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College Drinking
"At 18 we can already buy tobacco products, be drafted into the military, and vote. But we still can’t drink."
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to this Commentary!
By Nora Harrington
I floated through high school being the square -- one of the few people at keg
parties staying away from the cups full of cheap beer. Whenever someone
asked me if I wanted a drink, my friends would speak for me: "No. She
doesn't drink." Even on prom night, I rode in my limo with tinted windows,
nursing a rum and coke on the rocks, minus the rum.
Drinking in high school felt really unsafe. All the keggers were in
public places, where it's easy to get caught. And I could never tell if the
people I might have to bum a ride from...were sober.
But now I’m in college. And it's different. It seems like almost every night of the week, I hear loud, drunken conversations going on outside my window. Early in the school year, I had already heard stories about drinks spiked with date-rape drugs, and obscene sexual behavior under the influence, especially in fraternities.
On campus, kids who get drunk just stumble home across the quad-no need to drive at all. I had always wanted to try getting drunk, just once, to see why everyone did it, but I held out until a month and a half into my freshman year in college. I joined a team. Of course, I can't tell you what team. And getting drunk was part of the initiation- known as “rookie night”. One of the veteran players sent an email to the rookies, telling us to be outside our dorms at 4:30 in the afternoon on Friday - dressed as farm animals! I was a barn fly, in a mini-skirt and tights with silver fairy wings on my back. The "vets" locked us in a basement room with a single flickering light bulb, and 60 beers to divide among five girls. They barked, "If you don't drink all this stuff in half an hour, your ass is gonna get busted!" We weren't sure exactly what that meant, but knew not to ask questions.
So I thought, to hell with it. And I started to drink. I had six beers in twenty minutes, then ran to a trashcan to "handle my business". And then I collapsed in a heap on the floor. I remember being dragged upstairs, watching my other teammates doing strange dances, then being put in a chair on a porch, shivering and gasping in the cold east coast fall air. Flash to scene two: I’m in a teammates' bathroom, paying homage to the toilet gods...then collapsing against the cool tile wall, exhausted. And then, I’m being helped into bed. I did not touch alcohol for six months.
After that, every time I looked at a bottle of raspberry vodka or a can of natty ice, I got a queasy feeling in my stomach. Eventually I became close friends with some 21-year-old girls, and they drank all the time, so I knew I would have to try it again. "Beer then liquor, you've never been sicker. Liquor then beer, you're in the clear," that the older girls taught me. And it all worked out. I was buzzed: and that's all I wanted to be.
I know a lot of adults are concerned about college drinking. I think they forget what it's like to be a teenager trying to make a place for yourself in a new environment. I think the drinking age should be lowered to 18. At 18 we can already buy tobacco products, be drafted into the military, and vote. But we still can’t drink. Right now, you have no motivation to look after yourself, since the second you drink one beer you're already being a "bad kid". If you get caught, it won't matter how much liquor you've had, it'll all be illegal. So you might as well just go crazy with it.
If colleges took the approach that the government takes to driving, drinking would be a lot safer. Colleges could make it a requirement that students take a class outlining the effects of drinking, and how to know when you're in a safe environment or not.
I know I’m lucky—I could have woken up the next morning in a strange guy’s bed with a pounding headache and no recollection of what happened the night before. Compared to that scenario, my first time drinking was pretty much as safe as it gets; and I even ended up with a story I could actually tell my parents.
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