Have you ever seen “that” girl at the bar? You know the one. She has mascara running all the way down to her ankles from the river of tears pouring out of her glazed, I-had-one-too-many-glasses-of-cranberry-and-vodka eyes. She’s crying louder than the slightly sexual Flo Rida song pumping through the stereo, and furiously texting her boyfriend “SCR5W YPU!” because he didn’t respond within .6 seconds. While she stumbles around in heels that were clearly meant for someone whose brain isn’t soaking in a gallon of Burnett’s, you stare. You laugh. You shake your head. And then you cringe a little bit because—oh god—you were her last night.
We all know how that story ends. She wakes up in the morning feeling like a bulldozer ran her over, and with a slew of angry text messages from a boyfriend who has had enough of her drunken rampages. On a scale of one to classy, she’s coming in at a solid -30. Not exactly the fun night on the town she was expecting.
Now this girl isn’t everyone. There are the Kate Middletons of the college bar scene who order one drink and then politely sip on water for the rest of the night. There are also the Lindsay Lohans, the ones who order 15 shots, and then not-so-politely pass out on the sidewalk.
The most common girl, though, is the one in between. She’s not representing an entire country, so she likes to have fun, but she also isn’t fond of jail or house arrest, so she tries to keep it in control. It’s just that every now and then, she slips up and ends her night crying and screaming at whoever’s closest a.k.a. her friends and significant other. Unfortunately that situation, as often or as rare as it may be for some, has the potential to put a severe dent in our relationships. Whether it’s your BFF or your BF, getting cursed out by a crazy drunkard is never fun.
“Whenever my boyfriend and I would go out, we’d always end up fighting,” said Sarah, a junior at Pitt. “Everything would be going along fine, but then one of us would have one drink too many, say something stupid, and the night would fall apart.”
In a study by Harvard’s School of Public Health, 41% of college women admitted to binge drinking, which is defined as having more than four drinks in a row. For a lot of ladies attending college, that’s barely a pre-game. They also found that about 21% of Americans experienced at least one alcohol-related problem in the prior year, and roughly one in three Americans engaged in risky drinking patterns. Oh, alcohol. Why you gotta be so cruel?
“After a night out partying, I would wake up in the morning and read all of these nasty texts my ex and I had sent each other. I was saying stuff I didn’t even mean, all because I was drunk, pissed off and couldn’t handle it the right way,” said Liz, a senior.
For many college-aged men and women, drinking is an opportunity to let the word vomit fly. They suddenly develop the Hulk-like emotional strength to tell so-and-so from Psych freshman year that they “always had the biggest crush on them!!!!!” and to finally tell off the jerk roommate who spilled marinara sauce on their favorite t-shirt. Who hasn’t gotten a little bolder, a little louder, and hey, a little more fun, after a few drinks? There’s really nothing wrong with that.
The problem is when the line is crossed, the wall is hit, and you’re waking up in the morning with a laundry list of apologies to make. Drinking a ton can turn us into someone else, and a relationship ending over a string of bad nights is a sad, sad thing. In fact, 7.4% of U.S. adults aged 18 years and older—that’s roughly 14 million Americans, for all of you who wanted to know—were found to have an alcohol use disorder (dependence or abuse), according to Alcohol Health and Research World.
The next time you’re at the bar, house party, tailgate, etc., and you know your inner wasted monster is about to rear her ugly head, take a step back. Maybe you should delete a number or two from your phone so unnecessary texts or calls aren’t exchanged. Maybe you should refrain from that cup of questionable jungle juice and chill out for a second. Self-control is a beautiful thing. Admittedly, so is vodka. But when it comes to your relationships, don’t let the latter have a hand in ruining them. Some things just aren’t worth it.