. Company matters more than willpower after a certain point.

Notice who you tend to be with when things go sideways, without deciding they are bad people. Then settle in advance when you are going home, and tell someone. Leaving early is unremarkable, and it removes most of these situations before they start.