Home> Alcohol & you > Work and Study >A Fresher Perspective: week 17

A 'Fresher Perspective' blog: no pain, no game?

Introduction

Sophie will be giving a frank portrayal of university life and the role alcohol plays in it. This week Sophie's night out ends in injury and a few embarrassing photos.

Uni has been a lot more hands on this week. I've had extra lectures and been getting pretty serious with my art work.

Then weekend rolls around... (mine usually starts on a Thursday as I have nothing scheduled Friday), so after work I went to a friend’s ‘winter BBQ/goodbye to people going skiing at sunrise’ party.

By drinking indoors we probably saved a lump sum of cash thanks to cheap supermarket prices.

There is a lot of media attention towards drinking at home lately, contributing to the slump in pub profits and encouraging binge drinking. However, despite more alcohol being available… our drinking seems to be at a much steadier, relaxed… sensible… pace when we are indoors.

This is probably more out of respect for the host’s home… unless it’s declared as a party.

Most people reading this will understand that the definitive line between gathering and party holds the key to the night’s alcohol consumption.

Our Saturday night on the other hand, wasn’t as relaxed or as slow paced as Thursday. I’m still injured.

Normally I’m pretty sensible (my friends will laugh when I say that) but this week I probably went past my comfortable zone.

Coming out of the pub resulted in falling over on the concrete, smacking my head on the pavement. People heard it crunch pretty hard…I couldn’t feel it.

So off I went dancing away with a lump on my head (like Tom and Jerry used to get when they hit each other with hammers)… a cut and a face smudged in black (rubbed off someone else’s tiger painted face). All in all, not a good look.

Thinking back it reminded me of the advert where the girl is getting dressed to go out but smearing her make up and breaking her heels. I think the advert ended in “You wouldn’t start a night like this. So why end it that way?”

Overall the night's memories are pretty blurred with only embarrassing Facebook photos filling in the blanks.

Page last updated by: Miroslaw Jetka (Squiz), 10 Mar 2011.

Page checked on: 22 Feb 2010

4 comment(s) on this article

Date: 23/02/10

Posted by: Francis

Haha, sounds like a good night! Had a similar experience after a Vicars and Tarts party at the Union. We still can't find anyone able to give a confident chronology of what the hell happened in what order, and I still have a scar on my knee from some unremembered fall. Great fun, though, hilarious stuff!

Date: 24/02/10

Posted by: chris thompson

yeahh we like to drink .... we know how much it damages our body ... no amount of awareness programmes or education will stop us not caring ...

Date: 25/02/10

Posted by: Anon

Are these blogs actually useful information or merely a way fo listing 'hilarious' things which have happened to a random student? This blog, to me, does not portray anything which should be affiliated with the NHS or drinking aware. It shows a student who is doing the exact same as everyone else, and of course everyone can relate to this but at the end of the day who is actually going to look at this and think 'my God, I need to calm down'?

Date: 26/02/10

Posted by: Colonel Jeff

@ Anon - I think that's the point! We're lead to believe this is a 'typical' student. Reading through a few entries they all centre exclusively on drink, obviously, but they show how much revolves around the drink. As a casual reader I feel a little perturbed at quite how much drink has influenced this student's time. I think perhaps this is the point the administrators of the blog are hoping to acheive. Future students may have read this and therefore have seen quite how stupid it sounds. I've never been against drinking but the mention of the advert and obvious hint at "this is a bad thing" followed up by the comments of "ho funny" just seem stupid. And a link between drinking and stupidity would, just maybe, be axactly what the NHS might want?

Articles from the same month:

A 'Fresher Perspective' blog: all in the name of charity
A 'Fresher Perspective' blog: shifting down a gear
A 'Fresher Perspective' blog: a sobering sight

See Archive

Understanding unit guidelines

You should not regularly exceed…

Women: 2–3 units daily
Men: 3–4 units daily

The government advises that women should not regularly drink more than the daily unit guidelines of 2–3 units, or…

3 × 25ml shots of whiskey
1.3 × 175ml glasses of white wine
1.3 pints of 4% lager

The government advises that men should not regularly drink more than the daily unit guidelines of 3–4 units, or…

4 × 25ml shots of whiskey
1.7 × 175ml glasses of white wine
1.7 pints of 4% lager