I find alcohol fascinating. Not just from a personal perspective (though the allure of an 18-year-old single malt is undeniable) but from how my peers seem to have a constant need for it. I don’t mean to say all my peers are alcoholics, but from what I’ve seen during my time working on Richmond Row, many people seem to want to use booze as a key to open up their inner personality.

Take the recent example given by Fanshawe’s junior riot club. I know the whole incident is a week or two behind us, but that behaviour is all too common after the drink is consumed. I highly doubt the folks at Fanshawe would still want to test the effects of gravity on beer bottles if they were sober, just as I highly doubt many of the idiots who start brawls at the bars are really that aggressive without their beer. Though perhaps some of these folks’ rowdy behaviour can be attributed to being a part of a mob, the role alcohol plays in these messes is undeniable.

But of course not everyone feels the need to lash out when they’re drinking. Others seem to prefer to use alcohol as a support mechanism.

You all know the type: they’re calm and mild-mannered by day but once they take a sip of tequila the nearest lampshade attaches itself to their head as if it was drawn there by a magnet. They claim they just can’t have a good time unless they have a drink in their hand and seem to get much drunker than everyone else much quicker, as if they’re unable to enjoy any experience of life while totally sober. Call me jaded, but if all it takes to bring you out of your shell is a drink or two, then the outgoing part of your personality can’t lie too far below the surface.

I understand there are numerous other reasons to drink, and I don’t want to come across as some sort of puritanical prohibitionist. My concern isn’t necessarily with people’s drinking habits, but rather how they want to absolve themselves from personal responsibility whenever they drink. We seem to have arrived at a point where alcohol has become the ultimate excuse creator. We don’t question whether being drunk or not remembering from drinking is an acceptable excuse for ridiculous behaviour. Even if you’re not externalizing it by explaining your behaviour to someone else, the act of drinking itself allows an excuse for you to withdraw from the outside world.

Now, I’d be lying if I said I had the answers to why we as a society seem to feel the need to absolve ourselves from any sense of personal responsibility. The cynic in me would just say it’s the nature for people to try to do anything but accept responsibility for their own actions. After all, it’s easy to say you drink because you feel like you don’t fit in, or because your heart is broken, or any number of things. The much harder thing is to accept yourself for who you are without the aid of some fermented grains.

So maybe this year, after you face down the double-barreled shotgun of tests and assignments, it’d be a good idea before trundling off to find what’s at the bottom of the next pint of Guinness to scrutinize your own reasons to drink. Though the propensity to drink seems to have found its way into the lexicon of the university/college experience, maybe we need to figure out whether it plays the role of an occasional friend or a crutch.