Alcohol poisoning is very glamorous....

[poltr1]

I'm long past the age of getting drunk to the point of getting sick. But there are a couple of incidents from my college days that I should mention at this time. Names are being withheld to protect the guilty.

Back before the days of the FIPG, one of the guys in my fraternity indulged a little too much and went out back to take care of himself. Lo and behold, someone took a picture of him being sick, went to Kinko's, and had the picture blown up to poster size. I think it should have been captioned "Alcohol poisoning is very glamorous." Kind of like the smoking posters from the 1970s.

Another went to a local bar and had a little too much to drink. He got sick on the way home. Someone wrote a rap song about it, and several titles were bestowed unto him. Titles like Titan of Toss. Viceroy of Vomit. Baron of Barf. Earl of Hurl. Duke of Puke. Champion of Chunder. And the Maharaji of Regurgitation.

Needless to say, these two guys cleaned up their act quickly, and never got sick from drinking again.

And the moral of this story is: Learn from the mistakes of others so you don't have to make them yourself.

Comments

[bikergeek.livejournal.com]

Today those pictures would be plastered (pardon the pun) all over Facebook and Myspace and those people would be having to explain them to potential employers and potential SOs for the rest of their lives.

[poltr1]

Indeed. A couple of years ago, in its quarterly magazine, my college fraternity's international president warned about that very thing happening.

And in some cases, some people died from alcohol poisoning.

[bikergeek.livejournal.com]

yeah. today's 15-30 year olds are kinda stuck in the middle. They're old enough to have pictures of themselves doing embarrassing (and possibly mildly illegal) stuff all over the web, yet their elders--namely, their parents, and their future bosses--Just Don't Get It. Twenty years from now, when those people have assumed positions of power, nobody will care about the embarrassing photos of you that are floating around, because nearly everyone will have some someplace, and people will wonder why anyone ever cared.

There were certainly lots of people when I went to college who pulled shenanigans of varying degrees of stupidity. Very little of it got recorded, though, because film was relatively expensive, and even if it did, the technology for the average person to disseminate photos widely just wasn't there.

The only adverse effect I can foresee is that if this becomes yet another split between the haves and have-nots. Sort of like the people who can't get a job because they're recreational pot smokers, or because they did something dumb in their past that means they now have a criminal record, however minor.

[bikergeek.livejournal.com]

oh yeah, on the alcohol poisoning thing...seems like that happens a lot more today, than it did when I went to college 20-25 years ago. theory is that the 21 drinking age has pushed drinking underground and away from older kids and adults who could serve as mentors and teach younger people how to consume alcohol safely and in moderation. plus the "consume today because you may not be able to get it tomorrow" mentality leads to overconsumption.

I *really* hope we come away from this trend we've been on for about 30 years of infantilization of late adolescents and young adults. We're fast creating an age range of people who have adult responsibilities (kill someone we'll try you as an adult; get pregnant, or get someone pregnant, and tough shit, you're on your own) but not adult privileges (you can't drink, you can get a driver license but can't do anything meaningful with it). That's a dangerous thing to do in all sorts of ways.

[dagonell.livejournal.com]

You left out, "You're old enough to handle an M16 and get shot at, but not old enough to handle a 16 oz beer and enjoy it."
-- Dagonell

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

Only because he was typing fast, I suspect.