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The consumption of alcohol was doing strange things to people, and it scared me. I remember watching one of my friends as she willingly placed a plastic tube inside her mouth so the boy next to her could pour a can of beer into the funnel that swirled down into her in a matter of seconds. The next thing I knew, my friend was in the corner vomiting. This was supposed to be fun?

I had always thought I would not consume alcohol until the legal age of 21. I mean, I had conversations with friends, made promises to boyfriends, and vowed to my younger sisters that I would not drink. Little did I know that as a college freshman, I would virtually drown in a fishbowl of alcohol.

It was a  

freshman initiation

  party for our swim team, and the bottles of hard alcohol nearly tripled the number of people there. I never thought I would fall into the trap of peer pressure, but I wanted to fit in, be accepted, and have fun at the same time. drinking at the party seemed the perfect way to accomplish this. After all, it was a college team tradition, right?

It all began in the locker room, as six of us freshmen sat on the bench holding hands, our eyes covered with bandannas and hearts pounding with anticipation. The shot of butterscotch schnapps wasn't so bad. But that was only the beginning; shots of random liquor followed. And then came the fishbowl.

Try to imagine this: a huge bowl filled with a dozen different kinds of alcohol, resulting in a blue concoction with gummy fish and worms lying on the bottom, drenched in rum and vodka.

And here we were, six innocent freshmen, trying to become part of this team, wanting to impress the upperclassmen who were eagerly awaiting an empty bowl. So we sat there with our straws, and were told to sip the blue substance until it was gone, while the others watched and laughed. Freshman initiation turned me into one of those silly individuals--someone I swore during high school I would never become.

Somehow or another I made it to the next morning, realizing that I had actually forgotten parts of the evening. What I did know was I had the worst headache of my life, and the strangest, most painful feeling in my stomach. I was certain now that the previous night of freshman initiation had not been worth the horrible pain I was feeling. And I was expected to go to practice? Imagine! I could do nothing but cry.

Thankfully, I will never forget what I learned from that night of freshman initiation.

It was my one and only "wild" night of college; I have since tried to avoid situations like that. Now, most of the time, I simply relax with one drink and talk amongst friends.

A part of me doesn't regret participating in that freshman initiation, because the pain that was in my stomach and the pounding in my head will always remain as memories of things I never want to feel again. Now I know what I can and cannot drink; and I know enough to stay away from a punchbowl full of a blue alcoholic substance.

My experience with the fishbowl taught me to never again dive in over my head.

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