During my Freshers' week, in advance of the first night of clubbing in town, the STYCs in charge of our block asked us to put up our hands if we "didn't" want to get drunk. Not a single person put up their hand, as you may not be surprised to hear; no one wanted to be singled-out as 'that person'. It was my intention to try out clubbing anyway, but I was surprised at the lack of any mention of an alternative and I began to worry that the entire week that lay ahead of me might consist of this; an eventuality I wasn't prepared for if it turned out that I "didn't" like clubbing.
My aim in Freshers' week was to get to know people and, while alternatives to clubbing were later provided for me, all the people I wanted to get to know went out on subsequent nights (as is the norm for students to do). I was therefore required to either endure multiple, repetitive nights of the only avail-able non-clubbing events or try to find different people to talk to away from my block. I did a mixture but was pleased when a group of my friends decided to break from the clubbers on the Thursday and go to the pub for a few beers (yes just a few). I'm very grateful that they sought variety as many of these people became the friends I lived with in the following year. It still baffles me, why the pres-sure to drink so much? These are supposed to be sociable events, ex-cept that the amount of alcohol that is that people are expected to con-sume is the antithesis of sociable. Is it unreasonable to dislike losing control of your body to alcohol and spending the later part of the even-ing lying on the rim of a toilet seat as a result of your liver's desperate attempt to empty the poison from your system? Or stupid to oppose wasting the greater part of the next day recovering from the heavy drinking you could have avoided, while having forgotten all events of the previous night after you had that fifth Jagerbomb?It's also worrying that this sort of behaviour is considered normal, and equally concerning that a high tolerance for alcohol is considered an impressive attribute to boast about. There is much evidence to suggest that, even for those who en-joy clubbing, it's not a healthy pas-time. The NHS reported in 2016/17 that there were 337 000 estimated admissions where the main reason for admission to hospital was at-tributable to alcohol, a rise by 17 per cent over the 10 years before. Such an attitude to drinking is also emo-tionally unhelpful, as more students each year learn to depend on drink-ing through stress, or use clubbing as a way of relaxing, unaware of how bad using this as a coping strategy is for mental health. My aim isn't to condemn or shame clubbers at all, if this is what many students would like to do then by all means it should be available. However, if the aim of a university is to provide an inclusive culture for its students then we need to start realising that there is a substantial demographic that would rather actually social-ise, remember the experience and spend their days doing equally en-joyable things rather than being hungover. Of course, let's not forget that university is a place for trying new things, of which clubbing may be one. I'm also not faulting UoY for a lack of alternatives, as many were provided. However, changes more significant than simply providing alternatives to clubbing need to be made. As a decline in nightclubs across the UK takes place an op-portunity arises to embrace other options for students. There needs to be a change in attitude towards clubbing and drinking in general, with more recognition that there are many students who wouldn't like to feel pressured in this way, and perhaps would rather take part in other activities during their first week with friends at university. So as another Freshers' Week draws to a close, game of Scrabble, anyone?
