Dear H quad,

As most of you are aware when
breaking the rules comes the consequences, often people complain and try to
talk their way out of it. Often people complain incessantly and try to receive
pity, and I am sure that some people have even cried. The point I am trying to
make is that many people never man up to their actions. However I; I consume
alcohol. I illegally consume alcohol and I probably consume it just as much as
other college students. I consume alcohol at parties, with my friends, at bars
which I get into with my fake ID, even at weddings and engagement parties, but I
firmly believe there is nothing wrong with this.

The
reason I am writing this letter is because I was caught excessively consuming
alcohol on one occasion on campus on Saturday March 29, 2007. It was roughly
11:30 pm and it has been a while since my groups of friends has gotten
together. My friend whose room it was just got off from work and him, and four
male friends of I entered his room. We opened up our portable table, I set up
my laptop for music and we proceeded to relax and have a few beers. Also, a
friend of mine from Kelly quad came with his friend who was visiting America
for a few weeks. Additionally, a few girls that I invited came and in order for
me to go outside and get them I not only propped a door against campus policy,
but I propped it with a beer. At this point there were a good number of people
in the room, with a good number of beers also, and we were all fully aware that
we were breaking many campus policies. However, we thought these policies were
mainly for show and not truly enforced, but nobody cared at the time. My group
and I proceeded to play drinking games which are quite fun and force you to
consume alcohol even faster. Actually I believe at one point we even went on a
beer run and came back to the room. At roughly 2 or 3am we heard a knock at the
door, and by this point most of us were intoxicated. It turns out the people at
the door was the hall R.A. with two other people. He forced us to leave the
room and give our names and most of us did give our names, but I attempted to
lie, and this was pretty much the end of the night give or take a few things.
Nevertheless, I am still curious as to how the RHD of Langmuir obtained my
name, maybe they asked others from that night to provide my name, or looked at
pictures of all the H-quad residents and found me that way.

This incident did not affect
me at all, of course I was written up before, but never for alcohol. This
really never affected any of us; we just continued carrying on how we wished
for the rest of the night and semester. I believe it was bound to happen that
we would get caught drinking one night, especially since we live in corridor
style. Maybe if this was in a suite, we would have not got caught, but who
knows. This incident probably affected others on the hall from sleeping or
studying, but it was a Saturday night so I highly doubt that anyone was
studying. Maybe my group and I kept a few people awake, but I am sure that
those few who we kept awake have disrupted others in the past somehow. Also,
since Stony Brook has a large amount of students who go home on the weekends, I
would not be surprised if many kids were not even on the floor that night. Also,
those students that were on the floor that night, probably did not care that we
were drinking even if they could hear us, which they probably could, because we
were partying pretty hard.

Things that I learned from
this experience are extremely minimal. I learned not to get caught drinking
again and be more quiet when doing so. I also learned that R.A.’s are serious
about writing people up. This leads me to my next concern, that presently most
R.A.’s and some R.S.P are just tools of the system. These brainwashed students
are tools used against their fellow students. This reminds me of George
Orwell’s 1984 where spies within the community would watch every
person’s moves mercilessly and report them to the government for any acts of
suspicion. Also, any deviant from the norm or anyone who did not strictly
adhere to the rules were not tolerated and sent through an intensive program to
change their ways. Sound familiar? In our campus society R.A.’s are used as a
key component to keep order but more importantly to enforce rules. Many people
today are getting in trouble for the most pointless of situations. What
happened to the days in college where my brother used to have parties with his
R.A. or where the school funded students to purchase kegs for an on-campus
party.

In our society today, in the
United States, I do believe substance abuse is an important issue not only
facing college students but also students in high school. This issue is
interrelated with what I stated in my introduction, that I firmly believe there
is nothing wrong with the consumption of alcohol just to what extent it is done.
In this country it is such an important problem because many people have not
learned one key component to life; restraint. Often in literature we see the
lack of restraint as a tragic flaw in the hero. Our American culture endorses
the lack of restraint in almost every facet of life. Everyone today has to have
the largest vehicle, or consume the most food, or smoke the most marijuana and
drink the most alcohol. Similar to many other things the drinking of alcohol is
no longer a pastime, but has become a competition amongst young adults to see
who can drink the most and still function. Sadly this is what has become of our
society and this is why substance abuse has become a problem. In countries
across the world you rarely hear of cases of young adult’s illegally consuming
alcohol, because it is widely accepted. Additionally there are much fewer
incidents and accidents in these countries because young adults have learned
from a young age that drinking is acceptable and must be kept in moderation.
Moderation is the key word that ties this whole letter together. Much like
everything else too much a good thing can become bad, which is why alcohol
consumption must be kept in moderation.

Sincerely,

Charles Sotiriou