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I have been probably a consistent drinker for probably since I was like
seventeen years old up until I was a Freshman I was probably a daily, weekly
marijuana user. My freshman year I went out and got *** in the
orchards it was just a bunch of us
at the beginning a freshman year just having a really good time, getting
acclimated to Chico, and talking.
By the end of freshman year
we had all been
really consistently smoking it came to the point where it was everyday
and I started to get really paranoid a lot of the time especially living in
the residence halls that we are going to get in trouble. I actually also noticed
that one day we couldn't actually find anyone to buy from
and a couple of my friends just got into
the worst
fight and mood
and they were just awful to be around to the point where I just went back up to my
room and just did homework and didn't
really want to be around them anymore and these were people that I had been
really really close friends with and they were just so unpleasant
and it got me thinking that really we're arguing and not having fun
because we don't
have weed and
that appeal lasted for a
very limited amount of time.
This was a student here at Chico State
who's had an experience not a lot of colleges talk about
but we're going to talk to you about it
because it's important and you're an adult.
It's student experiences with alcohol and drug use.
You've made it to college,
you're making friends and exploring new relationships. Your social life is
changing in expanding in new ways your scene for the first time just what kind
of an adult you're turning out to be.
With everything new you're being exposed to we want to talk about how to reduce
harm from involvement with alcohol,
drugs,
and some of the social interactions on campus that can be complicated
and perhaps even dangerous if you're not heads up and careful.
We're not telling you how to be safe,
we're telling you how to manage harm.
There are some arenas and life where you encounter some type of harm big or small
no matter what you do
you've got big choices to make. We're going to give you some information about
how to reduce your risks and let some students talk about some real
experiences that we hope will be a value.
We're not trying to scare you, as an adult which you are, you'll find more things
can happen to you then you might have considered when all you intended to do
on a Friday night was party with friends.
A misstep here literally has the power to destroy your life or someone you know.
Mom and dad are not setting the ground rules very much anymore. You're at Chico State
because they want the very best for you and they trust you to do the right thing
but stuff happens when you're not thinking about consequences.
This is probably a good point to lay down a few of the rules for Residential
Housing at Chico State.
First if you live with us in University Housing, you cannot drink anywhere on
campus even in the privacy of your room,
even if your over twenty-one. The general rule regarding alcohol is that you get
one chance, one strike to mess up. After that,
and you're involved in a second alcohol violation you're done with University
Housing.
The policy on drug use is more serious
simply we have zero tolerance for drug use.
If you violate the University Housing drug policy you will forfeit the
privilege of living on campus after the first offense but still have the
financial obligations of your License Agreement.
You also be placed on University Disciplinary Probation which would also
be noted on your University Academic Transcript for the duration of the
probationary period also your parents may be notified.
And one more thing,
while medical marijuana is legal in California it is not legal anywhere on
the Chico State Campus
at anytime even with a valid 215 card.
So, those are the basic rules.
The first harm you can reduce is not to drink or do drugs, you'll be avoiding the
harm of being found out and possible losing your place with us.
Well my experience living in the residence halls started off as a good one. I met lot of
good friends unfortunately I was kicked out of the residence halls for
drinking and smoking marijuana
and as a result now I can't even visit the friends that I made
inside the Residence Halls because I am not allowed inside of them. Eventually caught me.
My arm was in a sling because I was intoxicated and I
got seperated from my friends at a party
we all got drunk and just we all went and did our seperate thing instead of meeting
back up together at the end the night. We were so drunk that we didn't care
and everybody just left and did their own thing.
I figured I had to get home so I just
decided to start walking home and I took the most dangerous route
possible because I wasn't in the right frame of mind
and walking home on the bike path I was attacked by two people and
got my shoulder fractured and dislocated
and I think if I hadn't been drinking
then that probably wouldn't have happened because I first of all wouldn't have lost my friends
and second of all I would've used better judgement and avoided
the bike path which I already knew was dangerous.
This is an interesting thing in college,
many students not all,
but many students and will start out experimenting trying to see how much
they can drink and how they can drink
those kinds of things but what we noticed that students who have a healthy
relation to alcohol
will
quickly diminish excessive drinking. They recognize that the next
day they're not feeling very well. For example over a three-day holiday the
next school day we will often see students coming in
with dehydration and vomiting and dizzy spells things like and their just
feeling awful. The students who have a healthy relationship with with alcohol will say
"You know
I did that a couple times and I really don't enjoy that," and so they are able to
in a mature way say "This isn't for me," then there's the other students who,
group of students who continue that behavior even though it's a
detriment to them. They'll come in again and again with side-effects
or injuries, we see lots of injuries, from alcohol
we'll see unintentional injuries, trip and fall,
we saw student who lacerated his entire face after he had
been intoxicated. Even more concerning we will see students who will become
very violent on alcohol and they'll get in fights commonly we see
students who come in with fractures and we'll see also very sadly a
students, usually females, come in who are intoxicated and who have been
sexually assaulted. Similarly drugs are everywhere and
right now in America there's a huge prescription drug problem with drugs
like Vicodin an Oxycontin.
We've seen a
number of students coming in who are sadly addicted to that
they'll start it just for thrill seeking. I personally have seen
more than one student
who has to used their entire financial aid allocation
to buy Oxycontin.
The same student told me a couple weeks ago that she had sold
everything in her life that she could possibly sell and that she had to used
all of her financial aid
all in the first two weeks of semester.
