My dear readers, in just two short weeks I will be celebrating a very momentous occasion, something every college student waits for. That’s right, my 21st birthday.
I am just as excited as the next person to turn 21 because I imagine it will seem like a whole new world.
However, as this day is finally within reach, I have been pondering the things I’ve learned about alcohol since I’ve been in college, some very good things and some very, very bad things.
To begin, I would like to explain that I had very little exposure to alcohol growing up and even throughout high school.
My parents would drink casually and socially from time to time, but they had never been anything even close to drunk in front of me, in fact, I do not think I had ever seen someone drunk until my freshman year of college.
Perhaps that puts me in the “sheltered’’ category or maybe I’m even a “goody two shoes”.
I have been called those things before and many others so they don’t really affect me much.
People often say that college freshmen go so wild during their first year because they are placed in a completely new environment with new elements, new people and very little supervision.
The freedom kind of gets to you. I can relate to that.
During my freshman and even sophomore year, I did what I tend to do in new situations, I learned by observing.
I saw my friends and peers drink until they couldn’t speak or control their body and its functions.
I had to recap the previous night to several people who couldn’t remember what had occurred.
I watched several people vomit in the hallways and garbage cans of our dorm building. I observed a lot of new things.
But one of the most important things I observed is that it was for these kinds of nights, the ones you made a fool of yourself and your friends and drank until you couldn’t remember your own name, you were rewarded.
Those nights lived on within the university, those nights made you famous and popular. It becomes very apparent that if you’re not drunk, you’re not really having fun.
As a person that likes to be in control of myself at all times (to a fault probably), I knew that I didn’t like to drink very much and my size would probably dictate that I couldn’t drink very much.
The further I got into my college years, the more I began to realize that if I did not like to drink until I blacked out and I did not want to buy a fake I.D. to go to the bar well….there wasn’t very much for me to do. And people, even my friends, started saying things like “you’re no fun!” or “This is college, you need to loosen up!” And those things stick with you.
I had never thought of myself as “no fun” until college.
I started to feel as though if I did not have some crazy drunk story to tell like how I passed out in a public place or hooked up with a guy I do not remember, then there weren’t many interesting things about me.
I’m not saying that once I turn 21 I won’t enjoy going to bars with my friends and drinking socially on the weekends, because I am actually quite excited to do that.
However, I am saying that the answer (for me, anyway) to finding a comfortable place within this alcohol culture was finding the right people.
In finding those people whose idea of fun matched mine more closely, I changed my college experience.
Being in a social group where feel pressured to do more than you want to or drink more than you want to is a dangerous and depressing place to be.
I have found that once you realize that you can have a great time sober, you will.
My favorite moments so far in college have not involved alcohol at all, and the best part is, I remember them in great detail.
Here’s to hoping that those that are struggling find a place where they’re comfortable in this college culture like I did. I will drink to that…in two weeks of course.
Bridget Goedke
Senior Viewpoints Editor
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