An Alcohol Incident

Hate the new alcohol policy? Well, guess what? We got them on this one!

The following is not just another rant on why this semester's alcohol policy and its enforcement suck, which, by the way, they do. The events told here are completely true, and are actually in the process of transpiring while you read.

I was written up for holding a beer in a fraternity, of which I was not a brother, the first night I got back to school. The party was being broken up, a few students were grabbed at random, and I was unlucky enough to be one of them. My ID number was taken by a TUPD officer, who told me that it would be reported to a dean. Weeks later, however, I had not been contacted by any police or administrative members, so I assumed that the incident had been forgotten.

A few more weeks later, I still had not heard anything, so I was positive that I was in the clear. Now, last week, I received e-mail notification that I was in some small amount of trouble and was to comply with one of two options: either take an online alcohol education course (most likely similar to one that I took last year), or meet with the Alcohol and Drug Counselor. Figuring a meeting would be quicker than a course, I scheduled an appointment with the counselor. Our meeting will be at the end of the month.

OK, so that is where we are at so far. Now let's review the situation. Take a look at part of the e-mail I received: "As you know, you were recently involved in an incident that violated the Alcohol and Drug Policy.... Our primary concern lies with the overall health and wellness of the Tufts community.... We also take seriously our role as medical and mental health professionals to regard any violation of the Alcohol and Drug policy as a potentially serious situation -- perhaps involving addiction and/or unhealthy risk-taking." Shall we examine each excerpt shown here? Oh, we shall.

I think that I am somewhat at odds with the university on the definition of being "recently involved" with something. A week after the incident, two weeks, maybe even a month would be alright, but two months? Over half of the semester had passed before I was notified of any action being taken against me. Why should that matter, you might ask? Well, since the university cares about the "overall health and wellness of the Tufts community," they would probably want to contact someone who might have "a potentially serious situation -- perhaps involving addiction" pretty quickly so that he/she could be seen by a specialist, right? Right. Is three months, the time from knowing about the incident to the time of the appointment with the counselor, a quick response? You can decide that for yourself, but I will still answer for you: no.

I find almost the entire experience to be one big stinking piece of bureaucratic hypocrisy. If the administration cares about its students and their potential alcohol problems, you would think they would handle an issue like this in a timely fashion. We are not talking about much here, people, just a 20 minute meeting with an underage student who might not know the true consequences of alcohol and could be headed down a dark and dangerous road.

Fortunately, I am not an alcoholic by any means, and that is not denial you are hearing; I drink on the weekends sometimes, I know my limits, and I actually have bartending certification, so I am pretty well-educated on the subject. However, there are students out there, on our campus, who might have alcohol addiction or be on the verge of it. Maybe one of them has undergone an occurrence similar to mine. Anybody else think that giving them an extra three months to kill their body, mind, grades, social life, potentially family life, and anything else that they had going for them, would be a bad thing? I cannot hear you, but I will assume you are cheering enthusiastically right now.

Still not convinced? What if you walked in on a friend of yours who was in the middle of a suicide attempt? You would probably go ahead and try to schedule some counseling for your friend. Let's say two months later, you got a call from the counselor thanking you for helping your friend. This counselor then goes on to inform you that the meeting will be in four weeks. That is a long time to let a depressed, suicidal person go without help.

Why should an alcoholic be treated any differently? Alcoholism is a disease just like depression and needs to be treated at the first sign of symptoms. There is no way that the university could know for certain that I am not an alcoholic, so the only other option left is the university's laziness, or stupidity, or whatever derogatory terms you want to throw out there.

Obviously, the administration has come under a lot of fire for its new alcohol policy since things are quite a bit stricter this year. But if that is the way it is going to be, they need to actually care about the health of the students, and not just say that they do. This one slipped through the cracks, and luckily no harm was done. But for whoever is in charge of the alcohol disciplinary and counseling proceedings (since the two are connected, as the e-mail told me), you aught to be ashamed of yourself. You f----d up big time.



Joshua Cohn is a sophomore majoring in Music