UR IT Magazine February 2016

Giving Up Wasted Wednesday
It’ s
the night
of your 21st birthday
and its finally here, your first
drink (legally that is). Everyone
looks forward to birthdays but for
some reason this one is at the top of
the list. Who doesn’t want to drop
loads of money into calorie filled
drinks to forget what happened by
the time the sun comes up. I’m
not here to judge by any means, I
understand how relaxing it feels
to go out for a night on the town
and to just let go. Those college
years of going out every day that
ends in a ‘y’ can be the best time of
your life, or so you think. Have you
ever stopped to look at that fine
line that separates social drinking
with friends from loosing complete
control? Saying ‘been there, done
that’ is an understatement. I spent
1 year of my life charging up my
credit card and binge drinking with
friends to create memories, just to
later realize that the only memory
I wanted to keep was the person
before I turned ‘legal.’ When you
are young the ‘bar scene’ looks
so enticing, everyone laughing,
drinking, dancing…it’s like an
infomercial for the best days of
your life. No one tells you the
feeling you get the day after, the
amount of time you spend at the
gym working those calories off, the
money that vanishes after three
drinks (where you probably should
have cut yourself off). Those little
things end up adding up to be the
big things, and sooner or later you
realize it’s not all it has cracked up
to be.
I’m sure you all have got that
priceless one liner from your
parents ‘you’re going out again,
didn’t you just go out last night.’ At
the time you probably rolled your
eyes, grabbed
your keys and were
on your way. Looking back,
I wish I had thought twice about
it. Did you ever stop to think that
maybe the reason people go out
to get so drunk to the point where
they spill their deepest secrets and
piled up emotions, is because they
are so unhappy with themselves
anything to numb that pain is
worth the money? I’m not saying
that every college kid who goes out
on the biggest drinking night of
the week is an alcoholic, nor am I
saying I was, but to think that the
only thing you look forward to is
getting so wasted that the next
morning your piecing together the
night before is alarming to say the
least. All it took was one morning
of looking into the mirror to realize
SOMETHING HAD TO CHANGE.
I started working on myself and
getting back to the person I once
was. I changed the way I looked
at things and began trying new
experiences. I traveled, met new
people, worked out more, and most
of all opened my eyes. During
that year of drinking and partying
I lost sight of the most important
thing and that was myself. I started
spending more time with family,
something that as a child I was
all too familiar with but as I grew
older seemed to drift away from. At
first I noticed all the things I had
been missing during that year, but
then became thankful that I now
got to enjoy them again. I know
what you are thinking, ‘what a
homebody.’ But that’s not it at all,
I reconnected with my old friends
and learned that those who are
closest to you will just be happy
being around good company. We
started doing game nights, where
we occasionally would drink a glass
of wine, but it was different now.
It wasn’t drinking to get wasted; it
was just having a glass with friends
and limiting yourself. I’m not
trying to preach to you that
drinking is bad. I still go out
with friends and I still like
to have a good time. I’m in
my twenty’s, it’s not a crime
to want that. But somewhere
along the way I learned
what it means to have too
much and that it’s all right
to say ‘no’ every once in
awhile. Those memories
that I yearned to make
during those college years
of drinking, I made sitting in
a friends basement playing
board games till 2am. It’s not
always about where you are
spending your time, sometimes
it’s whom you are with. The best
part about that year of finding
myself is that I can remember
every single moment, mistake
and memory and I knew that it
was I making them. Not some
blurred image of myself who I
wasn’t even familiar with. Some
say that it’s just a process of
growing up, but as for myself I
think it giving yourself what you
deserve.
Article by: Charlotte K
18
GIVING UP WASTED WEDNESDAY
19