The Sober Life at St. Lawrence

The Ups and Downs of Living Dry on a Wet Campus and a Call for Community

Alcohol and St. Lawrence University go together better than rum and Coke. Baseball and hot dogs. White socks and red shoes. Van Morrison and fedoras. These things are intertwined to create a distinct feeling within communities–positive and negative. The combination of two seemingly separate parts of life can so easily come together under one uniform ideology held by thousands of people. As such, SLU’s wet campus policy has been a source of bliss and misery. 

I have attended SLU for almost three full years. One of the major pluses during my first year was the wet campus. It felt freeing to drink recreationally with friends and strangers, biding my time as another passenger on the lazy river. A great way to get to know people came through drinking. I’d acquaint myself with upper-level students who were 21 years old, promoting myself as “the guy with the car.” So, it was a mutually beneficial relationship: they got a ride to the liquor store for booze; we both got booze. That’s a win-win right there. Talking shop about favorite types of beer or cocktails became a source of solid communication. It’s fun to talk about why Busch Light is better than Pabst Blue Ribbon and why neither is better than Ipswich Ale (shoutout to hometown breweries). 

There’s a surprising amount of comradery that comes from alcohol. Americans have a historical love for the stuff, vying against Prohibition in the 1920s as a middle finger to Calvin Coolidge. Cultures in Boston, Minneapolis and Milwaukee, among other cities, have surrounded themselves with pride in how much they drink. Why shouldn’t they? People become more sociable when drinking, more alive, more ruthless, and able to say or do things they typically would never–confess their feelings to star-crossed lovers, reveal deep family secrets, attempt wicked backflips off high school bleachers. It’s a fun pastime that takes little energy and focuses on appreciating the craft and community around drinking. 

Alternatively, drinking takes a lot of love to hate oneself. More often than not, my many first-year nights of drinking ended with a migraine and a yearning for a large mallet to badger any ill-conceived thought in my head. “God, why did I drink tonight? What a stupid idea!” only to repeat my night the week after. Without my knowledge, my drinking became a vice very quickly, like many of my peers or loved ones. 

I’ve never been shy about my drinking habits. If you want a more in-depth talk, read my article from last April, when I celebrated my first year of sobriety. What do you know? It’s been another year. Happy two years! To celebrate, on April 15, I had dinner with my girlfriend. The anniversary was less about my sobriety milestone and more about our second anniversary—much love to Taylor. My sobriety has taken a significant backseat in my life. 

What do I have to celebrate at this point? I’ve been doing it; I’ve done it and will keep doing it. I don’t plan to start drinking again anytime soon. But I also haven’t had a group or support to congratulate me. I’d love to see that on campus. 

I know there were rumblings of a support group on campus last year. I’ve not heard anything about it since, and I don’t know why. I think plenty of people on campus deal with the same issues as me but don’t know where to turn. By God, I’ve met too many tear-filled drunk people begging for help, only to be doubly met by a SLU EMS vehicle pulling up beside them. 

Groups like The Barista should be leaders in meeting these needs. As far as I know, the only types of events they put are simple get-togethers like pottery painting and “Build-A-Buddy.” No offense to these events—they are great for community bonding—but what do they do with your group’s mission? Yes, they are “no-drinking” events, but most are on campus. They don’t promote what it’s like to live a sober life. They don’t show students, or even people in this community, how to properly live with themselves once they put the bottle down. 

I say all this with some fervor because I’m terrified for people in a community like SLU. Drinking is engrained in the culture and mindset of many students. Yes, most don’t use and abuse as poorly as I did, but that’s also because we’ve set the baseline so high. It’s perfectly okay to blackout every other weekend and end up at the Tick Tock Inn. Why? We’re young! We have nothing to fret about besides which dorm we’ll wake up in tomorrow morning. 

I don’t know what I’m getting at exactly. I know there’s a lack of awareness around drinking from the majority of this campus, and it’s frightening. There’s an assumption that the habits will pass after students graduate. But what if it doesn’t? What if the mindset continues while they search for jobs, start families, and build their lives around something other than weekly balling and boozing? 

I’ve seen this in my family. People closest to me couldn’t handle their habits after college and well into their 30s and 40s. Not only did it ruin them, but it also largely ruined their children. We are the next generation who can and will end up just like them. 

But I hear the alternative. Hang the sense. We’re young. Our brains are still growing. It won’t last forever. It can’t, right? Right?