RED SOLO CUP

I was 16 when I started college. But, that really has no bearing on what I’m going to share.

On my very first night, at what was then the “#1 Party School in America”, I went out with two high school guy friends who wanted to join a fraternity. They found one throwing a large party and we ended up staying well into the night. 

 I was given a red solo cup and told that it was “rum and coke.” I grew up around adults who always had alcohol at gatherings. So I thought, “What’s the big deal? It’s a party!”.

 Naively, I drank it. Then I drank a second. And a third.

 Meanwhile, my social awkwardness was decreasing, many of the “boys” were noticing me and starting to greet me with a long hug, and I thought I was the best thing since sliced bread. It was a welcome change from not being in the “popular” crowd while I was in high school. One frat boy tried to kiss me. Aggressively. He held me in a hug that ended up with me trying to escape his clutches by bending over like a world-class gymnast. I avoided the kiss, but we both fell over onto the ground with him landing on top of me. Not ideal.

 As a lifelong sports player I take competition very seriously. One of the fraternity members challenged my friend and I to a beer pong game and I eagerly accepted though I had never played before. I was in it to win it!

 By this time I was on my fourth red solo cup. 

 Less than 10 minutes later we won the game; I think I only had to drink two cups of beer (which apparently is “beginner’s luck”). We stayed at the pong table and faced a new team.

 Fourth red solo cup. 

 Like a star basketball player my beer pong shots were nothing but net. Well, nothing but beer. My partner’s throw was more Herculean and tended to end up in the dirt (and I don’t even want to think of how much vomit and urine that dirt contained), so that meant that we had to drink a cup of beer. Like any good teammate I decided that we would take turns drinking when a shot was missed. Three beers later and we won the game. Again. 

 Fifth (or maybe sixth) red solo cup. A “pledge” of the fraternity was in charge of filling up drinks, so honestly, my count may be way off. 

 By this point I was sandbagging anyone who even stepped close to the beer pong table. I felt like a Pong Goddess! I was unbeatable. I was invincible! I hear a ton of cheering and then a thud closeby. A girl had jumped off of the two story roof; her boyfriend said he would catch her. He didn’t. She didn’t die, but she wasn’t moving much. Apparently she thought she was invincible too. 

 I know that my friend and I held the pong table for 10 games. We couldn’t stop winning. I also know that I was drinking out of a red solo cup during all of those games, and that I “shotgunned” a “Natty Light” at least once (there’s pictures to prove both). 

Thirteen years later, and here are the only other things I remember:

- I woke up naked in my dorm room at 5am begging my roommate to give me water. 

- I began vomiting shortly after the water and missed my first two days of classes because I couldn’t stop.

- I could not walk without falling over for almost two full days.

 When the reality of my choices set in, and I was beginning my first day of class while everyone else was on their third, I could only think of what could have happened to me during the four hour gap I had in my memory. I can only hope that someone more responsible than me cared for me. But, I doubt it. 

 As much as our society views drinking as a part of “having fun”, we often don’t hear about the risks associated with it. We don’t see bikini models binge drinking on television and then throwing up in a trash can. We don’t see girls getting a full body exam because they couldn’t remember what happened to them the night before, and they have pain “down there”, on a sitcom. Why? Because puking, blackouts, and sexual assault aren’t sexy. And, advertisers want us to believe that drinking their brand of alcohol is “sexy” and will catapult us into the “in crowd.”

 The decisions I made as a 16 year old have affected me in profound ways, but they do not define me. Now, I’m still not “popular” but what the heck does that have to do with life anyway? I’m a wife, a mother, a social justice warrior, a self-proclaimed laundry procrastinator, and the person that will always pick up a friend in the middle of the night with no questions asked.

 ...and in case you were wondering… the girl that jumped off the roof was dumped in front of the emergency room by someone at the party. I never saw her again, but I hope that she received stellar medical care and has since become an amazingly happy woman with a brilliant life. Maybe she chose to dedicate her life to helping others too.

-Anonymous