I Used to Wonder Why People at Bars Look so Happy, I Now Know the Truth
As a college student, I’ve seen my fair share of bar scenes.
During my freshman and sophomore years of college, I thought of the bar scene as a bunch of people getting drunk and having fun together.
Now a senior in college, I have an entirely different perspective on the college bar scene.
I wanted to be like them.
In all honestly, I was jealous. During my freshman year of college, I had social anxiety. It was hard for me to connect with people and even make basic conversation.
I cared so much about what others thought of me. It prevented me from staying loose and having fun.
I used alcohol as a way for me to overcome my social anxiety. It was a way for me to talk to people and not care what they thought about me.
I was covering up my problems.
Instead of dealing with the social anxiety directly, I was beating around the bush. I wasn’t overcoming my anxiety by drinking. I was simply avoiding the problem.
During my sophomore year, it got to the point where I started to get addicted to the high of not caring what others thought about me.
The only way I got this high was from drinking.
This brings me to my next point.
Everyone has problems. Drinking pauses the problems.
While it may seem that people at bars are dancing and having fun with their friends, in reality, many of them are drinking to put their life on hold.
Friday and Saturday nights are opportunities for many college students to not worry about school and the stresses of life.
These nights give them the excuse to drink and forget about their worries.
Now I’m not saying that we should never have fun in our lives, but…
There is no life in drinking.
Drinking simply pushes our problems to the side. Wouldn’t it be better to acknowledge our problems and strive to overcome them?
Let’s take my social anxiety for example. Getting drunk and gaining ‘fake confidence’ helped me in that moment.
Do you think the ‘fake confidence’ that Friday night helped me develop real confidence in my everyday life?
The ‘fake confidence’ did not help my real confidence whatsoever.
There is a difference between practicing social skills while sober compared to practicing while drunk.
Reflect on your drunk experiences.
Personally, I feel like absolute crap the next day after I get drunk the night before. It’s one of the biggest downsides of drinking.
Not only do I feel like crap, but I’m not able to be productive the following day.
I began to question why people even go the bars in the first place. They all look so happy.
They haven’t found true life.
There is so much more to life than getting drunk on the weekends.
Getting drunk temporarily cures a void in your life, but the drunkenness ultimately can’t fill that void.
Thank You for reading! :)
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