If you have kids or siblings that go off to college, and they come back after their first year and tell you that they have not had an ounce of alcohol or hot boxed in a car on campus, it is a 99% chance that they are lying, lbs. I say this especially if this child was raised in a strict environment, because coming from a strict household, MOST of us are damn near experts at sneaking because we are so curious about what is out there and were never allowed to do anything. Therefore, when we finally get exposed to freedom, we just might go overboard with it and make a few mistakes. My freshman year of college is when I first smoked weed. I had drank alcohol well before college, but I first got drunk in college. You see, when you get off on your own and you finally grasp that you are on your own and those parents that hoard over you about curfews and not doing this or that are GONE, that is when life happens. Let me start with the mixers and parties at the beginning of the year for the freshman that are meant to get you comfortable and having some fun. Yes, the school throws these parties, but it is when you meet the upperclassman and start mingling at those events, where you learn about the link ups before and after those events where there is weed and alcohol. You learn about the popular smoking spots and what people are willing to help you get the weed and alcohol, even if you don't have the transportation to get to it. With me, I met the wrong people that turned me from this innocent girl, to a girl that spent her first semester after her breakup smoking weed almost everyday. I went from being shy in the back of my suitemates car not knowing how to take a puff, to taking a few puffs and going to class at 8am the next day still high. I understood those first few times what people meant when they talked about the munchies when you smoke and how it can take you to some other place. It is as if you are thinking you're one place, but you're somewhere completely different. I remember smoking a few times and just getting stuck and not being able to move because I was so focused on absolutely feeling NOTHING. And then, drinking? Drinking became even more of a friend to me through dating this older guy because he drank Patron like it was water and in order for me to be comfortable always being on his arm at party settings, I had to have some type of alcohol in my system. Hell, I remember blacking out a few times with him in my dorm from drinking and waking up not really knowing if he did anything to me or not and.... those were the times when I knew the most that I wouldn't want to touch another bottle of Patron again. If your college student is lucky, they'll learn early that weed and alcohol is not EVERYTHING. They'll go through their traumas with life plus college and be able to recognize that those things are not a way to eliminate those problems, and they just might have a scare or two to keep them from becoming attached to it. I know a lot of people in college, happened to date one, that always leaned on a bottle just to be "somebody" for a group of nobodies or just to not think about all the problems that they were going through that might affect college. I think that, parents sometimes have a hard time with recognizing that this is natural stage in the college experience, especially for the ones that never attended. Whether you raised us right or not, it sometimes just happens and how college students deal with those experiences when they are placed in our faces is where those teachings really come into play. You know your child learned something when they act accordingly without you knowing or being present. For example, my parents always told me that if I were to drink, to never let anyone get, fix, and/or hold my drinks. I practiced that. Because, those scenarios that you see on movies about drugging are real. We like to be in denial and think that those things cannot happen to us, but we shouldn't be and we should be aware of it before it even has to get to a place close to home. My advice to the college student that is curious as they are invited to these parties and kickbacks are to stay true to yourself. If you are curious and simply want to try just because it is on your bucket list type of thing, by all means, you are grown, you are going to do what you want to do, just remember the things that you were taught and be careful. But, if you are invited to these places and you really don't want to drink or smoke and you have hunches about the people that you are around, listen to your hunch and don't let peer pressure con you. I smoke every blue moon, as in literally once or twice throughout an academic school year, but I recognize my limitations and use common sense as I do so. Because, as a freshman in college, there are a lot of people are scenarios that are going to be thrown at you to help you to become STUPID. Your job is to not let it. Now, drinking is something that I do a bit more often than smoking, but I am more so cautious about that. I've only drank and drive once and it's a mistake that I wont make again, some people can do it, but it was never something that I wanted to practice. If I drink around people I am not to familiar with, I never drink enough to get drunk because I cannot trust those people with my wellbeing, nor can I trust that they have my best intentions at heart. When you are away at college, you are responsible for YOURSELF and you can definitely ask someone to watch after you when you drink at a party, but recognize that you are grown and they really should not have to. Act accordingly. Now, if I am around family, I am a bit more quick to drink more than normal, but I still don't get too on my ass with it. Through college, I learned a lot about balance, maturity, and responsibility. You test your own self with the boundaries that you create and you set your own self up for failure or success by the decisions that you make and the people that you choose to be around. Move smart. If you were to ask me to sum up my experiences with weed and alcohol, I can say that those two things are the foundations for when I truly experienced peer pressure and how to handle it, and tested my own common sense. When you have a blunt in your hand for that very first time and you have those thoughts running through you head about how your parents would kill you and how this is such a rush, you're overly anxious in that moment about something that is highly overrated. Hell, if you're a strict kid, you probably spent 18 years living without it and that one experience, this one part in your life, can make you want something so overrated over and over again. And, when you taste that first mix of Patron and Brisk Fruit Punch and find yourself on that dance floor a lot quicker, more comfortable flirting with the college boys, and... feeling yourself to the max...... and then you look back on them fire pictures and videos of yourself during such a fun night, it is so easy to go back and do it over and over again. Just remember, though, that these two things can just as quick as it made you feel good about yourself, it can become the enemy for you, too. My advice is to just remember the things that you were taught and be careful. Fun has it boundaries and fun has its limits.
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