Giving
sobriety a chance, here's to loving some
soda
Jeremy
Goldmeier
Turning
20 was a paltry victory for me. It marked
a new decade in my meandering life, but
it still wasn’t 21, the magic number
for which every underage college student
salivates.
Unfortunately, I’m still trapped in that bizarre time of life in which
one can enlist in the Army, get shipped off to a sand-swept foreign land, get
his or her leg blown off by a rocket-propelled grenade, return home bitter
and disillusioned, get shamefully exploited in an exclusive interview with
Barbara Walters and yet cannot legally ingest alcohol.
Even though I believe eluding death’s cruel scythe for 20 years has earned
me the right to play a few games of Beirut without having to worry about the
law, I’m still not much of an alcohol fan.
First of all, despite the ardent claims of Anheuser-Bush and Miller Brewing,
beer indisputably tastes like piss—pleasantly chilled piss, perhaps,
but I have little doubt that “hops” is an industry code word for “urea.” As
for hard liquor, if I wanted my esophagus to catch fire, I would major in MU’s
nationally accredited fire-swallowing program.
Besides, the whole concept of getting sloppy drunk as a means of “having
a good time” never quite clicked for me. Granted, when college students
get bored, we immediately want to kill as many brain cells as possible to escape
the stifling meaninglessness of an academic life.
So, to prevent such shameful scenes from happening, there is Alcohol Responsibility
Month (ARM). This is a program so powerless it has already acquiesced to the
fact that college kids inevitably will drain six-packs in their spare time,
so they might as well do it judiciously.
Basically, ARM’s mere existence is based on an intricate system of student
bribery.
Impressionable members of Freshman Interest Groups, residence halls and greek
chapters get suckered into attending speeches and panels in exchange for incentive
points. The groups who amass the most points receive cash prizes.
Don’t get me wrong; these events can be a positive boon to naive students
who might not realize the potential consequences of binging with friends. I
just find it amusing that ARM seems to try to work within the alcohol culture
on campus rather than attempt sweeping social changes.
I suppose every student is bound to have one too many brews at some point during
his or her college career, and perhaps the misery of such an experience would
prove to be the most powerful deterrent to boozing.
Shouldn’t we all be allowed one night of obscene inebriation in our formative
years, so as to deglamorize alcohol consumption? Hell, I’d drink to that.
This article originally appeared in the Maneater.
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