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I'm a college student at UCSD, and I'm not yet 21. School started a couple days ago, so I've only been on campus about a week, but I've already met a fair number of people. Up until 24 hours ago it had still been an uneventful start to the school year, but apparently last night I almost died.
It went like this. I have a job this year, so I worked until 6:00, after which I started on back to my place. I met a friend on the way home, so we went back to my place and we spent some time playing Super Smash Brothers Brawl. So far, all signs point to an uneventful evening. I went and got food (a burrito from Goody's, for anybody UCSD-savvy), and went back to my place again. This is when my roommates got back with a couple friends, around 10:00 or 10:30.
One of these friends invited us all up to his place, in the same building, to drink. That all seemed good, so I went with them. The other friend they had with them was a guy I'll call Ricky (not his real name). We went upstairs, and started drinking and playing GTA V. A couple people decided not to drink, or to drink very lightly, so it was just myself, Ricky, and two other people drinking in any significant capacity. The two other people then decided they'd had enough, so it was just me and Ricky taking pulls of whiskey. At around 11:30 Ricky was criticizing me saying my pulls did not have proper form, insisting that the key to a good pull is "air flow."
Next thing I remember, it was 7:30 in the morning and I was at UCSD hospital with some guy (possibly my doctor?) having me sign things and telling me they almost had to intubate me and that I should stay away from greasy foods in the near future. They didn't actually intubate me though, and in fact the only procedure they did was a glucose drip, so perhaps the title of this blog was a bit too sensational considering that despite going to the hospital, I actually pulled through on my own. Even so, I apparently made some very bad decisions last night and nearly found myself with something a little more permanent than a hangover.
While I have about eight hours entirely missing from my memory, I've pieced together a little of what happened. At the party I kept drinking and socializing, and at least according to my room mates I seemed fine for a while. They went back to our room at some point, though, and apparently at 1:30 I was in some trouble. Other people in my building texted my friend saying I left in an ambulance, so that was about the time the other people at the party decided I was in too much trouble to just sleep it off. At 2:02 the hospital gave me a glucose drip; that means that some time between 1:30 and 2:00 they got me to the hospital and evaluated whether it would be necessary to intubate. And then I guess I slept it off in a hospital bed until 7:00 or so when I woke up. Judging from the stains on my shirt I threw up at some point during the eight hours, but I have no idea when.
At about 7:15 they had me call a friend to pick me up, because I was still in no condition to make it home on my own. He was a bit hung over himself (he wasn't at the same party), but he took some busses, and after a bit of talking to the nurses about how to get there, he came and took me back to UCSD. We made pancakes, which was probably good considering I was still very much under the influence. I went back to my room then, told my roommates what had happened to me (at least as much as I knew myself), took a shower, and went to sleep.
I'm not totally certain what consequences I'll still have to face from this. I left the building in an ambulance, so I can't imagine there isn't some UCSD authority aware of my misdeeds; I probably at least got written up. If my parents found out I'd be in considerably more trouble, but luckily even though they're my emergency contacts, it looks like the hospital did not get in touch with them. Law enforcement might also have been informed, but as of yet I have no reason to believe that I'm in any legal trouble. All things considered, I think I could be called lucky to have gotten off with as little punishment as I did.
Team Liquid has a lot of introverted high schoolers, so I should mention that this is not representative of what your experience with alcohol will be if you try it in college. As long as you're drinking with responsible people you should be fine; just figure out who the Ricky's are in your school and try not to listen to them when they try and make you drink. Even if you do listen to them you'll probably be fine; alcohol is a lot like when your computer is struggling with running a game so the frames per second start to drop. In only a tiny fraction of cases does lag like that result in a full system crash.
This blog is probably a little less organized and readable than my usual blogs, so sorry for that. I'm still a bit out of it. But I hope you enjoyed reading about my unfortunate experiences with drinking last night! I assure you I'm alright now, and I'll try to be more responsible in the future. Despite what some of the paperwork the hospital gave me says, I do not in fact have an alcohol addiction; in fact, this was basically my first time drinking in several months. And if you attend a similar party to the one I was at, do me a favor: focus a little more on the GTA V and a little less on the alcohol!
  
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Sorry to see that happened to you, but good advice and an interesting read.
I'm glad you made it through fine!
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Your consequences probably depend on whether you were picked up by city police, campus police, or campus non-police (like an RA or something) and how strict your school is. For a more liberal school like where I attended I would not expect any punishment from the school, but they may require you go to alcohol abuse counseling for the short term. If UCSD were on the strict side they would probably have a system of rules (3 strikes, fines, something) and you would know about it already, so I think you're probably ok on this front. Unless you were disorderly to the cops or something. Also you would probably have a ticket of some sort with you if the police picked you up and there were something to worry about.
Do expect though a fee for that ambulance ride you took (~$200-300, what do you think guys?). If you want to keep this from your parentals, you may have to intercept a bill and pay it yourself.
Again though, this all depends on how badly you behaved last night - if you were just drunk and not an asshole you will probably be fine. College students are allowed to get sloppy, just try to keep a night like this to only once or twice per year is my advice.
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On September 29 2013 08:21 Phay wrote:
Again though, this all depends on how badly you behaved last night - if you were just drunk and not an asshole you will probably be fine. College students are allowed to get sloppy, just try to keep a night like this to only once or twice per year is my advice. I was hoping to keep this a one-time thing! Although if it happened a year from now it wouldn't be quite so bad. Good thought about that ambulance bill, by the way. I'll have to see what I can do about that.
