My alcohol tolerance is shot to ribbons.
In reality it was never that strong
in the first place: which I never complained about because it’s so cheap. The
nights go with so much more of a swing when it only takes three drinks or so to
put a girl in a merry place, although I wonder sometimes how I missed the genetic
cast-iron liver possessed by my father’s side of the family.
University life in the UK exists on
a foundation of alcohol. The fundamental initiation of a teenager into student
life traditionally involves the consumption of a crippling amount of spirits,
wine, and whatever other ungodly cocktail mix you can make- normally consumed
from a pint-jug or a pyrex dish, sometimes the odd saucepan or two.
Ritualistically one must go missing, black out, have a minor nervous breakdown,
or perform some act of stomach-curdling embarrassment that will haunt them for
the rest of their lives. My one such moment of glory came a week in to my first
term at UEA, when I consumed the best part of a friend’s Absolut bottle, passed
out in a neighbouring kitchen, cracking my skull resoundedly on the floor, and
then, having been put to bed by my long-suffering housemates, vanished for a
four-hour window that I have no memory of whatsoever, sending them on a
semi-frantic search of the lake with the conviction that I’d somehow managed to
stagger from my prone position on the bed and drown myself. 
I haven’t been able to touch vodka
since then, and highly I doubt I will ever enjoy it again.
So the drinking is fun, and asides
from the occasional few everyone does
it: but it wipes out days at a time, particularly when you get into the habit
of three nights out a week. Tuesday LCRS, Thursdays at Lola Los, and some sort
of weekend shindig, not to mention the endless rounds of casual afternoon pints
in the student union bar, and before you know it weeks have flashed by in a
haze of terrible headaches and bedrooms that reek of stale beer and regret.
At Berkeley, alcohol consumption goes by a
different set of rules. Firstly, for many of the students drinking to excess
isn’t even an option. Buying underage is a whole world of pain when it comes to
actually obtaining booze, and if you’re discovered carrying a fake ID you can
face serious legal repercussions. For many, the only option is to go to the
Frats, and drink the warm, mass-bought Bud Lite (a punishment in itself), or
the industrial plastic bottles of vodka, which strip away a layer of your
oesophagus with every swallow. Once you’ve overcome the hurdle of actually getting drunk, you then have to deal with the consequences.
Last week, when one of my friends arrived back at the IHouse after a night out
in a visibly drunk state, he was discovered by a resident assistant and sent to
alcohol counseling. Get picked up by the police drinking- or even carrying an
opened bottle- in a public place and you could find yourself in a lot of
trouble. Get caught underage and that’s
your visa rights more or less gone.
So while the occasional booze-addled
session happens, it’s not the lynchpin of Berkeley society. For my part I’ve
barely drunk at all- simply because there’s no way I could keep up the lifestyle
I was used to at home while staying on top of my classes. And I’ve found that since
my drinking habits have more or less dissipated I’ve lost weight, managed to
get up every weekday for my 9am classes without extreme levels of pain, survive
said day without having to sleep in the middle of the afternoon, stopped having
to account for livid bruises that I don’t remember getting, or drink pint after
pint of water to fend off ‘furry mouth’. It’s surprisingly pleasant…
On the couple of occasions when I’ve
found a couple of people my own age to go out with, I’ve found the nice thing
about America is that- drinking laws prohibiting everyone from really getting
their lash on until they hit twenty-one- most of them have more or less the same
capacities as me anyway. Where at home I’ve frequently been an embarrassment of
a drinking companion, collapsing early in the evening and being put to bed,
here everyone celebrates their intolerance together, and collapses in mutual
harmony after two or three units. On Friday I went out for drinks with the boys
from my Poetry and the Archive class,
and it took two pints each to more or less floor each of us. We parted in an
atmosphere of fogged wellbeing, and as I went reeling up the road towards my
bed I was suddenly confronted with the awesome spectacle of the two-hundred-strong
Berkeley Marching Band, who emerged from the gloom in full regalia and played
their way past me. In my hazy state I came to the conclusion that they had
stepped out just to celebrate my safe return home, and clung to a letterbox to
keep myself upright, waving feebly in acknowledgement. There was no blackout,
no vomit, and no stomach-curdling anxiety over my actions the next morning. I
think I did very well.*
All in all, I can’t say I miss the student binge-drinking culture
from home. But this is in full knowledge of the fact that this time next year I
will have fallen heavily back off the wagon, celebrating intoxication all the way.
*(My roommate maintains that I
subsequently kicked open the bedroom door, soliloquised at length about how much
I missed The Graduate, and then proceeded to play Frank Sinatra songs while
scrolling through photographs of him and weeping quietly: but I have no memory
of this, and therefore consider it a fabrication.)
I love you.
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