This is a big part of Freshers’ Week, so be prepared for almost every event to involve alcohol and for the people in the year above to want you to down a lot of drinks (they will ‘penny’ you). If you haven’t drunk before, you can continue to do so, or experiment and decide it’s not for you, or experiment and take to it like a pro. Any of the above is fine, so here is my advice for whatever you decide to do:
Not Drinking
This is totally fine. If drinking alcohol does not agree with you or you do not want to try it, no-one should be able to force you to do otherwise. It will make the first few weeks a bit harder as most other people will be drinking, but it is very possible to deal with this. You just have to demolish any suggestion that not drinking makes you a less fun person, and from then on people are more likely to be impressed than sceptical.
To flourish in a club or bop and get in the same mood as other people achieve with drinks, do punchy, energetic dancing to psyche yourself up and show people that you are awesome. At a room party, the only effect drink will have on people is to make them more likely to slump in corners and share intimate conversations; you can do this too, and the plus side is that you are more likely to remember any juicy secrets that have been shared. File these away and bring them up again in 4th year.
At posh dinners, you can distribute your wine amongst your friends, who will be very grateful; in pubs you can try interesting soft drinks, like Curiosity Cola, and save money because alcohol is EXPENSIVE. At cocktail nights you can just drink the mixers, like lemonade or cola.
As you may have noticed, not drinking is sadly still the harder option. If you are a girl, there will be many boys from the year above who keep pestering you to get drunk, and if you are a boy you may have a lot of gender-specific pressure on you to drink pints. But once you have established that you are not for turning, it will get easier. The advantages of not drinking are that you will never be hung over, you will spend less money, you are less likely to pull people you’ll regret, and you won’t risk developing an alcohol problem.
Starting Drinking
If you’ve never drunk alcohol before, the first thing you should know is that your tolerance is zero and you will feel quite drunk after even half a glass of anything. Also, alcohol tastes horrible so don’t be surprised if your first drink is nasty – it’s an acquired taste. I think people drink it because of the warm feeling in your chest and the blurry feeling in your head it gives you – watch out for these.
If you decide to go beyond that first drink, the next thing to bear in mind is your limits. Your low low limits. Obviously you can’t know exactly where they are unless you go beyond them, but the sickness you feel from having drunk too much is so dreadful that I would not wish it on you, so if you don’t want to explore your body’s limits I’d say you should stick to two glasses of whatever it is you’re drinking. Also, make sure you’ve eaten a good meal beforehand, to soak up the alcohol.
Continuing to drink
As you were. But be safe and don’t risk getting alcohol poisoning or pregnant.