UCSD does have a three strikes policy, although apparently they're not too strict about enforcing it if you have good grades. Assuming I got written up (and surely I did, right?), this would be my first strike, so I'm probably alright. I just have to keep myself from getting two more before I turn 21, and once that happens I won't have much reason to get written up any more. I don't think law enforcement was actually involved, since from what I can tell it was my roommate that called the ambulance (I was probably passed out). So unless campus police stopped me on my way to the ambulance to get my ID and give me some form of punishment, I think I should be alright. Since my RA still hasn't stopped by to give us a talking to, I might have even avoided punishment from the university, but I doubt it.
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I think you just passed out drunk and everyone over reacted :p
To hurt yourself you need to drink a huge amount of hard liquor in a short time (i.e swallow a bottle of vodka in 30 secs or smth)
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On September 29 2013 08:50 GoTuNk! wrote:
I think you just passed out drunk and everyone over reacted :p
To hurt yourself you need to drink a huge amount of hard liquor in a short time (i.e swallow a bottle of vodka in 30 secs or smth)
I'm pretty sure you're right, although I'm not certain how much I had. Last thing I remember I was taking pulls from a bottle of whiskey, so I can understand why my roommate thought I might be in trouble. I wish he hadn't called the ambulance, since it seems I would have been fine, but I can't be too upset. He was only concerned for my well-being, after all.
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you have a good (but probably over-reactive) roomate
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Yeah you should never rage with people you aren't close with and dont trust
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Ricky sounds like a douchebag.
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Hong Kong9179 Posts
I feel like I've been here before.
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Mmmm, at some point I'm going to start drinking. Fortunately among my close friends there's this girl who doesn't drink but is always at parties ending up babysitting her drunk friends lol.
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I'll never understand drinking yourself into unconsciousness. Getting a bit drunk is fun. Puking isn't fun. Being unconscious isn't fun. Are people drinking to prevent themselves from having fun?
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LOL, Ricky getting drunk reminds me of this (even though it's a fake name):
![[image loading]](http://i.qkme.me/3ukv2b.jpg)
Ah the good old escapism from social situations in which we experience tension to prove ourselves. I went out a lot and used to drink before that, but never accepted that my brain was only operating 50% the next day, so after a while I gave up on this practice. They won't think less of you if you don't drink heavily, and even more so when you drink too much most people become an obnoxious or annoying person anyway.
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yeah, I did the same thing once and had no repercussions. I got hauled away in a cop car and not an ambulance though, so it also didnt cost me any money. You'll be fine.
I think the moral shouldn't be avoid enablers. They're a great time. The moral is know your limit.
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On September 29 2013 20:02 Monsen wrote:
I'll never understand drinking yourself into unconsciousness. Getting a bit drunk is fun. Puking isn't fun. Being unconscious isn't fun. Are people drinking to prevent themselves from having fun?
Yeah, I agree. Feeling sick is definitely not fun. After a while you can learn what your body can take and strike a perfect balance between getting drunk and not getting sick. Many people have this "more is always better" mentality.
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I should mention that this is not representative of what your experience with alcohol will be if you try it in college.
Not being able to handle your alcohol, vomiting all over yourself, and being scared that mommy will find out?
Sounds exactly like what the average college kid goes through when he tries partying without first having a handle on his tolerance level.
Glad you're okay though.
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There are two ways to avoid this
1) slowly build up your tolerance throughout the school year so when major drinking events occur, you can handle your liquor like a MAN. I bet the ricky guy was someone who gets drunk pretty often so doing like 10-15 shots + whatever else in a night is ezpz for him. This is pretty much a borderline alcoholic too I would say. Impressive, but not good for your health
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2) know your limit. ESPECIALLY with liquor coz it snowballs fast
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On September 30 2013 01:53 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +I should mention that this is not representative of what your experience with alcohol will be if you try it in college. Not being able to handle your alcohol, vomiting all over yourself, and being scared that mommy will find out? Sounds exactly like what the average college kid goes through when he tries partying without first having a handle on his tolerance level. Glad you're okay though.
Almost no one winds up in a hospital the next day. But sure, plenty of people throw up and pass out at some point, and most people are hoping their parents don't find out.
Interestingly, the whole "why would you want to feel sick and miserable" argument doesn't apply here as much as you think. While this was by far the most I've ever had to drink, I didn't really have much of a hangover. I just kinda hung out in my room all day watching Netflix and letting my body rest, which was a pretty good day by me. I might have been pretty sick and miserable the night of, but I don't remember that anyway.
And I'm not really any closer to finding my limit or knowing when to stop; I intended from the beginning to stop drinking when I was too messed up, and in the past the first time I fall over has always been a pretty good indicator of stopping time. this time, there was somebody encouraging me to drink, though, which is something I haven't experienced before, and I wasn't in much of a condition to tell him no. I have no idea how many drinks I had after my memory cut out, or for that matter how many I had before that, so I still don't have any good idea of how much I can have before I'm through. I'll just take it easy for a while and try to avoid drinking with people who might try to get me to have too much.
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Have fun with your 1700 dollar ambulance fee.
Source: UCSD sorority formal last spring.
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you write well. Thanks for sharing, reminds me to start thinking about my emergency contacts and ambulance bills and all this. Even if I don't like bureaucratic things, they're good to know about.
I find when people go past that "tolerance" point into black out levels, they become a liability because they have such little inhibition, the people who have to make sure they don't do something extremely stupid are given a big burden. That's why i think medical professionals are valuable, though expensive. They can make sure it's not alcohol poisoning and also someone won't have to babysit you from breaking your neck or throwing stuff all over the floors.
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EPT
