When you turn 21, you think "Finally! I'm free. This is what I've been waiting for since I was a kid." We all saw the adults at the dinner table after a family Christmas dinner, sitting around with bottles of wine, playing cards or dominoes and making it very clear that they were having fun but you couldn't participate until you were 21.
Even after you were 18, finished your first semester of college and had spent more time guzzling down Nikolai 100 proof than you did going to class, you still had to wait; but it was worth it.
Even after meeting that pretty girl at a tailgate who bragged about going to bars in the city since the age of 15 and thinking "Wow, why do I still have to wait?" but you still thought it was going to be worth it.
Even after you've seen your friends who knew the bouncers at a popular bar in your college town coming home after a long night of $2 long islands and listening to them brag about how much fun they had, but you couldn't get your hands on a fake so you had to sit at home. You still thought it was going to be worth it.
And then you are finally 21 and it's your turn to go out to the bars every weekend. Your friend throws the bouncer a $20 to look the other way as your group of friends and five people under the age of 21 skip the long line at your favorite Friday night spot, you still tell the rest of your underage friends who have to wait that it's going to be worth it.
All of these "even after" experiences and years of waiting don't prepare you for the eventual letdown of being the age of 21 and the realization that it wasn't really that worth it.
The amount of time before the age of 21 you spend thinking about being 21 only builds a fire inside you that leads to binge drinking, and it's the opposite of what turning 21 is actually supposed to be. It's supposed to be a right of passage into adulthood, the next step into maturity after you hit puberty, but it isn't. Being forced to wait by your family all those years while the adults pretended like it was the greatest thing in the world to be able to drink. Seeing example after example of why you want to be 21 so bad just makes you want to drink everything you can get your hands on.
It turns you into an irresponsible drinker, you get to the age of 21 and the first thing you do every chance you get a free moment from responsibility is waste it away by stopping at Sheetz on the way home from class to buy a cheap six pack, so you can drink while you get ready to go out for cheap pitchers, cheap mixed drinks or half price shots, and think it's a good thing.
The point of the drinking age being made 21 instead of the age of 18 was to stop immature kids from getting into trouble and to somehow learn how to drink responsibly without actually drinking. Except everyone I know when they turn 21 goes through a point where they proudly turn into an alcoholic because now they not only want to drink all the time, they feel like they need it to have fun.
The real let down is when you finally get past that maturity step and on to the next one. The step where you realize going out to a bar, pounding drinks until you feel drunk enough and continue drinking, is no longer fun. When you go home to the local bars not filled with people your age and realize that the people who go out and get drunk every single night are pathetic and sad because it seems like that is the only way they know how to have fun.
Drinking responsibly is when you know how many drinks in a single night it takes you to catch a buzz and still be functional in your social situation, or when everyone else your age drunk before they even get to the bar and you're sipping on your first drink in one hand and a cup of water in the other to stay hydrated so you don't have a hangover the next day.
Trust me, I am still someone who could hang with everyone else if I wanted to. From the guy who used to be able to drink an entire fifth in one sitting or start binge drinking right after classes and be up until 4 a.m. the next morning still drinking, it is not worth it.
I actually remember a very small amount of those nights I spent drinking that heavily and in the past, if you had asked me if it was fun, I would've looked at you like you were stupid for asking, smiled and given you a "fuck yeah it was."
Now I'm telling you a different story. My favorite nights now are when I work all week and at the end of it go out with my dad to actually drink beer that tastes like it was made by someone who cares about the product they are making, instead of downing sweet drinks and beer that tastes like piss water (rhymes with killer height) then waking up the next day hungover and doing it all over again.
From someone who's done it all before the age of 21, and done even more in the months afterward, stay thirsty my friends but learn how to have fun while drinking responsibly.
