Hoping to raise awareness of the effect alcohol has on one’s body, several university offices teamed together Tuesday in the Atrium to educate students.
The Health, Alcohol and Drug Education and Student Rights and Community Standards offices worked to show students just how quickly their blood alcohol content can rise from their choice of drinks and how long it takes to get back to a .000 BAC.
“I ended up having a .309 BAC by the end of it,” sophomore business major Nick Cooper said. “It was kind of interesting.”
Cooper chose mostly beer, a couple of mixed drinks and some shots. With each drink, you choose if you’re going to “sip it, drink it or slam it.”
“I guess I kind of learned how to manage my alcohol consumption if I do go out and how to be a little bit smarter about it so I don’t end up dying,” he said.
Besides showing the effects of alcohol on the student who participated in the virtual bar, it also showed the effect it has on other people who may be around.
“It has three women and three men with varying weights, so it shows you if you’re all drinking the same thing at the same rate, it compares your blood alcohol level to theirs,” said Terry O’Brien, a graduate student in the Office of Student Rights and Community Standards. “You can see if you’re drinking with someone who is smaller than you, that they could get in trouble a lot quicker than you and vice versa if you’re drinking with a much larger man, he could be under the legal limit when you’re getting into a higher level.”
Indiana passed a law in July saying you can’t get in trouble for helping a person who needs medical assistance, even if you have been drinking and are underage.
The purpose of the virtual bar is to educate students on the dangers of alcohol and how to party smart and responsibly.
Students who worked the table wanted their fellow classmates to know about the risks of alcohol consumption.
“Just be aware of how many drinks you’re consuming per night and then just the affect it can have on your body,” Carly Gray, a senior health science major, said. “Just a couple can raise your blood alcohol level pretty high.”
O’Brien encourages students to remain educated about the risks of alcohol consumption.
“If they’re going to choose to drink, to drink responsibly and not to be in competition with your friends because everyone handles it differently for different sizes and different genders,” O’Brien said. “I hope people make decisions based on having all the information instead of just doing what their friends are doing or going into something kind of blind and getting into a dangerous situation where they don’t know what to do next.”
For students who want to try the virtual bar and how their alcohol choices can affect them, go to b4udrink.org.
