Alcohol Awareness for College Bound Student

With the start of the college year just around the corner I thought I would write a few articles about college related subjects. I drank quite a bit when I was in college. More than I am actually should have. I do take ownership for my actions though. I don't see anything wrong with drinking beer. I personally do not really drink anymore. The main thing is to be sure to drink in moderation and to not drink and drive. You also need to be very aware of your actions as there are people that will take advantage of someone when they are drunk.

When I first attended college I did not drink. I tried not to judge those who did, but I found myself not wanting to hang around people who were total party animals. In a lapse of sanity I decided to join a fraternity. Unfortunately the one I decided to join was a new one on campus and about 80% of the members were rejects who did not stand a prayer of getting into another fraternity. I actually was talked to by several members of the other fraternities on campus about joining, but decided not to. Part of the reason for me was it seemed that all of the people in the fraternities drank. I further had heard that many had pledging and brotherhood rituals that involved alcohol. This was later confirmed by several fraternities getting into trouble over hazing.

I finally picked up my first drink my sophomore year in college. It really was not as much peer pressure as much as the average person would think. I am not very proud of it, but

the first time I drank I was feeling very guilty over cheating on a girlfriend. In all fairness we were broke up and she was seeing someone else, but I was trying to get her back since I really thought I cared for her. An ex girlfriend of mine really tempted me with the EXTREMELY talented oral skills she had and that was that. I recall that I bought a six pack of Lowenbrau Special was the first beer I drank and I think I was drunk. After that I found that booze really helped me to relax and I actually enjoyed it. The guys in the fraternity were nothing but encouraging and there were all the drinking games and things of that nature you could imagine. I never really did anything extremely stupid or had anything very bad happen to me, but I did know people who did have things happen. Since booze can really bring out inhibitions you might do things that you normally would not do if you were not buzzed or drunk.

It was never a problem for me, but I did drink very excessively at times in college and probably wound up waking up next to more than a few women I probably should not have because of the decision to start to drink. The decision was mine though and I do own it. If you do decide that you are going to drink there are some things you should be aware of.

The first is obviously death. People don't often think of it, but you can die just from drinking. Assuming that a person is healthy overall they still can drink too much and get what is called alcohol poisoning. This usually happens when someone drinks a very excessive amount of alcohol usually in a short period of time. This has happened more than a few times in fraternity settings (not always though and not all fraternities haze or require members to drink) like pledging. One example that has occurred on more than one occasion is when a group of pledges are given a certain, usually excessive, amount of alcohol and told by brothers that they need to drink it in a certain amount of time. One example that I have heard of is three college freshmen being given a case of beer and a gallon of whiskey. These numbers might be off, but one of the students did get alcohol poisoning and die. If you feel like you have drunk too much you really should stop drinking. No fraternity is worth dying over and more fraternities have gotten away from crap like this in place of other "team building" exercises.

I don't think I need to say much about drinking and driving but I probably should. If you are drinking you really should not drive. If you are a drinker and had maybe one beer you probably can drive, but it would always help to have a designated driver. The designated driver should not have any drinks at all even one. I personally have ridden with a drunk driver on several occasions in college and I am very lucky that I never got killed or anything. I don't recall that I ever drove drunk. If I did it may have only been once. Part of the reason I think I never got into any accidents or trouble over that was because of how rural the campus I went to was. It was in the middle of nowhere. To give you an idea of how small the town is they just got their first fast food restaurant like five years before I got there and it was a Hardee's. There still is not a McDonald's in that town as well. Loved the school though and was glad I went there. You don't do as I do you do as I say is the best piece of advice here. I should not have done that and I advise anyone not do get into a car with a drunk driver or drive themselves. In my four years of college four students died while drunk driving. In some cases there were no other cars on the road and they were not even going fast. I think in retrospect that I really just got lucky. In the case of the four I personally knew two very well and it was such a waste of life.

Another thing that many people get themselves into trouble with while is make indiscretions involving sex. I will skip over the wait until you are married stuff because I know that is not reality. I had planned to wait till I was married, but did not and then a monster was created as my ex-girlfriend said. Most of the sexual encounters I had with the ladies in college would not have occurred if I had not had a bit of Jim Bean or Jack Daniels in me at the time. I actually got a bit of a bad reputation because of some of those exploits since I always tried to be honest with people. I never lied and told girls what they wanted to hear. I did have a few girls who thought that I owed them a relationship because of a drunken hook up.

Girls really need to be aware of the problems the relief of inhibitions can cause. It's really hard to get rid of a bad reputation of being easy. I know it's not fair but guys will not get anywhere near the negative reputation that a girl will for sleeping around. This one girl I knew got really drunk one time and let five guys have their way with her. The fact that the school was in the Deep South and she was white and the five were black did not help her reputation any. She really regretted it and if she had not been drunk she would not have done it. Last I heard she still could not find a guy who wants anything from her except an easy way to get his jollies. This is a shame because she really was nice person. There are also more than a few cases of guys taking advantage of girls when they were drunk. Sometimes you can put yourself in a bad situation by drinking with the wrong people. That is not to say that it would be deserved, but there are people that rape a passed out young lady and keep doing things like that until they are stopped. There have also been cases more and more of people drugging women's drinks with date rape drugs. Your best defense is to not be in that situation.

Hopefully this is not a pretty sight is it? If you want to drink and are old enough that is your choice. I would advise you to think about your actions and also to think of the things that could happen with one bad choice that you make when you had too much Jack Daniels and Coca-Cola.