The recent UB O-Week featured a pub crawl and a 'Back to School Party'.
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These activities were organised to give students a chance to socialise before hitting the books.
A laudable proposition, but is encouraging a mid-week binge a good idea? So much of our culture is tied up in heavy binge drinking.
We young people are being brainwashed into thinking that alcohol is something we need, not something we can enjoy.
I know a few people who have fallen in with the popular belief that drinking often and drinking heavy is perfectly acceptable.
Their relationships are breaking down around them, but they say they can't 'have fun' without alcohol.
Chris Raine, founder of Hello Sunday Morning, has got the right idea. Hello Sunday Morning is an organisation to help change the way we view alcohol.
Mr Raine says, "I drink now and I'm not against alcohol, I'm not out to demonise it in any way, but I realised that how I was drinking in my 20s wasn't going to get me to where I wanted to be in life."
Let's step back and have a look at our drinking culture. There's so much fun we can have without alcohol; so much to experience out there without getting drunk.
It's time to change our drinking habits, and stop our drinking habits changing us.
MADELEINE VAN DER LINDEN
Mount Helen