Friday afternoon, while I was at work at the front desk of my office, two lovely gentlemen stopped in front of my desk a few feet away and this hilariously sick conversation took place.
“Dude, guess where I’m headed?”
“I don’t even know! What’s up dude?”
“Dude, I am going to get my alcohol violation from last night, Ha ha ha!”
“No way, that’s awesome! Call me later and come over to the house. We will pick up some ’40s’ for the party tonight!”
“Right on! See ya’ later.”
Aside from their excessive use of the word dude, and an obvious lack in tact, as women from my office came out to comment on this obnoxiously loud verbal transaction, this scene made me sick to my stomach.
When did it become socially acceptable to be excited about getting caught for underage drinking in places where alcohol is not even supposed to be?
If you can see yourself in this scenario, stop smiling, stop reading, roll up the paper and beat yourself over the head with it.
The crazy thing is, students wonder why they have created the Task Force for Alcohol and Substance Abuse on this campus, or why we have lost three students in the last year to overdoses of alcohol and drugs, or why everyone is so obsessed with the fact we might lose the Greek system. Which, hello, we won’t. It’s because drunken obnoxiousness has become a celebrated pastime. It has suddenly become cool to black out and not remember last Friday night.
Remember that commercial with the crazy girl and the frying pan and the egg? Well, welcome to being the egg she smashed all over her kitchen counter. Alcohol isn’t a bad thing, ladies and gentlemen. I am not getting up on a self-righteous soapbox and saying that drinking should be damned, and all those who drink are bad people. But alcohol is an addictive substance; it needs to be treated with a certain amount of respect and consumed in moderation. Anything done in excess is not healthy, whether it be alcohol, drugs, smoking, eating or even exercising.
In the last month, I have personally witnessed two students carried on stretchers to ambulances and taken to hospitals for alcohol overdoses. And, hey, big surprise, I do not go out a lot.
If someone who doesn’t get out a lot has seen this, imagine the extent to which people are hospitalized, and imagine how many students are not being taken to hospitals, but probably should be. Their friends stick them in a bathroom near a toilet and let them puke it all up. And hopefully, they are OK the next day.
You know why this happens? Our generation has taken drinking to a new perverse art form with the sole purpose of causing inordinate amounts of binge drinking, forgotten nights and mornings of taking six Advil.
From shotgunning beers to beer pong, quarters, card games, and my personal favorite, to witness the six shooter (six shots of hard alcohol taken in rapid succession), it’s all for show. The genius that thought this last one up probably doesn’t have a functioning liver anymore, folks.
I repeat, there is nothing wrong with drinking if you can moderate it so that you are not hurting yourself many nights a week. What is the point of drinking four or more nights a week? Why do you need to have those extra two shots, or drink a whole 40-ounce bottle?
We are all smart kids at this school. If we weren’t smart, we wouldn’t be here! So why do we all have this obsessive urge to drink as much as possible when we all know we look like idiots stumbling around drunk at the party.
So please just drink carefully this weekend, and to those celebrating their own idiocy and drunkenness, remember the friends people lost last year before you take those next round of shots. Your liver will thank you for it.
About the writer:
Rachel Carey is a sophomore political science major. She can be reached at [email protected].
