APREVENTABLE tragedy hit me hard this week: A high school friend is hours away from being put into the ground.
I'm sorry to ruin everyone's Friday on a sad note, but I am glad to reach you before you go out this weekend.
My friend, Dan, a University of Maryland-College Park student, was found unconscious inside a fraternity house after a rush event last Saturday. He was taken to the hospital where he lingered in a coma for several days before being declared brain dead.
When his obituary is published, it will read, "cause of death: alcohol poisoning." For a frame of reference, the legal limit for blood alcohol level in Maryland and Virginia is 0.1. If this still means nothing to you, most people are dead drunk at 0.2 and dead at 0.4. When Dan was checked in to the hospital, his BAL was nearly 0.6.
This boy leaves behind a legacy of loving friends who are torn between two thoughts: "How could this happen to Dan?" and "This could have happened to me."
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As college students, we believe we can handle almost anything. Death rarely registers itself as a consequence. None of us, however, can afford to ignore this grim possibility any longer.
Before you stop reading, let me admit something: I drink, often and heavily. Most of my friends on Grounds and at other colleges are drunk two or three times a week. Most of those who do drink have had at least one night where they drank excessively, probably threw up, maybe blacked out and certainly did things they regretted. I have. But I always believed, as do the majority of drinkers, that the worst thing that could happen is a bad hangover, bruised shins or an embarrassing memory in the morning. We all were wrong.
Dan was the boy who stole my calculator in eighth grade. He held the greatest parties at his house every weekend in high school. In English class, my girlfriends and I used to chant, "Dan, Dan, he's our man, if he can't do it, no one can!" He sang "It's so hard to say goodbye" at our ninth-grade graduation.
Maybe you've heard this story before, maybe you haven't. And forgive the cliche, but I didn't understand it until it happened to me. Nothing has ever hit this hard, this fast and this close to home. Last year, another dear friend went to the hospital for alcohol poisoning. But she woke up, we all exhaled, life went on and I forgot. But Dan never woke up, never even got to say goodbye.
I repeat: I frequently am drunk. I wish I didn't have to divulge my behavior in print, but I'm telling you this so you understand that I'm your peer. We've all heard the responsible drinking lecture. I never listened. Other heavy drinkers probably didn't either. I think most drinkers didn't listen to the spiel because we were told not to binge drink. We noticed that nothing bad happened after those five drinks, so we didn't stop there. I still am not going to and I'm not going to tell you to. So because I promise to not preach about getting drunk, you can listen to the one thing I do have to say.
If you don't drink at all, that's great. If you want to get intoxicated, that's fine, too. But you will not gain any exhilaration from being unconscious. For a girl my size, consuming twenty-one shots will not make me more uninhibited than eight shots will. "Responsible drinking" doesn't necessarily preclude getting drunk, but everyone has their respective limits. You can be incredibly crazy and outgoing long before you lose your ability to walk, speak and breathe.
I am not asking you to stop getting drunk; I am asking you to realize that the expression "reasonable drunkenness" is not an oxymoron. Realize that the worst can happen. Have alcohol-induced fun, but recognize that you are not invincible.
Dan was a bright boy. He was no angel, but he was a good kid. He wasn't some delinquent. He was like thousands of University students. It could have happened to anyone.
And another group of students' lives will be changed forever too. The fraternity where Dan was found now is under criminal investigation. I don't know for sure what happened, but I doubt these kids had the worst of intentions. Rush events at every school, including the University, include alcohol. I'm sure the involved brothers at the University of Maryland never wanted anything bad to happen to Dan. But the road to hell is paved with those excuses.
I'd give you all that "No man is an island" talk, but the truth is you don't have to mourn my friend or cry for my loss. This isn't about the loss of Dan's life; it's about the loss of a life - a college student and a human. I don't want him to die without purpose, without the rest of us looking toward the future.
I'm not a sentimentalist; I'm a realist. I hate that Dan could be alive right now. I hate how it could have been you or me. If we don't pay attention, next time it will be.
Dan, Dan, he's our man, if he can drink himself to death, any one of us can.
(Kimberly Liu's column appears Fridays in The Cavalier Daily. She can be reached at kliu@cavalierdaily.com.)
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