I swear like a sailor around my parents. And I always have. Because my parents pick their battles, and the battle they picked was substance abuse. Substance abuse is not a joke to them. To them, impersonating the voice of a chain smoker is not funny, and the incoherent ramblings of a drunk friend are not comic storytelling material. My mother lost her brother to a drunk driver when she was thirteen, and my father lost all four of his grandparents to tobacco-related illness. Thus, they’ve always been strict with me, and the overwhelming message under their roof remains: the use of alcohol, tobacco, and other illegal, mind-altering substances is absolutely, positively, unacceptable. They spent so much time enforcing this rule and communicating its importance. Not only did I never get away with drinking in high school, I never had the inclination to; I knew how hurt my parents would be if they were ever to find out, and I couldn’t put them through that. And so, in return for 100% sobriety and transparency about where I was, who I was with, and how I was getting there, they let me swear.
I am glad this was the hill they chose to die on; I believe that I am a healthier and happier (as cheesy as that sounds) person for it. That is why Colby surprised me. The idea of drinking to the point of memory loss every weekend freaked me out. Did my friends not get that when their blood alcohol level rose too high, their brains actually couldn’t form long term memories? That when they woke up feeling like they couldn’t remember the night before, their brain in fact hadn’t truly experienced it at all? I couldn’t believe how many people my age smoked. Did they not know their skin was yellowing, wrinkling? That their lungs were turning black and their bodies becoming reliant on nicotine to function comfortably? I’ve had many a conversation with a fellow Colby student who is not familiar with the physiological effects their substance use has on their body. It is surprising and saddening to see.
Specifically, I recall a weekend last spring, during which a friend drove home with me to meet my family. That Friday, she consumed a lot of alcohol–too much– and vomited. A lot. Saturday morning, she awoke, hungover as all get out, and we trudged through the March sleet to my house. As my mom served us some soup, we chatted and caught up. It was around this time that I swore. My friend audibly gasped. “You can say that in front of your mom?” she asked.
Yeah. I can. My mom doesn’t care. What she does care about is that I don’t try a cigarette, that I don’t use marijuana without first understanding the side effects it might have on my psyche, that I don’t drink more alcohol than my liver can handle, and that I don’t rely on any mind-altering substance to feel happy. This brings me to BI 265. Having learned about the intricate system that is my body, I am even less inclined to mess around with its equilibrium. While cigarettes never tempted me before Jan Plan 2015, my newfound knowledge of arterial disease has made sure I will never get near one. I wish more parents choose to battle substance abuse with their kids, because it is so important and valuable. But even more so, I wish more people would choose to know about how their bodies work. How the things they put in their bodies, the things they do with their bodies, the things they let their bodies get near, affect their mental and physical health. Because only with this knowledge can we change substance abuse culture, both on Mayflower Hill and in general.