This past weekend I sat in bed with a somewhat-tolerable hangover courtesy of several vodka martinis. As I worked up the courage to depart from my bed and begin my day, I received a link to an article from a friend referencing the U.S. Surgeon General’s new advisory concerning the link between alcohol and cancer-risk.
This advisory is a mighty addition to decades-long research suggesting that alcohol is quite literally one of the worst things for our health. It’s directly responsible for thousands of preventable cancer deaths each year, is inextricably linked to increased bodily inflammation, and is the reason for every single bad romantic decision I’ve ever made.
While the warning certainly carries some weight, this information is not remotely surprising. If you take one look at a stranger puking up their guts on the side of Franklin Street on a Friday night, you wouldn't need an ounce of evidence to convince you that an excess of alcohol is dangerous. Other recent reports have suggested that even moderate alcohol consumption may have negative consequences for our health.
College students are not immune to this information. We see it everywhere online and yet still so much of our culture — myself included — revolves around a night out. If so much information persists about the negative effects of alcohol, why do so many of us continue to indulge?
It is unfortunate to admit, but alcohol consumption is an ingrained component of college culture. Sure, there are many who abstain from this activity, but there’s an almost equal amount who participate. In fact, a 2023 study found that approximately 50 percent of college students aged 18 to 25 had consumed alcohol in the past month.
Last semester I decided to take a temporary break from alcohol. There wasn’t any particular reason, but it resulted in no desire to drink for months. While I appreciated the increased time sober on the weekends, I retained a lingering sense that I was missing out on a social life. I hadn’t realized how much I enjoyed seeing people out on the weekend, and it was something I genuinely missed during that time period.
Maybe I’m just socially inept, but college has often felt like a social battleground. So many of our attempts to form new friendships or relationships in college are based entirely through our phones. We meet friends on incoming class pages on Instagram and make dates through dating apps. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing; one of the only good aspects of social media is that it provides us with increased accessibility to each other. Yet, it’s broken down our ability to approach and interact with people in public.
The few times I have seen an abundance of social interaction, however, is when I’m on a night out. While partially due to decreased inhibitions from alcohol and the impermanence of the situation, I’ve met countless people on nights out without the use of a phone. Nowadays it’s way more natural to approach someone in a bar as opposed to a class.
I’m not necessarily encouraging the use of alcohol as a social lubricant, but in a generation deeply struggling with social connection, it’s a potent reason why so many of us cling to it for that purpose. We shouldn’t all be getting drunk every weekend just to be able to talk to one another, but there’s a justification to be found in the social opportunities that drinking culture provides.
