We Drank Vehemently.

I once heard that the difference between a college student and an alcoholic is that the alcoholic keeps drinking to excess after graduation. For me, this is truth. With very few exceptions, my friends stopped excessive drinking after college and went on to lead “normal” lives.

But on weekends during college, nearly everyone who drank alcohol consumed it with much the same gusto I did. During my sophomore year, I found a home with some like-minded people on the first floor of McMaster Hall.

We often had a few beers before going to parties. With a boombox in the communal bathroom, we’d take beers into the shower stalls and drink and sing along while prepping for the evening. We called these “shower parties.” I enjoyed them so much that, even after quitting drinking, I keep a boombox in my bathroom so I can have a “shower party” whenever I want.

Sometimes we’d go out to the local bars – most often “The Hood” – and we would drink until we dropped or found somewhere else to go, six-pack in tow. More often than not, my friends would randomly disappear. Staying until closing at 2 a.m. was commonplace for me. I’m the same way now with Disney World.

At parties, which took place mostly in off-campus housing, we drank vehemently. Students danced and sang to whatever song blasted through the air. Since I stayed near the keg or the garbage bin brimming with grain alcohol and Kool Aid, I never knew from where the music emanated. Sometimes the music would also be outside, as in the case of the awesome annual ATO pig roast, and those were fine parties, indeed. More than the alcohol, really, the music made the party great.

My recollections of college parties center around the song, Paradise by the Dashboard Light, with its gaggle of girls rushing into whatever makeshift dance floor suddenly appeared. Waving our drinks above our heads, we’d scream-sing every single syllable of the song, dividing the group during the duet piece so that some of us sang the “boy” lines and some sang the “girl” lines. Scream-singing “Let me sleep on it!” is possibly my fondest memory of my entire college experience.

Of course there were people on campus who didn’t drink. Given the atmosphere at any house party, frat party or bar scene, the people who didn’t drink simply didn’t frequent the places I did. My friend Debbie, who never indulged, would stay in her dorm room and study or watch TV while the campus teemed with drunk people outside.

Sometimes I would stumble past a group of students – day and night – sitting in a circle on the lawn in the center of campus. Mentally I referred to them as “the Christians” but I don’t know if they were religious. They’d hang out, sometimes playing guitar, all of them smiling and chatting and having fun. Feigning disdain, I would put my head down and walk by, searching for somewhere safe to pass out.

I think about “the Christians” now with the wish that – even once – I’d had the good sense to do what they did, sitting out there with a guitar in the sunshine. I always imagined myself a hippie born too late for her generation, but truthfully I was just a drunk. I didn’t spend one minute with peace or love.

When college ended, my partying days continued. The difference is that my friends and my feeling of belonging ended at graduation.

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