During the latter half of each week, I always like to watch the incoming freshmen and their families come onto campus for orientation. I am always both amused and saddened by the sight: amused because they all look so young and remind me so much of myself just a few short years ago. However, the larger part of me is saddened because, as I’m sure all the rising seniors will agree, a new class means that we get closer to the top of the food chain…and thereby closer to graduation. Nonetheless, I often think back to my freshmen year, how I’ve changed and what I’ve learned. Some lessons came easier and quicker (GO TO CLASS), while others took a lot longer for me absorb.

One of the first non-academic lessons I ever learned is that college is not an excuse or a reason to binge drink on the weekends like most of us tend to do. Admittedly, it is a large part of college, and sometimes it’s kind of appropriate to let loose, but it’s only supposed to occupy a minimal amount of your time. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for celebratory drinks (EDITORS NOTE: IF YOUR 21) after a particularly stressful exam or long boring week; it does the human soul some good to get out every now and again. The problem is that we usually get out of control—we will find our comfortable limit…and then knowingly exceed it. In general, I consider this only half of the problem: we drink too much and make a fool of ourselves, but for the most part its all in “good fun”. The more serious half of the problem is that we use the excuse of being drunk to do things we would otherwise not do.

That is altogether more worrisome, because there’s a reason we don’t do certain things in everyday life. Too often, people justify their actions by blaming it on the alcohol (thank you, Jamie Foxx). But in reality, when does ‘liquid courage’ become ‘liquid recklessness’? We’ve all done something stupid and woken up the next morning with a screeching headache and raging guilt. It ranges from drunk dialing the ex you never got over to doing questionable things with even more questionable people. Why do we knowingly risk our physical and emotional health for a few hours of bar hopping, dancing and a random hook-up?

The answer is one that will forever be lost to me. Maybe its because we all secretly wish we were braver in real life, or maybe we want more interesting stories to tell our friends. It could be that every once in a while, we all seek the solace of blackness of consciousness that only alcohol can bring. Whatever the answer may be, whether its one of these or any number of others, I think the way to absolution is to look inside ourselves. We need to be in tune with ourselves enough to know when its time to close the tab. Yes, alcohol makes things more fun, but you shouldn’t NEED it to make things fun. I think that once you’ve truly come to grips with that thought, the rest of it should come easy. Then we can start acting like the (mostly) responsible adults that we’re gearing up to be.

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