Hello Wesleyan. My name is Rob Cohen, and I’m an alcoholic. That was easy. Now every one of you cats that got shit-faced last weekend say it. Don’t worry, this isn’t going to be a moralist persuasion not to drink “from the other side” or some shit like that. In fact this will be quite the opposite, more of a rejoicing in our generation’s love of getting obliterated. What follows will be a loosely structured rant about our fermented friends in the vegetable kingdom.
Friday night I was proudly walking down the street with some friends to a party with a Harpoon beer in my twenty-one-year-old hand. A very friendly police officer (written without sarcasm for those of you who find the notion of a decent authority figure preposterous) noticed the beer and stopped his car to chat with me and a friend about how it was funny and unfortunate that I was going to have to pay the state $90 for flaunting my vice in the “city” of Middletown. Before we parted ways, he told me to tell my friends to be careful when they’re walking around at night since the police have been requested to patrol the campus until really late at night and that he didn’t want to have to hassle us.
While “drinking in public” is a bullshit law that applies to cities (I suppose that Lawn Ave. is downtown Middletown), it is very revealing of the American attitude towards alcohol. That attitude goes something like this: “Drinking is good because it makes people happy, complacent, and productive members of society in most cases. However, we don’t want to see people drinking on the streets because it will distract the people currently plugged into the system by going to work or buying shit. The drinking man has bought his bottle and is no longer producing something beneficial for society. We don’t want to be reminded of his and our own need for antisocial self-destruction. However while we forbid the opened bottle on the street, we celebrate the opened bottle on the 10,000 square foot billboard, most likely accompanied by a gorgeous woman’s cleavage. BUY ME! We love the alcohol fantasy, not the reality. The fantasy keeps people going, allowing them to cope with the bullshit. The reality must be suppressed so that people don’t realize it.” In this way drinking can be a weapon towards society, a conscious decision to drink when inappropriate. A person who sees through the charade and gets drunk is no longer using alcohol in the way society has designed. Rather, that person is now dangerous because alcohol (like any drug) alters the mind, and that person is aware of the altered state and is using it rather than getting used by it.
Our generation has adopted a different view of alcohol than our ancestors. We are much more aware of and embrace the self-destructive qualities of alcohol, a realization that began in our parents’ generation. We use terms like “getting fucked-up, getting retarded, getting plastered” to describe our habit. We are growing up in a generation where it is not only tolerated to be an alcoholic, but it is also encouraged. Our generation seems to have forgotten what the phrase “drinking in moderation” means. I’m not just talking about your average American either. I’m talking about students at our nation’s top universities, those wonderful bastions of conformity and intellectual constipation that we all love so much. The future de facto leaders of this country were most likely raised on Beirut, Kings, Flip-Cup, Asshole, and any other of the countless “drinking games” we find so amusing. My favorite drinking game happens to be Drink the Beer, whose only rule is embedded in its title.
Drinking is no longer considered a vice of which people should be ashamed. People tend to flaunt their “ability to drink well” more than any number of talents they could have. Being addicted to alcohol and getting drunk four nights a week are thought of as characteristics of a hip party animal rather than of somebody with a problem. Of course in some cases this behavior can be unredeemingly pathetic as well.
Hell, being drunk is fun. It’s fun to be uninhibited and think in the “now.” It’s fun to be impulsive. These are some of the freeing qualities that make alcohol great. However, it always makes me cringe and sneer when people use alcohol as an excuse to justify behavior with which they claim to disagree. That’s a heaping load of bullshit. Everything I’ve ever done or said while drunk is intrinsic in my personality and my psyche with the only exception that the action might have been second-guessed by a more cautious and sober version of myself. If you’re not willing to vouch for your behavior as a drunk, then you’re not willing to admit who you are.
So to all the drinkers out there, bottoms up. To all the squares, you’re missing out. Just remember that drinking doesn’t make you cool. Drinking makes cool people cooler. It’s a personality enhancer. So to all the douchebags out there, do us all a favor and don’t drink. Keep it real, Wesleyan.
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