Aside from swallowing about a teaspoon of beer that my dad gave me when I was eight and desperate to try it out, I didn’t touch booze until I was 18. There are many reasons for this—I was raised to be an overachiever, so I focused on school and stayed out of trouble. Plus my parents never shut up about how alcoholism ran in our family, and I really didn’t want to catch it. So I stayed bone-dry until my freshman year of college. When I moved into my dorm at USC in the fall of 1997, I had zero intention to go out and party. If anything I was scared I might get caught up in the crazy culture and be led astray—get trashed, maybe stoned, fuck some guy and get prego.
But there was a small problem. My freshman roommate, Amy, loved to drink, and her mother loved supplying us with booze. A pretty blonde from Orange County (not unlike half the chicks at USC), she joined Alpha Chi Omega, one of the “nice girl” sororities, and stashed a bunch of booze in our micro-fridge. Now that I think about it, this was rather stupid. If the RA had found out us underage kids had a fridge stocked with Coors and Jack Daniel’s cherry coolers, we would have faced some sort of consequences, maybe even have gotten expelled.
It was a Thursday night, the night Amy and the girls were primping to go out to The Row—the street lined with sorority and frat houses—and the hall of my dorm was buzzing with excitement. You could smell hairspray, deodorant, mousse, bath gel, all of it hanging in the air of that musty 1950’s building.
I wasn’t planning on going out, but out of nowhere this crazed rush came over me. The excitement of the girls rubbed off on me, and I got a case of the “Fuck It’s.” I now recognize it as the same feeling that comes over you if you’ve ever relapsed. Fuck whatever alcoholism I might catch by going out and swallowing Miller Hi Life out of a red Solo cup, fuck studying for the Oceanography exam I had the next morning, fuck it, fuck it, fuck it—I just wanted to let loose.
“Amy, I’m going to come with you guys!” I said gleefully. She was surprised since I’d been such a teetotaler.
“Are you going to drink?”
“Yes!”
This seemed to please her. She opened the micro-fridge and pulled out one of those cherry Jack Daniel’s coolers and offered me a sip.
I grabbed the bottle, raised it in the air, and said “If I become an alcoholic, it’s your fault.”
Yep. That’s what I said; I was that big of an asshole.
Amy gasped.
“Don’t say that!” she said in shock.
“I’m kidding,” I said, blowing it off. But deep inside I knew, I just knew that I was playing with fire. Part of it was because I had a history of binging on sugar and sweets in high school, and part of it was because I had been told over and over to steer clear booze from my family. But in that moment, none of that mattered. I was thirsty, and I was going to pound that booze silly.
About six of us gals showed up to the Pi Phi frat house, wandering through the crowds of preppy dudes and sorority chicks and hunting for the booze. After walking a few feet, we discovered a bunch of Dixie cups full of Mai Tai’s.
I grabbed one and knocked it back, then, without pausing for a millisecond, grabbed another and knocked it back. Then another. That’s right—without even experiencing that physical craving, I kept pounding them. That’s how excited I was to check out.
“Slow down, Tracy,” Amy yelled, but I just giggled. The cups were so small and the liquid so sweet, I just had no idea how drunk that rum would get me.
About five to 10 minutes later, the buzz smacked me in the face. And oh my God was it awesome.
The first thing I recall was standing on the roof of the frat house gazing up at the stars in a state of euphoria I’d never experienced. I was warm all over, completely relaxed, and all of my social anxiety had vanished.
As I continued to gaze up at the sky, I muttered something along the lines of “It’s so amazing!”
Amy put her arm around my waist and said “See, Tracy. It’s important to experience this.”
Maybe it was important for me to experience that moment, but it certainly wasn’t important to experience the ones that came after. Once we left the roof for the bathroom I began laughing uncontrollably and proceeded to swing on one of the bedroom doors while cackling in hysterics.
“Tracy, calm down!” Jordan, another friend from my dorm, yelled.
Maybe it was my bipolar mania mixing with the booze that sent me up so high, but feeling that divine, I just refused to stop drinking. We soon after walked down the street to a different frat house, and en route I wound up smoking one of Jordan’s cigarettes. I guess I thought I’d really make the night out count. I hacked and hacked on the thing and found it disgusting.
By the time we got to the Sigma Chi house I had the spins, but that didn’t stop me from walking straight over to the bar and grabbing a huge Solo cup full of beer. Once I started drinking it, Jordan ran up and tried to get me to stop.
“Tracy, you’ve had enough, you’ll puke,” she said, trying to pry the cup out of my fingers. With all that booze in my system I snapped.
“Leave me alone,” I said, “You’re not my mother.”
The kids milling around the table of booze stared, and one frat dude said something like “Damn girl!”
Jordan walked away in a bit of a huff, and from there on my mood just tanked. I’m not sure if it was a blood sugar crash or a booze crash, but from that point on I was very surly, and surly quickly turned into extremely sad. On our way home from the debauchery, I started sobbing, moaning about how I was still fucked up over my parents’ divorce, and Amy just turned to me and said “You drank too much. You can’t do that.” It was clear she was annoyed.
The gals gave me water and put me to bed. Thank God they did, because I managed to wake up at seven am on the dot without an alarm clock, subsequently dragging my ass to the library to cram for the exam. At 18, you can really recover from a night out fast. I think I even scored a B+ or an A on the test.
After this experience I realized alcohol and me didn’t mix well, so I stayed away from booze for a good six months wanting to stay in school and perform well. But six months later, I drank myself silly at another frat house. From there, I continued to have one crazy night out followed by months of abstinence. This pattern followed me all the way up until the point where I had to get sober, only the increments between binges went from months to days.
If only I could have just stopped drinking after I landed that perfect buzz on top of the roof. It was a moment I’ll never forget, a wonderful collegiate moment, but it certainly wasn’t worth the embarrassment.
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