Kate Frankola, Tulane University, Class of 2009
11/4/2009
2006 Essay Runner Up
Why do many college students drink so heavily? The answer is simple, and yet not simple at all: peer pressure. Yes, your fifth-grade DARE instructor was correct in telling you that peer pressure to drink would be a sure part of your future. But this peer pressure to drink is not present in what one might consider the traditional sense, nor is it directly related to the act of drinking itself. Young people drink because drinking facilitates socialization and eases many pressures that correlate to awkwardness or social discomfort. Drinking is not an end to itself; it is a means to an end-the end being social ease, casual sex, lowered inhibitions, and/or a sound excuse to behave irresponsibly.
For anyone who has even limited experience drinking alcohol, indisputable is the fact that alcohol in moderate quantities relaxes nerves, lowers reticence, and consequently causes many social situations to be perceived by young drinkers as less stressful. If this were not so, the art of "pregaming" (drinking at home before going out to drink more) would have become obsolete years ago. College students quite ostensibly deem it necessary to have a strong buzz going even before entering the first bar of the night. Whether their reasons for doing so include feelings of general self-consciousness that seem to accompany sobriety past 11pm or an apparent need to lessen their awareness of the annoyance that results from being surrounded by drunk people, irrefutable is the fact that their reasons for drinking even prior to actually socializing are socially-motivated.
Undeniably, the woes of awkwardness are vast and comprehensive. Possible mishaps associated with mass socialization include, but are not limited to: misspeaking or being a dull conversationalist, putting oneself in a position to be judged on minuscule details of self-presentation, dancing with poor rhythm…and of course being conscious enough to worry incessantly about social mishaps in the first place! Alcohol and its culture certainly work to eliminate these worries: nobody can really hear your conversation in a crowded bar, drunk people are far more likely to support you in your decision that dancing shirtless on the table really is a great idea, and, best of all, everything that you say is most likely taken with a grain of salt ("Haha, he didn't really mean to propose to me; he was drunk!")-or rather, the numerous grains of salt lining the circumference of your margarita glass. Yes, best and most socially-easing of all is the unspoken agreement of mutual understanding that exists among drunken idiots: we're all in this together, let's not judge each other…at least, not until tomorrow.
Besides alcohol being the great equalizer in a general social sense, drinking has also been known to bring many people closer to a more specific, arguably more taboo, social end: sex. Amazingly, alcohol has the capacity to cause those we desire to appear simultaneously more attractive and less intimidating. Though a fine line exists between drunken consensual sex and date rape, many a person whose decision-making process has been impaired is willing to take his or her chances and capitalize on the lowered inhibitions of his or her partner. For even when the desired encounter does not go according to plan, mistakes are more easily forgiven when alcohol is involved in the absolution process ("Oh, I'm sorry, my tongue doesn't belong down your throat? Sorry, I'm drunk; you understand my confusion").
What we socially desperate, miserably codependent college kids sometimes lack (well, obviously, besides a mature relationship with alcohol) is a sense of perspective. We sometimes refuse to admit, even to ourselves, that the buzz always fades; that even if no horrific consequences occur ("How did your vomit get in my bed if you slept with my roommate!?"), the social awkwardness of the sober weekdays inevitably returns, people morph back into their daytime selves, random sex must be initiated with considerably more effort than a mere head-nod of acknowledgment that occurs between the hours of 2am and 4am at the local bar. After all of the alcohol is absorbed, we're still just as lost in terms of understanding how to interact with ease. Sure, we could drink again tonight-and we will-but eventually we're going to have to meet our girlfriend's parents, speak at a funeral, or do something otherwise socially strenuous that a simple pregame would not only fail to solve, but hinder.
As we look to solutions, we must boldly enforce and reinforce concepts that we all have heard before but have chosen to ignore. Prevention programs must earn the trust of students by steering away from preaching against drinking, but by ensuring that students are informed enough to drink responsibly. They must provoke thought and discernment over alcohol use in college students by providing feedback and means to gauge personal alcohol consumption and abuse. Information derived from a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) curve, for example, may be just the incentive that some students need to make the countercultural decision to drink less, even if peer pressure to drink persists. Maybe all of us will not always make wise decisions in regards to alcohol-but the truth is that many of us will.