Liver failure is so yesterday

Any random friend: Hey, you wanna get drunk tonight?
Me: Yea, why not.

This was a typical conversation from my first two years of college and I feel that my change since then can be summed up in the change that has taken place in that conversation this year.

Any random friend: Hey, you wanna get drunk tonight?
Me: Why?

These two conversations are in themselves a microcosm of my college experience. Upon first arriving here I encountered a wondrous land of cheap available alcohol and many others who like me were just here to have a good time. Classes will come and go we thought, the good times though, they last forever. What I’ve been learning though is that apparently so does your GPA. Now I don’t have a bad GPA per se, but it is significantly lower than it would be if I had responded to that common question the way I do now. Back in the day, meaning freshman and sophomore year, drinking was an end in itself, you know the usual: get plastered and then see where the inebriation takes you. Over the years its taken me to some pretty amazing places…at least they seemed that way in my drunken state though looking back I’m not quite sure how amazing wandering around the business district at 4 in the morning and finding a “totally awesome beer pong table” and then carrying it through the subway and sneaking it into a dorm really was. The point however, is not whether or not I regret the times I had ( I don’t…well maybe not completely) but that I’m beginning to see a change in myself. Call it old age, call it maturity, call it being sick of throwing up in random places, the fact is I no longer have that same insatiable drive to just get completely shitfaced for no apparent reason. I’m also discovering that I lack the recovery ability of my youth, I used to wake up like being hung over was my job and by five in the afternoon I was ready to get hammered again. Now I get drunk and I lay in bed all day dreading night fall and being pressured to go out again. Is this a change for the better? Only time will tell, but unlike last years finals I don’t think I’m gonna be getting drunk throughout the week of exams this year. Bob Dylan once said, “The times they are a changing” I don’t what that means but I feel like it applies here and I sincerely hope whatever it is, you find what you’re looking for.