So, I will be a junior at Stony Brook University this fall (I’m transferring from Pace… more on that to come) and all new students in New York State public schools have to take an “alcohol education course.” And I am not pleased.

I think that when adults stigmatize drinking, it makes irresponsible choices all the more appealing. I know a few different people who had alcohol poisoning or drank close to the point of alcohol poisoning, and they were the ones who were raised in families who would not let them drink under any circumstances and taught them that drinking was BAD, BAD, BAD. Whereas my friends whose parents raised them to have a glass of wine with a special dinner or who let them get drunk with their friends after their car keys were confiscated for the night were the ones at school who had a beer or two when everyone went out and drank responsibly. So, I think when schools make their students take mandatory, “alcohol is bad, don’t drink it or you’ll die” kind of courses, it only fuels an environment where students get trashed at frat parties and share entire handles of alcohol in their dorm rooms.

But then again, I am kind of curious to find out how many drinks to would take to kill me (why do they ALWAYS teach you that in health courses? Like, if you have 14 shots at your weight, you’ll die!). Sort of like this completely unrelated site I just stumbled upon, where you can calculate what quantity of cafeinne products it would take to kill you. Apparently I’d need to drink well over 100 Red Bulls or eat well over 1,000 Resse’s Peanut Butter Cups to die of a cafeinne overdose. Haha….