To the freshman girl who realized I was drinking vodka

By Chris Herries October 5, 2012

I was wandering around a party one evening when a girl, presumably a freshman, commented on my near full cup of clear liquid.

“Just drinking water tonight?” she giggled.

I had to stifle my laugh. I gave her a whiff so she could smell that the cup was filled with pure 80-proof vodka, decidedly not water. Suffice it to say, I think this helps to illustrate the disconnect that a lot of freshmen have to face when it comes to the Stanford drinking scene. Now a lot of debate has surfaced about drinking topics, and there are few perspectives I could take that wouldn’t be rehashing what has been said already. Safety, for yourself and others, is paramount. That’s obvious and I am not going to hammer home a point that’s already overstated. I’ve made mistakes in my life, as have most people. You’re reading a column by someone who has seen good and bad ends. I will stress a point about self-discipline, and before you stop reading, it’s not going to be the type of self-discipline you’re thinking.

Generally speaking, I think discipline comes down to whether or not you want alcohol to control your life. What most people don’t realize is that this happens on both ends of the spectrum. If you feel you need to drink to have fun, or you frequent the same scenes every weekend, then there’s a problem. Your social life should be varied and you should seek to have fun sober, with or without friends. Shows, recitals, museums, lectures: All these things are wonderful occasions to go out and enrich your mind on the weekends. These programs should be taken advantage of.

Yet, the converse is also true. If you abstain from alcohol, or let your fears and misunderstandings of spirits drive you away from them, then you’re losing out on a fantastic part of the freshman experience. Partying with friends and having adventures — read: misadventures — is a fantastic opportunity. People lament, “I feel like I’m being pressured to use alcohol to have the totality of the freshman experience.” I’m sorry to break it to you, but alcohol is a component of the freshman experience. It’s not the largest component, and your life doesn’t end without it, but you’ll miss out on a lot of cool social experiences if you choose not to use it. Fraternities suck without alcohol, as is epitomized by what my good friend Ed Ngai posted on Facebook: “You’ve never seen a shitshow until you’ve sober monitored at Full Moon on the Quad.”

Now, this isn’t a warrant to go out and drink yourself into submission, but it is a warrant to use the time and space of Stanford to experiment with your life. Try differing and unique ways of socializing, because safely expanding what you do and who you do it with can, at worst, expand your view of the world.

Discomfort can be a fantastic catalyst for change in our lives. What I am requesting is that you use the ample information Stanford has given you about safe drinking, and the safe forum provided by fantastic staffers and good friends, to experiment with your life. Push your social boundaries and inhabit a world you’re not entirely familiar with. If you try it and discover it’s not for you, then stop; there are plenty of other fantastic things to do on this campus.

The same can be said of frequent drinkers. Go to one of the Cardinal Nights events. They run their programs well, provide food and offer good entertainment options for a quiet evening. Just because you can rage doesn’t mean you have to; those opportunities are far more plentiful than people will have you believe.

As far as university drinking scenes go, Stanford is fantastic. There’s a mix for everyone here, combined with lenient rules, safe environments, staffers who care and an administration concerned with our well-being. True discipline, to which we should all aspire, is using alcohol at the right times, and in the right amounts, to have fun. There’s absolutely nothing wrong in that.

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  • fjd

    I like that you’re very humble in your columns and in your “About Author” section. But that doesn’t mean I agree with what you write in this column. I most definitely do not.

    There are a lot of recreational activities one can do, ranging from the mundane to the amazing. We cannot do all of them. I can hang glide (which is amazing), but perhaps I can’t also surf, for the simple reason that I don’t have enough time to develop the skills and so on to do both. On and directly around campus, I can play intricate board games with friends, go hiking, listen to live music: so many things I can do, and so many I cannot do because I’m too busy doing other things.

    Now here’s my first point: there is *nothing special* about the recreational activity of drinking alcohol. Lots of people do it, but that doesn’t make it special. I drink a good beer once in a while, and I enjoy that the same way I enjoy any of a number of other things, like eating good cheese. It’s just one thing out of many.

    Point the second: Drunk people don’t hide. They are loud and about. That’s ok, but it’s worth recognizing the sampling bias that results: just because we see a bunch of drunk partiers doesn’t mean there aren’t a lot more nondrunk people having fun in other ways not so readily visible to the public.

    Final point: I feel it necessary to criticize in particular one statement in your article. Consider the two sentences beginning “People lament” and ending “freshman experience”. Do you see what you did there? You applied pressure. The person was lamenting about feeling pressure to drink, and then you went and applied more pressure. I don’t think you meant to do that, but you did. I don’t think that’s cool.

  • http://www.facebook.com/cherries1 Christopher Herries

    Hey!

    I’m not really sure what you’re aiming for with some of these comments. As to your first paragraph, that was my point. There are numerous and fantastic things to do around campus, and I encouraged people who drink excessively to go find those out (Paragraph 4). Time is a problem, naturally, but that shouldn’t encourage us to fall into the same habits week after week.

    “Drunk people don’t hide.” This is both true and unfortunate. Maybe I was fortunate in my freshmen year, but on the many nights I didn’t go out drinking I wasn’t really bothered by ‘drunk people.’ Now this could be a symptom of my personality, or it could just be that it’s less of a problem then people think. Most of the rancor occurs before quiet hours start in dorms, and staffers do a good job of keeping things under control.

    I totally meant to apply pressure! That’s the point of a piece like this, to apply intellectual tension and make people confront their choices, drinkers and non.

  • Maya Ramirez, M.D.

