Chelsea Keven - The Christian Science Sentinel Jan 1, 2007

The summer before my sophomore year in high school, I was at home in California, surrounded by partying friends.

But I felt somewhat lost. When I returned to boarding school in the fall, I was restless and dissatisfied with my life. Not all of my moments were that way, but overall I felt like something was missing, and I wanted to find it. (more…)

Roger Gordon - Christian Science Sentinel, July 24–31, 2006

We were freshman roommates-and we were complete opposites. Dave drank all the time. I never touched alcohol. Dave played poker as if it were a way of life. I didn’t gamble, and still don’t. Dave went to sleep at 4 a.m. I liked to turn in by midnight. He never mentioned God. I went to church twice a week.I suppose a university with 36,000 students doesn’t have the time to match every single person with the ideal roommate. The housing form I filled out asked only one question: Do you smoke?

Dave (not his real name) didn’t smoke, but he did drink. A lot. And while this bothered me on a personal level, it also had a real impact on our day-to-day living together.

One morning, I woke up to find Dave had thrown up in the middle of the night after he came home drunk. It was a mess. (more…)

By Chase Clements - The Christian Science Journal, July 2006

“Do you want a drink?” my friend asked me one night last summer in the basement of his house. Two girls were there, and I didn’t want to seem like a loser. I had known that my friend was bound to ask me that question eventually, and my thoughts began darting around at light speed.

At the prep school I attend, popularity is determined by several factors: most significantly, if and how much you drink, how many “cool” parties you attend, and if you’ve had sex. When my friend offered the drink, I felt I had a fairly firm understanding of why I didn’t need it. For one, I don’t want to have to lean on external sources like alcohol to make me popular or to feel relaxed. But the only thing I could think about was how I’d appear if I said no. The fear of doing the unpopular thing began to cloud my thoughts. (more…)

Matt Lawrence
Reprinted from the February 13, 2006, issue of the CS Sentinel.
Rated for teens and up

When I first went to college, I got sucked into the party atmosphere. And then one night, I suddenly realized I didn’t need to drink to have a good time — and my life changed for the better.
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