I’m 19 and I will never drink again
The only thing darker than my blackouts was my reason for drinking
I’m pretty sure most of us cut loose when we get to college. No parents, no bed times, no worries. So what do we all do on the weekend? Get smashed on keg beer and cheap vodka. My first semester of college, I was no different than the rest of the freshman enjoying the taste of free lukewarm alcohol at house parties. Freedom is fun, and I took full advantage of it.
How Freshman do I look headed to my first college party? (Cringe)
Every Friday night I would walk into a stranger’s house, drink their booze, have my fun and the next morning I would wake up on a friend’s floor with my hair a mess, my makeup everywhere, and my head feeling like it had been kicked by a donkey. Too often I would have no recollection of the night’s happenings. My friends would tell me what happened the night before and I would laugh at stupid things I did while drunk.
But there was one thing that they told me that stuck with me in an uncomfortable way. As a joke, one of them had asked me, “Why do you drink?” while I was heavily intoxicated.
In a slurred and dizzy voice, I had answered, “Because there are things in my life that I want to forget.”
I stole someone’s hat at a party while I was drunk. Woke up and saw this selfie inexplicably on my camera roll
You shouldn’t use any substance as a crutch
I realized that the only reason I was going out and getting trashed every weekend was because I was unbelievably stressed out. Going to college was a huge culture shock for me after living in the same place for twelve years. I was in a major that I hated (which I thankfully changed) and it was driving me insane. Making friends was hard, and so I latched on to one old friend from high school and his entire friend group just kind of became mine by default. The only way, in my opinion, was to forget about everything by drinking myself into a stupor.
Illuminati-looking symbol found on my hand after a night out
I decided to stop drinking because I didn’t want that to become my identity
Alcohol became my calm-down drink. If I was stressed, my knee jerk reaction was to want to take shots. It made no sense to me, not even then. I was never heavily into drinking. It just became what I did when I felt like I had no other options as far as making my life better.
It’s sad when you don’t recognize your own snap story in the morning
But I realized something: I didn’t want that to become who I was. So at the ripe age of 19, I vowed never to drink again. In all honesty, I’m afraid to start again. I realized that I don’t know when to stop, and that’s not healthy at all. Using alcohol as a crutch was causing me to gain weight and rely on that substance for happiness, which fueled a depression that I didn’t realize was even developing.
I’m not judging you if you drink
If you like to drink, I’m not judging you. More power to you for being able to manage it. I just hope that you’ll take my words into account and reevaluate your choices. We don’t need to drink to be happy. You don’t need to drink to have fun. It’s important to know your limits and not to exceed them. You could cause yourself and others serious harm, so be safe and have fun responsibly.