Once you turn 19, you have successfully crossed the final threshold of legal limitation within Ontario.
You can buy cigarettes to complete your hipster appearance or to indulge in socially. You can go to casinos and you can purchase alcohol with your real I. D.
For many students, alcohol comes with the experience of an undergraduate degree.
I’ve met an enormous amount of people in the duration of my four years as a Golden Hawk who maintain the utmost level professionalism from Monday to Friday.
As soon as that last class is over on Friday, if they haven’t somehow rearranged their schedules to give themselves a three-day weekend, students have three days to kick back, relax and drown in their liquor of choice.
Since drinking takes planning and execution, you have to prepare for the probable hangover that renders you sensitive to light for a portion of the next day. If you handle this correctly, you can be ready for round two on Saturday night, which leaves Sunday as a day for recovery and homework.
Students often wonder about the fastest and easiest way to get drunk. Cue Busch beer and eight dollar wine. The fastest way to become intoxicated is taking shots; very small amounts of fluid with extremely high contents of alcohol.
This form of binge drinking guarantees intoxication, but is it bad? Is it dangerous?
Arguably, many who indulge in consistent weekend partying have built up a tolerance to drinking and are familiar with their own limitations. The real question, then, is whether or not binge drinking is a problem at Laurier.
I don’t think it is. O-Week is dry. A lot of new Golden Hawks are safely introduced to the university before they are given permission to venture to the Turret, Phil’s or Beta.
Popular occasions such as Homecoming, Halloween and St. Patrick’s Day are notorious for drinking, but the local police are always monitoring streets and the condition of people in public.
At night, people tend to stay within their limits and are coherent enough to buy a large pepperoni pizza from Pizza Maniac before they stumble home to sleep.
For some, binge drinking doesn’t end up with a belly full of carbs and a night on a stranger’s couch. In some serious cases, people are hospitalized due to an overdose. It’s never trivial to point out that alcohol can seriously affect your well-being.
The small group of people who have been hospitalized for going beyond their body’s tolerance are not necessarily representative of the greater student body; however, their experiences are important to keep in mind as the school year commences.
Your health is more important than the short-term excitement of discovering Wilf’s has Somersby on tap, Phil’s has shots for less than three dollars and you have leftover Tequila in the freezer from last weekend.