Drinking Dangerously
by Robyn Tellefsen

"I feel like I have a hold on my life now," affirms Sarah, a junior at the University of Delaware (UD) in Newark. "I don't wake up at 2 p.m. saying, 'Oh, I missed class again because I was too hung over to go,' or 'I hope I didn't get taken advantage of last night.' I finally have control of myself."

An Inside Look
Alcohol almost wrecked Sarah's life. Even though she didn't drink in high school, she felt it was unavoidable in college. "Everywhere you go, it's in your face," she asserts.

There came a point, however, when she deemed her drinking dangerous. "My sophomore year, I realized I was drinking more than just at parties. I was drinking in my room and before I went out," she admits. "It was getting excessive."

While Sarah thought that partying would make her life seem better, it always made it worse. "Almost every night would end with me getting drunk and hysterically crying, starting fights, and running around campus by myself," she says. "And there are a lot of things I can't remember."

Sarah's rocky social life began to affect all areas of her college experience. "Last year I got the worst grades I've ever gotten," she confides. "I was out of school for two weeks, and I got two incompletes because I broke my foot from falling down when I was drunk."

Unfortunately, Sarah had to hit rock bottom before she could start climbing her way out. "I ended up in the emergency room last April, and everything came crashing down," she confesses.

Telling The Truth
Because of stories like Sarah's, campus groups are trying to get the word out that there are plenty of ways to have fun without drinking.

For instance, at Western Illinois University in Macomb, the Alcohol and Other Drug (AOD) Task Force initiated a "6-Pack Project" last fall. "Since a six-pack carries a strong image of beer, we gave out six-packs of soda on move-in day to give students a new image," explains Dan Maxwell, director of student activities and AOD Task Force member.

Another resource being utilized by schools like the University of Florida (UF) in Gainesville and Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, is MyStudentBody.com, a Web site devoted to student alcohol awareness. "More and more students are turning to the Internet for information," says Maureen Miller, a health educator at UF. "If a friend is in trouble, they might log onto the 'Net first before making a phone call."

The University of Delaware is no stranger to promoting alcohol awareness, either. They've been partnering with A Matter of Degree: The National Effort to Reduce High-Risk Drinking Among College Students, since 1996.

"We're not advocating that students over 21 don't drink; we're promoting more responsible drinking for students," claims Tracy Bachman, program director of the Building Responsibility Coalition on UD's campus.

Unless you want to wake up in a post-party nightmare just like MARK WAHLBERG and JENNIFER ANISTON did in Rock Star (2001), heed Sarah's anti-binge savvy: "It's not cute, it's not funny, and it's not attractive," she assures. "You could mess up your life so fast, and you wouldn't even realize it."