We have all woken up after a wild night of drinking with regrets from the night before. For some, these regrets range from fighting with a significant other to harassing an innocent pedestrian on the street. For others, such regrets include telling someone they would give $30 to see his genitalia, which was a joke, so stop telling people I'm a pervert. None of the following has ever happened to me, but from what I hear, it occurs.
Although such instances may seem quite petty, there are occurrences that can be a bit more detrimental. Such distinct instances that have taken place on campus are vandalism and unprotected sex. I've never taken part in vandalism, unless you would consider spray painting storefronts with your gang signs vandalism, and I never take part in unprotected sex. My intercourse is always accompanied by a Magnum condom. The Magnum prophylactic is not a reference to my endowment, but simply a fashion statement; I like to wear my condoms like my JNCOs.
It is no secret that people at this school drink. I like to drink. I feel drinking can be a very fun and innocent way of having a good time. In many cases, I even think drinking is a highly beneficial activity. Drinking, in moderation, helps remove that veil of control and restriction placed upon us by our surroundings.
I would like to see everyone reach that level of intoxication where they are willing to partake in some crazy behavior (i.e. turn their briefs into a thong and prance around the dance floor), but refrain from becoming incoherent annoyances.
Oftentimes too much consumption will bring a person to that state of "mean drunk" or the dreaded "emotional drunk." The mean drunk is usually a male, and since he is oftentimes overly physical, he will typically greet you with a slap to your testicles or a subtle uppercut to the stomach. I might also add that the mean drunk will find it his responsibility to awkwardly enter a conversation you are having with an attractive member of the opposite sex. In this conversation, he will most likely bring up the story of how your mom walked in on you masturbating. Mussolini, Stalin and Hitler were all said to have been mean drunks.
Not quite as bad as the mean drunk is the emotional drunk. As long as people avoid conversations with emotional drunks, they'll be fine. However, once an emotional drunk grabs hold of you, he or she is harder to get rid of than gonorrhea. Emotional drunks confess their insecurities, discuss run-ins with pedophilic uncles and will probably inform you that they "cried themselves to sleep last night." Tell them to take a Zoloft and move on.
Two years ago I awoke in my freshman dorm submerged in a puddle of urine. Yes, after a night of drinking, I had urinated myself. Yes, in a matter of 12 hours I had completely regressed into a 4-year-old child. Do you know how demoralizing it is for an 18-year-old college student to pee in his bed? Inspired by a Mentos commercial I had seen years ago, I must say, I was tempted to urinate on the remaining white sections of my sheets and try passing them off as light yellow ones. I realized this might get uncomfortable and soon result in a faint mildew smell, so I washed them. This is not my point though.
My point is that I took urinating in my bed as a sign. It was a sign that I needed to not only purchase a box of Depends, but that I needed to control my drinking habits. I took a vow that morning, and it is a vow that I still uphold today: If I have another dream that I'm peeing in a urinal at Yankee Stadium, I'll wake up because I might actually be peeing. But secondly, I took a vow that if I ever wake up to a mound of number two in my bed, I won't so much as take a sip of Manischewitz wine for the rest of my life.
I am not condoning the drinking habits of the student body. However, I am not condemning those habits either. The majority of college is about maturing as an individual, and I am fully confident that such maturation will occur with most of those who are currently deemed "binge drinkers." I feel that it is the responsibility of the student, and no one else's, to know when enough is enough. When you've lost all ambition in life, alienated everyone who ever cared for you, and have reached the point in laziness where you start viewing a colostomy bag as a good thing, it is time to stop.
Jeremy Elias ([email protected]) is a junior majoring in communications.
