To Drink or Not To Drink?
Sober in the Animal House by Owen Jennings
Owen Jennings
My liver failed two springs ago, when I was a senior in high school. I don’t know the cause of my liver disease — a genetic mutation, an environmental trigger or just plain bad luck. But one of the many rules of my long recovery has been no alcohol. Not one drink. Not even a sip.
It was with this compulsory sobriety that I entered Dartmouth College two years ago. During my sophomore year, I pledged Alpha Delta, the fraternity that served as the model for the movie “Animal House.” (The film’s chief writer was an alumnus.) It was the same fraternity my brother pledged, and the same fraternity all of my friends would join. I was known as a “dry” pledge — everybody from the president to all the brothers made it clear to me that the fact that I didn’t drink wasn’t an issue at all.
Even though no one cares that I don’t drink, they still see it as bizarre. But being alcohol-free has given me a unique vantage point from which to observe college life and culture. It seems to me that alcohol might be the only drug that everyone is expected to use.
If I refuse a drag of a cigarette or marijuana, there are never any follow-up questions. The same is true for other drugs common on college campuses, whether it’s Adderall, cocaine or Ecstasy. But alcohol is different. Turning down a drink, for some reason, requires justification. When I decline alcohol, the response is almost always, “Why not?”
That’s because in college, drinking is the default. It is assumed that I drink, for no other reason than that I am an average 19-year-old American male. Not drinking is seen as weird.
At Dartmouth, and at every other college campus I have been to, the consumption of alcoholic beverages is common. But the word “consumption” is an understatement. I’m not talking about the casual sipping of a few beers. Here, alcohol consumption means the rapid and repeated gulping and guzzling of beer after beer after beer. Often, students will drink upwards of 15 or 20 beers. On any given night, a frat brother or a sorority sister will spend hours vomiting. Sometimes a classmate will wind up in the hospital with alcohol poisoning. And often, these people wake up unable to remember anything that happened the night before.
This way of living — of partying — is a culture of excess from which I will always be excluded. There are obvious benefits for me — no hangovers, for instance. But the fact that I am surrounded by alcohol is also a constant reminder of my illness and the underlying restraint I must maintain. Because I am not a part of the drinking culture, I don’t forget that alcohol is a drug, and that in large enough doses it’s a poison that causes brain damage and liver disease.
I am always tempted to have a drink. But it’s just not worth the risk. When you have doctors telling you that you almost died and that your liver function is directly affected by your alcohol consumption, it just doesn’t make sense. I am sure there are people with liver disease who do drink, but I am doing everything possible to stay out of the hospital right now.
I have trouble explaining the mindset of my schoolmates to my parents and my grandparents, who don’t understand why a girl would swill half a dozen shots in her dorm room before going out. My generation has adopted drinking as a social cure-all. It’s a way to celebrate winning that big game, and a way to sorrow over a lost girlfriend or a bad grade. It’s a way to fit in, and — if you can drink enough — it’s a way to stand out.
The fraternity is so much more than just a place to drink. I go to the house and we hang out, get dinner, listen to music and go to concerts. We have sports teams, literary contests and community service projects. We send school supplies to Kenya, we work on the Special Olympics, and A.D. recently helped fund gay pride week. So there is a lot more going on than just crazy drinking. It’s just that the drinking overshadows everything.
My sobriety has shown me how mindless my friends’ drinking has become. The question shouldn’t be, “Why aren’t you drunk?” Rather, we need to start asking, “Why are you drunk?”
If I hadn’t been diagnosed with liver disease, I would probably be a part of this insane and inane drinking lifestyle. But I’ve come to realize that while I might feel left out at a party or a bar today, maybe I’m lucky. I will graduate from college without ever having woken up on a bathroom floor, wondering how I got there; without ever having to play hide-and-go-seek with the police. Though I regularly feel frustrated and excluded because I can’t drink, I think I’ll feel differently in a few years, when extravagant keg parties are a distant memory.
I realize that drinking is a way to rebel and revel in the newfound freedom that college brings. But it’s also a veil, a way to manipulate, distort and enhance who we really are.
If anything, being sober at the Animal House has taught me just to be myself.
Owen Jennings is a sophomore studying philosophy and English at Dartmouth College. This article is reprinted from the New York Times.
ALAC’s Early Intervention Manager, Sue Paton
To drink or not to drink? Is it a choice or are we programmed to conform?
When I first read ‘Sober in the Animal House’ I was struck by the parallels in Owen’s story and my own experience. While my experience is different in that I’m older and not part of a university drinking culture, it is similar in the sense that when I’ve chosen to not drink, I’ve felt like a fish swimming in the wrong direction. Yes, I too have felt my choice has made me a bit weird. Certainly like Owen I’ve been asked ‘why not?’ There have been raised eyebrows, odd looks and at times, I’ve felt compelled to offer an explanation. But, why this pressure?
Here’s what I think. Drinking is so much part of our culture, it is the norm. If you don’t drink you must have a very good reason, either you’re a pregnant, a recovering alcoholic or don’t drink for religious reasons. Otherwise you’re just freaky.
Prior to my role as the Early Intervention Manager at ALAC, I was a counsellor for many years working in the alcohol and other drug treatment field. It has always been of great interest to me that even in this enlightened field ‘abstinence’ from alcohol sometimes gets a bad rap from within the field. Why is choosing not to drink seen as an odd decision by those who understand the harm it can cause?
In New Zealand, 85 percent of people drink. Alcohol is so much part of our kiwi culture that we don’t see it as a drug. We have blinkers on protecting us from the harsh realities so we can pursue our drug of choice (including drinking to get drunk), without any compunction. Alcohol does have a part to play in our society, but we need to accept that it is a drug which can be dangerous if consumed above recommended doses. When we accept that drinking is a ‘choice’ and not an ‘expectation’ or measure of ‘normality’, then we will develop a more respectful relationship with both our favourite drug and our fellow citizens’ right to choose.
Quick Facts
- Every year approximately 1,000 New Zealanders die from alcohol related causes
- A third of all police apprehensions involve alcohol
- Half of serious violent crimes are related to alcohol
- There are over 300 alcohol-related offences every day
- Alcohol is a factor in more than half of physical and sexual assaults
- Every year approximately 130 people die in a crash caused by a drunk driver and a further 2,000 will be injured
- At least 600 children are born each year with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder
- 60 different medical conditions are caused by heavy drinking
- Up to 75 percent of adult presentations at Emergency Departments on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights are alcohol-related.
- Approximately 44 percent of fire fatalities involve alcohol
January 08 2010 10:04 am | Uncategorized