I’ve never been drunk in my life. I’ve never been high in my life. My whole existence on this campus has been drug-free. Weird, I know, coming from a college student (which can be considered synonymous with intoxicated), but this lifestyle has made my college career very interesting.
Think of it this way — all of those crazy nights you don’t remember, I do, and they always remind me why I don’t drink.
One night, I was at a friend’s house, and we heard a huge commotion going on outside. Curiously, we all sprinted to the door to see what it was, and we knew by the anthill-like conglomeration that somebody in that crowd was about to brawl.
A guy walked up to the porch we were on, and he told us how it all started when two guys came into his house party and stole a bag of Captain Crunch from the kitchen. A mob of pissed-off people chased them down, ready to beat them up — over a bag of cereal.
We laughed for hours.
Mind-boggling situations like these keep any curiosities I have about drinking at bay. I suppose I can imagine how a buzz would be fun, just enough to make you feel good and still be aware of your surroundings, but I don’t understand what is so fun about being wasted like that. Perhaps it has to do with my lack of experience, but all I hear about are gut-wrenching hangovers, enduring puke sessions, and not remembering that completely idiotic event that has all your friends laughing at you.
I feel like the only reason people seek to get wasted is due to social pressure. We’ve all heard the songs. We’ve all seen the movies. We’ve all listened to the conversations about how fun someone’s night was (so fun they don’t remember it), and how even though they felt like crap the next two days, they can’t wait to do it again. Being hammered is trendy, but from a sober eye, all it seems to do is turn the smartest and most well-mannered individual into a dumb prepubescent (sometimes toddler-aged) human.
When I’m at a party and someone offers me booze, they look at me like an alien life-form when I tell them I don’t drink. I always explain to them I am cool with people drinking and smoking, but I’d rather not put myself in a position where I am likely to convey things that aren’t who I am, or put myself at risk because of some liquid beverage. They understand where I am coming from, and many of them think this is a courageous thing for me to decide, but I really don’t think it makes me better than anyone. It’s just a personal choice, and it may have just as much to do with my stubbornness, hatred of embarrassment, and fear of being uncontrolled as it does with my ethical values.
From an outside perspective, drugs and alcohol seem like they are fun because they destroy inhibition. Things people wouldn’t normally do, they do. Things people wouldn’t normally say, they say. And things that people wouldn’t ever expect become normal. Intoxication creates personality traits that people in our society rarely have — boldness, tranquility, confidence and open-mindedness. Being under some influence fortifies our ability to have these traits, but at a certain point it seems to be at the cost of our intelligence — which is the core thing we are supposed to be developing as college students.
I’ve lived my life feeling it is more important for me to achieve whatever personality traits I needed through personal development as opposed to intoxication. I’ve always been a crazy, confident, bold, and unpredictable person, and I already have enough problems containing myself when I get outlandish. The last thing I need is to be faded and completely out of control.
I’d be afraid for the world.
As anyone who knows me can attest, I am very welcoming and accepting to those living the “typical” college life, and I assure you that even though I don’t drink or smoke, I can party and have just as good a time as the next kid. I just prefer to know what I am doing while I am doing it, and how to appropriately handle myself in all situations.
In short, I like to be in control when I lose control.
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