Many people say Spring Quarter is the best quarter of the school year. Student organizations host many special events like spring trips, fundraisers and concerts. It's the time to enjoy the sunshine and nice weather ' not to mention the showing of nice bronze skin as people tan outside. Other spring activities at Ohio University involve drinking.
I, like many other students on this campus, believe that college is the time to have fun and enjoy life. For many students, having fun often involves drinking.
But as we immerse ourselves in the fun of drinking, we sometimes forget that we put many things at stake. For some people, more than one alcohol-related offense can result in revocation of a scholarship. For other students, the $100 university-imposed fine for first time alcohol-related offense can be a big problem.
The more serious problem, however, is actual harm that can happen when you're drunk. We hear about people falling into bushes, off bunk beds and off balconies. And after all, getting into trouble with authorities is not the worst thing that can happen.
The fine line between too much drinking and having fun is rather thin, and the separation is therefore difficult to make. I saw a girl being carried out of a club at 1 a.m. For me, that alone is acceptable. But that's not the whole story. The girl being carried out of the club at 1 a.m. was actually naked ' she had absolutely no clothing from her waist down ' being carried to a taxi. I consider this going beyond the line.
At least she had someone looking after her.
Since I've been in college, the advice I've heard most often is to bring along a friend who will stay sober all night if you anticipate being drunk out of your mind. Seeing your friend's head in the toilet is not an unusual sight. Less unusual is seeing someone next to that person. I suppose it is not uncommon for us to drink and expect a friend to take care of us.
The problem, however, is what happens when the person assigned to take care of you fails to perform the task. The responsibility to control yourself from irresponsible behavior that you wouldn't do unless intoxicated ' anything from peeing in the alleys of Court Street to losing your pants ' is ultimately yours. Yet self-control almost always disappears when you're in a state of intoxication.
When the university announced that almost all alcohol offenders would be met with a $100 fine, it seemed like the administration was just trying to make money. Similarly, people say police make alcohol-related arrests solely to collect fines.
Call me dumb, but it had never occurred to me that the police were out to save drunken college students from dangers brought upon themselves when in an intoxicated state. I came to this realization in my journalism class as I listened to Athens Police Capt. Tom Pyle talk about APD's attack plan for weekend festivals like Palmer Fest.
So if the plan of having our friends take care of us falls through, the police are essentially the ones who take care of us. Perhaps in the same way that we thank our friends for taking care of us and keeping our heads from falling in the toilet when we drink too much, we might want to thank the police for taking us off the street before we act irresponsibly ' particularly by harming ourselves.
Columns represent the views of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of The Post
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Rainy Phrompechrut
When friends fail, police protect from self-harm
