Remember the good old days of high school parties? I sure do. It usually involved having to steal just a little of your parents' alcohol or buying super cheap alcohol at whatever convenience store would accept your fake (shoutout to Four Lokos). Either one of those was a big accomplishment. Then you and your squad would post up at one of the main homies basement, garage or some other miscellaneous designated party area and just hang out. You’d talk to people for hours, listen to music, play cards or pool, boys would attempt to look manly and make a fire and, usually, someone did something really dumb.

Now, just a few years later and not that much has changed, but one thing’s for sure — I definitely feel severe pressure to pregame.

I get that times have changed and the parties are different, and in most cases, they’re actually much better than the high school "ragers" I was attending, but the issue is this: why do we feel compelled to be drunk before the party has even begun?

Some of the impacting variables are completely out of our control. For one, if we’re going to a party where we know there won’t be alcohol or that alcohol will be limited there’s really no choice but to pregame a lot. Ever since the fabulous “Greek Agreement” has been put into place, alcohol at parties is really hit or miss. So students have taken it upon themselves to compensate by chugging ridiculous amounts of vodka before their ride even shows up. You gotta do what you gotta do, but I would rather eventually be hammered than showing up to a party and 20 minutes later: "lights on, no one’s home."

This is also impacted by how we operate as a young society. I don’t wanna say I necessarily need alcohol to interact with the opposite sex, but a little liquid courage can definitely loosen you up.

Honestly, the worst case scenario is when you get to a party and it’s awkward because you’re sober. So we show up to the party just a little bit more than tipsy and pray for a fun night. Yet, the night usually ends sooner than anticipated because WOAH you hit "noodle status" quickly when you chug half a solo cup of Taaka.

And this last one more so applies to bars, but let's face it, even if you’re in college and you’re “not broke," you’re f**king broke. Thus, it’s way more cost effective to make a few mixies while you’re getting ready than to have the bartender supply your entire intoxication. But does that stop us? Hell no. We still walk directly up to the bar and order a drink upon arrival because it’s a bar. No one wants to walk around one of those without something to sip on in your hand.

So what do we do? Is this a problem we can solve? My blackouts are begging me to find an answer. Frankly, it’s not safe and it’s not fun to continue on like this. I want to remember the fabulous nights of my senior year, not just the first thirty minutes of them. I will continue to search for a solution and promise to report back with any findings. I’ll leave you, dear reader, with some life advice that all of us could benefit from: never trust anything a boy says when he’s drunk and doesn’t have pants on, don’t drink and drive and friends don’t let friends drink grape Karkov — ew.