Party Time – what happens when you may be partying too much?
So often the college experience is portrayed as one big party. It is thought of as a time to drink excessively, experiment with drugs, have many one night stands and max out your new found freedom. Oh yeah, and get good grades too. This can be a very difficult area to manage for many freshmen girls who have never been away from home or had the freedom from their parents to stay out all night or go to parties without chaperones. It can spiral out of control quickly. The pressure to keep up often can result in a night of not remembering, throwing up or blacking out, which can, of course lead to many worse situations. Knowing yourself and what you can manage is very important to staying safe, staying on a good path and not losing control of your college experience.
Key Things to Consider:
- Thinking about the consequences before you go out for a night of excessive drinking, drug use or the combination is critical to staying safe.
- Surrounding yourself with friends and people you trust is also very important.
- Making a plan for the night out can help to avoid these situations.
- Staying in control of yourself and your consumption of alcohol.
If you are going out many nights a week, partying hard, and finding yourself skipping classes, moving on to other friends, waking up in strangers bedrooms, you need to ask yourself what else is going on.
- Are you stressed?
- Unhappy?
- Anxious?
- Is your drinking getting out of control?
- Are you addicted to or in desperate need of drugs to have a good time?
It may be time to reach out and get some support and help.
Self-medicating or using drugs and alcohol to numb feelings is very common and often no one realizes they are doing it until something bad comes from it. An arrest, a DUI or DWI, a physical attack or altercation, a sexual attack or a trip to the emergency room from an overdose are frequently the results of abusing substances.
Drugs –
There are so many drugs out there it is hard to keep up: Mollies, Ecstasy, Coke, Heroin, Weed and the abuse of prescription drugs like Aderoll, Ritalin, Oxycotin, Percoset, to only name a few. If you are using drugs of any kind to calm yourself down, bring yourself up or feel you cannot have a good time without it, it is time to reach out for help. Using these drugs can be harmful to you physically and mentally. It clouds your judgment, your ability to manage your everyday life, and again can easily put you in harms way. Many of these drugs are addictive so cravings for more can lead you down a path of drug addiction, stealing, or a need for a “fix”. If you or anyone you know is having a hard time with any type of drug, it is critical to get help.