We struggled to find a serious bone in our bodies after years of hiding everything behind jokes and the massive amount of hair on one of our heads. Digging through it all to actually write a "real talk" article was hard. After blacking out three times in the process, we realized that we knew exactly what we should "real talk" about something we have lived and breathed over the last four years, and something that in all honestly has made us friends.
As the title of our column suggests, we are drunk often. It isn't just our problem it's Dartmouth's problem as well. But we promise we aren't going to get preachy and ramble on about the same issues most students here are already familiar with.
Yes, Dartmouth students drink a lot, and it's been this way forever. Hell, it was a member of the Class of 1902, Dartmouth alum Robert Smith, who co-founded Alcoholics Anonymous. We think he would probably have been the coolest guy at the party since, according to his bio, he could chug a beer without a single movement of his Adam's apple. We bet he could hold his own against us in a shotgunning race. Smith acquired significant notoriety for this skill, and real talk nothing has really changed since dear old Bobby Smith was a freshman in 1898.
Dartmouth loves drinking, but for many, once you get caught up in the idea that drinking the fastest or the most will make you popular, even if you have a shitty personality or little else to offer, you begin to slide down a slippery, Keystone-greased slope.
Four years fly by and you realize you spent the majority of your college years in a basement, living from pong game to pong game. But it's fun, right? It's fun until those pong games become a giant blur, and blacking out becomes a daily routine, and your pants don't fit anymore, and going to class becomes a struggle but it's fine because you drink a lot and your friends think you are the hardest.
It becomes pretty hard to stop a habit that is constantly reinforced by those you consider your closest friends, especially when over lunch they tell you how hilarious you were last night, or they blitz you about the crazy antics you drunkenly got into. Everyone wants validation, and at Dartmouth that validation often comes from the unhealthiest of places.
Speaking from experience, it's easy to forget why we are at Dartmouth. Drinking is easy. It's easy to become good at it, and for many it's too hard to stop. Because why would you stop if, in the words of Nicki Minaj, you're "just comin' off the top like bestest"?
Dartmouth clearly glorifies drinking when your quick six time means more to some of your peers than your personality or intellect. We rarely ask each other how classes are going, or about each other's interests. Rather the conversation goes something like: "Did you go out last night? How much did you drink? You look horrible."
We're a far cry from a moral compass, and in the spirit of real talk we have no authority to criticize a part of campus culture that we have fallen victim to ourselves. In all honestly, our column just plays up the same perceptions held by most people on campus regarding alcohol consumption, and chances are that won't change anytime soon. But that doesn't mean we don't realize it.
Well that's our spiel-ish real talk sesh.
xoxo,Da drunkest girlz
