Drugs & Alcohol Carry a High Price

We don't mean just in terms of money. Young people make choices under the influence of drugs or alcohol they wouldn't normally make. You can waste precious moments, years and opportunities because of the consequences of drinking or doing drugs.

"I'll never become a boozer or an addict," everyone thinks. But there are consequences far short of addiction you might never think of. Let's hear from just a typical college student about unforeseen consequences.

Lessons from Sophomore Year
By Sarah

Lesson 1

Bad decisions don't disappear.

It was a beautiful fall evening in the beginning of my sophomore year. The stars were bright against the black sky and the breeze was refreshing but still warm. Across campus parties were beginning, the sound of reuniting voices ringing out. It was a brilliant night for a party.

All the girls from my freshman hall had gotten together and applied for a program house, one of the unique aspects of my college. If we each volunteered 8 hours per month, we could live in a nicely furnished house on campus provided by the school. With the incentive of our own living room, dining room and kitchen we worked hard and were granted one of the houses. Located in the center of social activity on campus, we couldn't be more excited to move in and start our year.

My first year of college had been a whirlwind of innocence lost, drinking binges and even drugs. My experiences in high school had been limited, so I took the time beginning college to acclimate myself to the substance-abusing norms. The year had become so intoxicating it had taken the whole summer just to come back to my senses, and now I was here knowing all things were best in moderation, among other parental anecdotes.

Things were going to be different, I had resolved. With all the mistakes I had made in the previous year, I had to change the way I was living, the way I was thinking, and more than anything, my resolve to be right with God. Growing up in a Christian home, I had the fundamentals of the faith and knew enough about it to know it was the straight and narrow path that I had to follow. Or...a version of straight and narrow, I thought as one of my friends walked up the steps to our newly acquired home with a variety of alcoholic beverages.

The neighborhood was buzzing with keg beer and nicotine, and after making sure none of our bra straps were showing, my friends and I entered the party scene ready to enjoy the night. Within minutes I had a beer in my hand and was surveying the crowd. The house across the street from us had been the designated off-campus site for underage consumption, and the white picket fences surrounding the property were landmarks for any confused party-seekers. After a few hours of chatter and beer, the group decided to make its way down to the local bar--however, I needed an ID.

Leaving the gates of the house and jogging across the street to grab my little plastic identification, I sipped my beverage and realized I wasn't walking as straight as I should...and lights were flashing in my direction.

The next few moments I have recited so many times--to my parents, to the police officer handcuffing me, to my friends and to the six people on campus who weren't attending the party twenty feet from where the cop shoved me into the cruiser.

There is nothing like being drunk and being in trouble... it's like having a cold and someone telling you your life depends on your sense of smell. Being chained to a bench, is no fun either... and having to hand over your rings, your earrings and your crucifix necklace because you're thought of as a dangerous criminal is fairly depressing as well.

I have come to the conclusion that you are only allotted a certain number of chances to do reckless things with no consequence. After that number is up, you end up getting caught at the next stupid thing you do--be it not turning off the curling iron and burning the house down, or merely not studying and failing a test. In my own case it was walking across a city street with an open container of alcohol, but it had endless repercussions that affected the rest of my year.

Lesson 2

Consequences aren't always as simple as you think.

In the weeks that passed my friends often found me sitting in the living room of our big old white house talking on the phone. I have not received as many phone calls from administrators, religious personnel and law-enforcement officers as I did in the fall of 2000. My roommates stopped answering the phone and started to let the answering machine take the heat.

One of the most unexpected outcomes of being arrested was the affect the situation had upon my reputation. The assumptions of my true rebellious and shady persona had taken over. It was as if my goal for the year had faded away, and I was worse off than I had been when I was actually doing bad things. It was ironic to think back at all the things I had done wrong in the past, all the times I wasn't caught. I had changed my tune, yet I was getting labeled as the fallen one. Being treated like a slacker and a waste starts to take a toll on your self-esteem after awhile--and it becomes hard to remember what you have done right.

Part of this new view of my character came from the news I received from the volunteer agency I worked for--I was fired. As pleasant as nails on the chalkboard, the director of the Children's Services branch called me with notification of my termination--I could not be a mentor to children, for I wasn't even a good role-model to myself. Within days the arrest had gone from a fender-bender to an 18-car pile-up. Without volunteering it would be up to the campus volunteer coordinators to decide whether or not I could remain living in the nice white house with my friends.

An interesting thing God does is slowly increase his volume. He doesn't start out yelling--he is as quiet as a pin drop at first, only producing a shiver. But the longer you ignore the shiver, the more He becomes like a stomach ache... then he progresses to full on nausea...and so forth. By the time the campus volunteer coordinators called me back I was having major stomach pains, but still did not understand why all this was happening to me.

Things just got progressively worse. The volunteer coordinators told me I had to find another place to live pronto. The phone calls with housing started. I wondered when it would end. But the $240.00 court fine was not the only thing that was going to affect my way of life for the rest of the year.

Lesson 3

"You just might find...you get what you need."

I spent the rest of the semester in a submarine-esque single room on an empty hallway in the grossest dorm on campus. It was lovingly called the "suicide single", because it was the first-floor room burglars could hop in through the low window. When I first entered the room, the fraternity residing in the hall above me had left their mark on my floor by way of a large urine puddle. It was not ideal.

Sometimes the master plan is not in your control. I had an idyllic vision of my year--in a white house, with luxurious surrounding and my closest friends. I ended up in a dilapidated brown dorm, surrounding by smelly big football players throwing beer cans and hazing their pledges next door.

I loved every minute of it.

It turned me into a person much closer to the one I wanted to be. I had time to myself, I had silence (when the burly men upstairs were sleeping) and more than anything, I had done what I had sworn I could never do--be alone.

If there is one thing I will take away from my year of trials and tribulations, it is to not fear failure but to thrive within it and learn from it. We are all fallen, imperfect people. We have no way of getting out of that. And while my particular situation can be avoided by not making those particular decisions, everyone gets caught doing something stupid at some point. What can we do? We are only human. The best thing we have in difficult situations is the unfailing optimism of faith, and God's love reflected through our family and friends.

With the aide of the people closest to me I was able to learn and grow in the difficulty that befell me my sophmore year, however it all could have been avoided if I had known the three lessons I know now. Things don't always happen as we expect them, and a "it will never happen to me" mentality does not serve a purpose in the real world other than the perpetuation of delusion. It will happen to you--so make good decisions and hope you only fail a test and not burn your house down.