My experience here at Chico State which drug and alcohol use is pretty much
a daily occurrence.
Recent experience that I actually had I met a Chico State student she
was on the north side of Taylor Hall
unfortunatly she was laying down in a fashion that I could tell she
wasn't comfortable and I new something was wrong.
She was laying in the curb in the gutter along bicycle rack
and near her where some bushes she was all alone it was roughly two, three
o'clock in the morning
she had vomited so there was vomit in her hair, on her chest,
on her shirt. She was breathing but she didn't know where she was, she could barely talk,
she could barely put any words together and that was an obvious medical
aid.
The bigger issue is is that she allowed herself to drink that much, that quickly
and to get to that level she had no friends there was no one around her if
there was an attacker, a perpetrator, somebody out there and they had stumbled
upon that scene in and stumbled upon her they could've taken into the bushes and
on what they wanted no one would have seen it. She would not have been
able to remember even if she did she wouldn't have been able to remember
her attacker was or help us try to even catch that attacker.
It's those levels of intoxication that worry me the most.
I remember one night
I was about 18
and I'd gone to a party with some friends. When I went out that night I wasn't
really thinking of anything other than having a good time and like a lot of
Chico parties are
friend of a friend
met somebody at Duffy's and we all want to this house.
We went there and we were
having a good time
I had
I was drinking and
I smoked some pot
you know the night got hazy and
hazier and hazier it went on.
I remember going into a back bedroom I was feeling dizzy and kind of
woozy I kid of passed out, it was late
but then I woke up and there was a
guy on top of me
and
he was having sex with me and I was unaware of that happening
I was just incapacitated
to be able to defend myself and so i didn't defend myself when it was over
he
you know he just left
and I didn't tell anybody and not even my friends that
I had gone out with that night
what had happened.
So I went to the party and you know as a woman that can take care of myself
and
and I did you know all the right things I did go with friends but
you know
when you're at a party and
you're
in an unfamiliar place and people are using substances and
you know
so many unforeseen things happen
even when you know what you're doing with drinking
and even
even when you know what you know what you're doing with drugs
when you put yourself under the influence you can't always know what's
going to happen.
So what can you do?
You've heard some of the dangers. You've probably had a friend or someone you've
met get into some trouble with drinking, drugs, or other social adventures
Eat a full meal,
even better eat a lot of protein. Protein will slow down alcohol absorption and
lower the effects of getting druck and help you keep better control.
Set a limit and stick to it,
both at how much you drink
and for how long.
A surprising fact
it is ok not to drink.
Hanging out with friends at a party was fun when you're ten and twenty.
Have a safe ride home. This can be a designated driver or a taxi.
Keep an eye on your surroundings, know who's with you.
Keep an eye on your drink. If you think someone messed with it or it tastes
weird, ditch it.
Pace yourself by alternating your drinks with water.
Avoid drinking games. It's very hard to know how much you've drank until it's
way too late.
Use the buddy system.
Have someone watch out for you, and you watch out for your friends
Leave with the friends you came with,
and leave when they leave.
Many assaults occur
when you're separated from your friends and find yourself in a strange
place while intoxicated.
I don't believe anybody ever picked up their first beer expecting to become
an alcoholic,
and I think that drinking and drug use in our country has become romanticized
and I think people think that partaking in these practices might allow them to
feel something that they might not feel otherwise. The experiences I've seen students
have with alcohol run the gamut and its all up to the student, the person, the
individual, on how they choose to drink. I've known a few students
unfortunately who are no longer with us and the stories are similar,
the addiction was stronger than the rational thought. Unfortunately a young
man that I was working with
he'd left school he'd gone to rehab for *** addiction and he'd been clean for
two hundred days
and then he went out and relapsed one time
and used Opiates the way he use to do with the height of his addiction but
when you've been clean for a long time that's too much for your body, your tolerance is
down and the first time he used after being clean for hundreds of days he
passed away.
The cost of addiction, alcohol abuse, alcoholism,
is priceless.
Having friends drift away, losing your career, having your professors, faculty,
your RAs,
people you respect on campus look at you out of the side of their
eyes is not what you came to college for. CADEC the Campus Alcohol and Drug
Education Center our motto is helping students succeed and I think that one
thing that students don't realize is that alcohol or drugs can be a barrier
to their success.
As an adult it's smart to hope for the best
but prepare for the worst
as such we've prepared a list of programs and organizations that can help
you get back on track if drug or alcohol use begin to pull you off course.
These are a few organizations at Chico State which can help
and a few websites with powerful information on helping you navigate the
difficult world of drugs and alcohol use.
Your success at Chico State is of the up most importance.
In closing, we'd like to leave you with some thoughts from our Vice President
for Student Affairs.
Hello I'm Drew Calandrella.
I know you've just viewed a lot of information that would be personal, and
hopefully informative, and somewhat challenging for you.
While you're here at Chico State
you will be treated as adults that you are
with adulthood
comes freedom
with freedom comes responsibility
all that I ask is that you be mindful of yourself,
be true to who you are,
be true to your friends, be true to your family, and be true to your purpose for
coming here
that is to get your college degree. At the end of the day
we want you to be to be mindful that every decision you make impacts your future.
As inscription on Kendall Hall behind me says,
"Today Decides Tomorrow"
Take those three words with you through your four years of Chico State
and I can assure you, you will get all that comes of the Chico experience and
we will shake hands on Commencement Stage in four years.
Welcome to Chico.
Now begin your Chico experience.