Howls and other unnerving sounds echo through the dormitory halls late at night. Drunks are constantly prowling with loud, awkward footsteps, always on their way in or out, slamming doors each time they pass either way. Worse, even if one is angered to confrontation due to being disturbed from sleep by these louts, these same louts have breath so foul (think rotting grains — a large part in beer) as to make them unapproachable.
Note here I am not writing some public service announcement, nor do I care about the harm you may cause yourself while inebriated. If, for example, you should crash your car due to being drunk, I feel that you have only yourself to blame. When drunkenness causes you to crash your car into a responsible citizen, that is another story. Thankfully, it is one addressed constantly in every middle school grade, so I do not have to repeat it.
Even though I find myself unsympathetic to those who bring misfortune, death or both upon themselves due to their choice to drink, I find myself interested in what drives them to such an end. I mean, why do people drink so much, especially on a college campus? In my limited experience, most alcoholic drinks taste awful. What is more, they burn and dry your throat, defeating the very purpose of a beverage; they restrict your capacity for reason, which is man’s defining trait; they disturb your motor functions, which is not fun, no matter what the other drunks tell you; and they cause you to wake up with a headache, which is just about the worst thing you can wake up with, short of Walter Cronkite.
Taking all those drawbacks of the drinking experience into account, I cannot help but be baffled by why anybody would ever want to drink. Some say it helps them “loosen up” for social occasions; however, most do not see fit to explain themselves as, by now, drinking has become such a given aspect of the college experience. I scoff at those who need alcohol in order to be social. If you need something to enhance your personality for social occasions or even just to have fun in general then: A) you are a loser and must come to grips with it, and B) you are living a lie, and a lie that everybody else will realize once they spend time with you while you are sober. Better drink more so nobody finds out how much of a loser you are, you loser.
Another thing about “social drinkers” that baffles me is how a person who cannot go anywhere without their compact mirror can turn around and willfully drink until they are a shambling horror? The paradox is staggering. Maybe I should take a breathalyzer test to ensure I am not smashed.
It is a wildly depressing thought that the people who are supposed to be the future, those pursuing further education, are unable to find leisure activities without the aid of stupefying substances. I, as one of the few habitually sober students on campus, am confident with myself in both my ability to enjoy life and to have fun in a social environment while drinking nothing harder than grape soda.
Remember, your mind is the only thing that makes you special among all species and you do yourself a disservice by hindering it with foul tasting, causing-you-to-wake-up-in-Tijuana-next-to-Walter-Cronkite substances. I hope the Cronkite imagery is enough all on its own to scare you sober. Ahh, sobriety: the lonely and courageous state of mind.
Dan Goldstein can be contacted at [email protected]