Alcohol.

It is simple to say that almost (key word is almost) every college kid experiments with alcohol. It's common curiosity, but for many, they never knew that curiosity killed that cat. It being only my first semester at college, I can truly say that is rare to meet someone who hasn’t at least tried some form of alcohol. The more power to you if you if you stood strong throughout high school and now college without wondering once, “what if?”
Growing up in a household where your father comes home late from work and you know, at age seven, that when you walk into the living room he will have his whiskey on the rocks in the same glass he used the night before, you figure out that is not the way you want to live your life. Pushing those images from my head, and now living a few years away from his used to be bad habit, I know that is one thing I never want to become. Alcohol and I have a nature vs. nurture relationship. I was not only around it growing up, which would be the nurture aspect, but my birth mother was known to be an alcoholic as well. It honestly does not bother me at all, and I do not think that will affect me in the long run, but my decisions to and not to drink have been based around my, what I consider, real mom. Since I started high school, she knew I would be surrounded with what adults call peer pressure. She would tell me numerous times that my birth mom was an alcoholic and she drank while she was still having me. Her outlook on it is that because she still continued to drink while I was in her stomach, My body is naturally “addicted” to alcohol. Since she still tells me ‘til this day that I need to be careful for that such reason, I continue to reply that she has absolutely nothing to worry about because what I do and decided is and never will be a reflection of my birth mother. I know it reassures her but she is still going to worry.
Being around it made me curious, but hearing stories of college student dying from over consumption of alcohol, frankly scares me. It is an ongoing problem which I do not think will ever reside, ever. But with colleges like the University of Virginia, and many others taking action, the more “social norming”, the less lives taken each year.
I will be completely honest and say, yes, I have tried it and I have learned that at certain times it can be fun, but over a course of time I realized I don’t need it to have fun. I do not want to end up like my mom, relying on substances to make me happy and feel good. When the time is right I’ll have a drink, but that time isn’t now. I would never want to jeopardize my spot on my rowing team, my college career, and possibly my life.