- When I enrolled at Dartmouth, I drank most nights of the week and attended frat parties.
- I didn't know I had a problem because college party culture normalized over-drinking.
When I attended my freshman orientation at Dartmouth in 2007, I met Keggy for the first time. Portly, gregarious, and prone to spontaneous dancing, he was both an outsize presence and a perfect distillation of our school spirit. His name was Keggy the Keg because he was a life-size, well, beer keg, and he was Dartmouth College's unofficial mascot. In addition to being ever-so-slightly on the nose for an undergraduate program, he was also a sign of things to come for me.
Don't get me wrong: I had many great college experiences. I met some wonderful friends and professors and uncovered a treasure trove of courses and extracurricular activities. It's where I discovered an affinity for creative writing; my school even launched me into a journalism grad program and a modest writing career.
That said, fraternities monopolized our social lives. And we were horny, high-achieving 18-year-olds with pressure — both familial and otherwise — on our shoulders. We were also raised on movies like "Revenge of the Nerds," "Old School," and "Van Wilder," which taught us to view college as a never-ending party.
Ultimately, all of these factors — like bolts of lightning in a plasma ball — collided quietly. The result was my drinking problem went unnoticed — even by me.
American college culture sent me over the edge
I was already struggling mentally when I received my college-admissions letter. An anxious, hardworking gay teen coming from a conservative, often homophobic city with a depressing lack of fellow queers, I was not just high-strung, but emotionally repressed and starving for release.
After my first few blackouts during my first semester, I became more interested in drinking than in investing in my future. I joined a co-ed fraternity. I embraced the accepted college-age persona of being an avid drinker. Ever the high achiever, I even augmented my weekend drinking schedule by partying on weekdays, effectively turning my drinking into an extracurricular activity. One of my crowning achievements was being selected to represent my co-ed society at a campus-wide beer-pong tournament.
No one offered help because what I was doing was considered normal
I never — not once — considered myself an alcoholic. Since we were in college, "blacking out a lot" passed as a personality. As long as I was following conventional binge-drinking practices (don't drink alone, don't respond to emails drunk, don't get caught by the police), I never seemed to attract unwanted attention.
One time, to avoid being caught by the cops stumbling down Frat Row, I dropped to the ground and started making snow angels. My friends laughed and laughed.
In the end, only one person ever called me an alcoholic during my entire time in school, and she was only joking.
The real problems arose after I graduated
While my drinking adventures, and subsequent academic delinquency, led me into deep sadness, I always rebounded. Protected from the real world by our college bubble, I never connected the dots and traced my mental unwellness back to alcohol.
But when I had to enter the job market beset with mounting student-loan debt and a lack of direction, I realized some things. My drinking habits didn't subside and without the college-party context, my drinking problem became all too apparent.
Unhappy and unmoored, I spent my first years of adulthood in a state of perpetual disappointment.
I quit drinking three times before finally making it stick in my late 20s. I'm now six years sober.
Still, I can't help thinking that I might have been better off taking a gap year before college. Then I could have gone to therapy, or, at least, watched some less positive movies about Greek life. If I'd seen the dismal slasher flick "Sorority Row" before matriculating, then maybe I wouldn't have been so eager to play beer pong.
Editor's Note: Jana Barnello, a media-relations strategist at Dartmouth, added the following comment:
"At Dartmouth, the health and safety of our community is of paramount importance. We are committed to working with Greek organizations to ensure a culture of accountability, inclusivity, and safety. We hold all student organizations at Dartmouth to a high standard of conduct and accountability with the expectation that they will contribute to a respectful and inclusive environment, help to shape the leaders of the future, and elevate — not denigrate — the Dartmouth experience.
"In 2011, the Dartmouth Health Service primary-care clinic began universal screening for high-risk drinking and since 2015, hard alcohol has been banned on campus, which includes Greek spaces. These changes, among other substance use reduction initiatives and programs — such as the mandatory first-year student online alcohol education class — are ongoing commitments to prioritizing student health and well-being."