What follows is very direct and very serious. There are a lot of people who know me quite well who will be surprised by what am I about to say. Some of you may also find some of it hypocritical of me. But what is said in this piece is directed at myself just as much as it is at anyone else.
How many of you have either said or heard someone of college age say a line along the lines of this: “I’m not an alcoholic, I’m in college.” What is implied in this line is that since you are a college student, alcoholism does not exist. Drinking way too much is just another great part of college.
For me, personally, the part of this line that I did not comprehend until recently was what could be classified as alcoholism. Me, and I think most other young people, think of alcoholism as drinking a lot of alcohol every single day. But you don’t have to drink every single day to be an alcoholic. Drinking very excessively for stretches of a few days followed by a week or two of being sober before another bender is another type of alcoholism. One of my grandpa’s was this “dry drunk” type of alcoholic for many years of his life (he has now been sober for a couple decades).
The realization that this is a form of alcoholism was when I started to think a lot more about my college existence and this existence of college students everywhere. It was last summer when this conversation about the alternate type of alcoholism, not long before the trip to Missoula which I have talked about in some of my other writings. I had an absolute blast on that trip. You know what I haven’t said about that trip yet is? I drove both nights we were in Missoula. Early on in both of those evenings, I had two drinks with supper and that was it. I had a great time without being drunk.
At that point I had it figured out. The two things that parents everywhere stress to their kids heading off to college I had mastered. Self-control and moderation. I haven’t always had those mastered throughout my college years. I’ve had phases where I’ve done well and phases where I’ve done not so well. I'm sure there are other kids like me out there who know how much fun college is.
College is fun. A lot of people in this world partied a lot more during their college years than they have at any other point in their life and they turned out just fine. I will also be one of those people as will many of my friends. So let's keep having some fun, but let's do it responsibly with self-control and moderation.