    Drinking a “near full cup” of 80 proof vodka is voluntarily consuming a poison at that dose and concentration. This is so far from “using alcohol…in the right amounts.” I am very concerned that in the same article in which you are essentially berating non-drinking freshman because they are not having the full Stanford experience, you are presenting them with the keys to kingdom of alcohol poisoning and death. There is absolutely something wrong with that.

  • http://www.facebook.com/cherries1 Christopher Herries

    Hey! Thanks for reading!

    I’m a pretty large guy and was drinking over the course of the night, though I understand your concern. It’s the right amount for me, which is of course the point!

    And ‘berating’ is a rather harsh word. I said quite clearly that “it’s not the largest component, and your life doesn’t end without it…” I’m hardly berating people by asking them to try something new.

    Moreover, I addressed your concerns about safety, in an albeit subtle way. I’m not sure of your affiliation with the school, but I’m an undergraduate. Having already gone through frosh year I’ve seen all the fantastic information programs that are mandatory for freshmen. Frankly, by the time students are through NSO and their first week of school they’ve learned quite a bit about alcohol usage and safety; to think otherwise detracts from the reputation of our students. Do mistakes get made and people get hurt? Of course, this is life and to err is human. Yet, the University and staffers equip people to make safe decisions about alcohol. My doing so here would be a waste of time. Clearly I’m not, as your inflammatory rhetoric suggests, giving “the keys to kingdom of alcohol poisoning and death.”

    Likewise, I ‘berat’ non-drinkers as well by saying that there are many cultural aspects of Stanford that can be enjoyed without alcohol, though this seems to have slipped by you.

    Thanks for your interest!

  • Bizzle

    “True discipline, to which we should all aspire, is using alcohol at the right times, and in the right amounts, to have fun. There’s absolutely nothing wrong in that.”

    LOL – clearly the guy carrying a full cup of “pure 80-proof” vodka knows discipline.

  • Bizzle

    and while discipline is relative (as Chris says), its not totally relative. There are objective limits, and a glass of vodka crosses that line.

  • dapotatoman

    I am just kind of shocked to read this. I, too, choose to drink on occasion and generally responsibly. However, drinking should not be, in any way, considered an important of life experiences. Why should we all aspire to “use alcohol at the right times”? It is obvious to me that you have had the good fortune of never seeing the truly terrible sides of alcohol (e.g. death, addiction in the family, rape, etc.), but some of us have and therefore make a choice to abstain from alcohol. The “fears” people have about alcohol are founded; it is an extremely dangerous and potent drug that has the potential to ruin lives. In fact, it is arguably more damaging and dangerous than other drugs including acid, marijuana, ecstasy, and mushrooms. Should we advocate the use of these by students in the interest of “unique ways of socializing”? Common sense tells us absolutely not. The alcohol scene is by far not the most dominant nor the most important social scene at this university and participation is certainly not a requisite for getting the full college experience. Furthermore, alcoholedu doesn’t teach freshman how to drink, only experience can do that and to experiment is a big risk. Not all freshman (or people in general) know how to drink responsibly or control their drinking, and no amount of “education” can teach them this skill. This column undermines Stanford’s massive efforts to ensure that there are social opportunities for those who choose abstain and, even worse, it applies more pressure to the freshman who don’t want to drink, but don’t quite yet know how to avoid the scene.

  • Damn

    Did you even read the rest of the article or did you, like pretty much everyone else, just fixate on the opening story?

  • Bizzle

    did you read my second comment or did you just fixate on my first comment?

    Point is this: I don’t care how you define “discipline.” Regardless of how much you think you drink, you make yourself look like a fool by starting an essay about discipline with an anecdote about how you drank a cup of vodka one time. Cool story bro, but you are contradicting yourself.

  • Stephen

    “I’m sorry to break it to you, but alcohol is a component of the freshman experience.” I love it when people are so close-minded about how others should be “open-minded.” Your youth shows in your writing. You are quite black-and-white about even how one should indulge in moderation. It’s articles like this that give college a bad name.

  • GoCard

    Chris, I agree with you completely that alcohol is part of the freshman experience. Your story makes a good point about how freshman adjust to college and experience new things, from the diversity of the freshman dorms to alcohol. I also applaud you for writing an interesting article that has obviously stirred a lot of controversy. I, however, disagree with some of your points. In the article, you say, “Fraternities suck without alcohol…’You’ve never seen a shit show until you’ve sober-monitored Full Moon on the Quad.’” My first contention, although petty, is that FMOTQ is a University run and sponsored event that has absolutely no connection to the Greek Community. If you said sober-monitoring at a fraternity party, I might be more inclined to agree with you. On a more significant note, I know this is an opinions piece (or at least I hope it is), but saying that fraternity parties suck without alcohol is a little strong. Just because you think fraternities suck without alcohol, doesn’t mean fraternities suck without alcohol. I have never had a drop of alcohol in my life, and I love going to parties and raging as hard as anyone else. In fact, I would say fraternities can be just as much fun without alcohol as with it. It just takes the self-discipline you mentioned earlier and the ability to let loose and be willing to have fun and do crazy shit without have alcohol as a crutch to fall back on. Now before you write off this statement, I should also mention that I’m in a fraternity here at Stanford and love it. I may be in a minority, but I want everyone who doesn’t drink to know that you can have just as much fun at a fraternity or FMOTQ or any other event sober as well as drunk. Now I have no problem with drinking. I’ve spent many late nights with drunk friends having just as good of a time, but I believe you overstress the importance of alcohol in Stanford’s social scene. Yes, it’s a major part, but it doesn’t have to be. And if you want to come talk about it with me, I’ll be the one drinking Powerade or milk, dancing on a table saturday night. Come find me.

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