Twenty-one. It’s the age that almost everyone looks forward to from high school on. In fact, it is the last age that is looked forward to period (unless you are among the people who can’t wait until you turn 25 so you can rent a car). This is a milestone that is celebrated in the United States by parading the birthday person from bar to bar and buying them way too much alcohol to commemorate their right to legally get intoxicated in public as opposed to in a dorm room, fraternity party and the like. It is the age of ultimate freedom, so why are we so harsh with the initiation?
On Wednesday night, I celebrated my 21st birthday. I went out in the rain at midnight to celebrate as soon as the date moved from March 3 to March 4th. In the hour that I was downtown that night, I had six drinks, an example of binge drinking at its finest. I got enough sleep to rally for class the next day and then went out again Wednesday night.
Sadly, I do not know how many drinks I had in the couple of hours I was at the bars that night. Alcohol got the best of me and I was home in bed by midnight. Yes, it was fun, but I found myself contemplating whether or not I needed to down every drink that was put in front of me. The pain of the following day rendered me useless until late afternoon, well after my 9 a.m. class and the beginning of my shift at work. I had survived my 21st birthday and lived to tell about it, but should I really be content with that? After all, birthdays are happy days, not days to simply hope you get through.
As much as I hate to admit it, my birthday celebration became a statistic. According to a 2008 article in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology entitled “21st Birthday Drinking: Extremely Extreme,” four out of five students surveyed admitted to drinking large amounts of alcohol to celebrate their 21st birthdays. To further analyze the survey results, researchers calculated that 68 percent of females and 71 percent of males had a blood alcohol content of over .08, the point at which drinking is defined as binge drinking.
As college students, we know the negative consequences of binge drinking and yet so many of us participate in it willingly, continuing this detrimental tradition. I wish I hadn’t chosen to sign my night over to an unknown quantity of alcohol, but it was what my peers had done and joining their ranks seemed like the only respectable thing to do.
My view of turning 21 has changed in the few days after my birthday. I have learned that while parts of society frown on the practice of over-drinking, other parts have encouraged it as a normal way to end the 20th year of life. I have accepted my right to buy and consume alcohol, but haven’t exercised it since that night because simply, the mystique and excitement are gone.
I am an adult in all respects now and as such, I do not intend to pass on the binge-drinking initiation tradition that so many of us went through. My birthday experience was what I thought it would be; it was fun until the final drink that knocked me out. Know your limit. You’ll be thankful in the morning.
Alcohol will be there tomorrow and the next day. Pace yourselves, please.
Cassandra Keyse is a journalism senior and a Mustang Daily reporter.