Frosh/O-Week, school championship games, tailgating, frat or sorority parties, the campus bar, the list goes on and on… post-secondary education is filled with awesome opportunities for cute outfits and cute boys. There are also a ton of opportunities for drinking –a lot of drinking. But do we really understand what negative side effects a blurry, exciting night on the town can have on us? To get all definition-y on you, binge drinking is most often described as 5 or more drinks in one sitting, and it is NOT good for you.
By the third round of that delish, fruity drink, your ability to make decisions can be seriously inhibited. I know it’s been told to us a thousand times over –you aren’t yourself when you drink. It isn’t a huge problem until that gross guy from your Econ class is trying to take you home. Protect yourself from the regrettable and potentially dangerous – stick with two (or zero) delicious, fruity drinks.
It makes it impossible for your skin to be as flawless as Blake Lively. The dehydrating effect that makes you want to stand under a giant bucket of ice cold water the morning after a big night also dehydrates your skin! Then your skin is dull and you’re all vain-y and you’ve added three years of wrinkles to your actually-22-year-old face… who wants that?
Making a habit of binge drinking makes it really difficult to shed those 3 pounds you’ve been working oh-so-hard to get rid of. Your body has to work overtime to properly digest alcohol when you throw back three beers in an hour. Your digestive system gets distracted by the toxins in your body and leaves behind all the already present carbs and fat. The terrible two (carbs + fat) then gets bored and heads off to be turned into permanent fat… YIKES.
It hurts your health in ways you can’t see or feel –yet. Both long-term and short-term issues can come from binge drinking. Excessive amounts of alcohol affect your liver, your pancreas, your heart… literally every important organ is harmed in some way by the continuous act of binge drinking.
Hangovers. Need I say more? Upset stomach, headaches, nausea, body aches… there’s nothing like it. You went out for tops four hours the night before, but you’re wasting an entire day on the couch binge watching New Girl because you feel like c-r-a-p. Is it really worth it?
What is so fun about meeting a bunch of new people you won’t remember the next day? It seems great at first, because the alcohol makes you forget whatever you get nervous about in new social situations. But then you wake up and your entire camera roll is full of pictures of you with a bunch of strangers, which is not so great.
You’re clumsy and accident prone, but you’re numb to pain. I can’t be the only one who’s ever woken up with a random bruise or weird joint pain. And those are the tamest injuries… you could break something and not even notice until you the next morning!
Binge drinking can affect mental health. Alcohol is a “downer” (in the world of drugs) and although you may feel like partying at first, many people quickly find themselves in a moody, depressed state. If you’re ever feeling depressed, alcohol is definitely not the place to turn; it’s humiliating to be the girl at the party who’s wailing into her phone in the corner.
Blackouts –they’re dangerous and terrifying. Do not become the girl who wakes up and can’t remember the life-altering conversation they had with their long-time secret love the night before. On a more serious note, do not put yourself in a situation where you can be taken advantage of –it happens more often than you’d think.
Alcohol is addicting. Once or twice a week might turn into four or five times a week, which can quickly turn into every day. It’s much harder to get out than it is to fall in, especially on a college campus.
A night out with the girls is all fun in theory, but making it a nightly occurrence is not worth all the negative effects it can bring along. Alcohol is a drug and needs to be treated with respect. A glass of wine here or there isn’t bad at all –in fact, some argue it’s actually good for you! Just remember some of these side effects of alcohol the next time you’re at the bar with friends. Usually, it isn’t worth it.
Featured image via Gabby on Flickr
