<p>its not luciferus, he was definetely a freshman, and this boy wasn't...i remember reading his post how he spoke about how last year he got admitted to northwestern, cornell and emory, chose here, and all of his posts how he was an econ major in arts/sciences...</p>
<p>someone correct me if i am wrong</p>
<p>never mind, he is a freshman, it is the person</p>
<p>" obviously lucifer was an experienced drinker (you can tell that he did it a lot from his posts)--something terrible must have gone wrong and there is no way calling him a moron is going to make it better. let him rest in peace."</p>
<p>It's important to understand that being an experienced drinker doesn't mean that a person is immune from dying of substance abuse-related causes.</p>
<p>When drinking, people lose their good judgment and inhibitions. When sober, for instance, they may know what usually safe levels of alcohol are, and they may know to avoid dangerous alcohol/drug combinations.</p>
<p>When drinking, they may not even remember how many drinks that they had. They also may do things that they wouldn't do when sober. That can include using illegal drugs or going into areas or with people who may be dangerous. (The latter actions can cause people to be robbed, raped, killed, run over by cars, etc.)</p>
<p>It's also important to realize that having caring friends, including caring sober friends, may still not prevent one from the negative consequences of over imbibing. Even a sober roommate, for instance, is not a fulltime nurse or guard and isn't likely to hover over one at 3 a.m. to see if one is sober enough to be allowed to safely sleep.</p>
<p>That is why 911 should be called if there is any question.</p>
<p>I hope you don't close this thread, because I think it is valid to let people post their reactions, esp since some of the current posters know him from postings in the past. I think there is more to say, grief and reactions to death do not disapear in a couple of days.</p>
<p>I know many of you think what he did was unintelligent, but when you're blacked out, you appear to be perfectly functional while you actually have no recollection of what you did 30 second ago, since memory is not translated from short term to long term...so friends might not even realize how drunk you are at the time, resulting in continued drinking.</p>
<p>His arrogance with regard to alcohol was absurd, though.</p>
<p>The death was confirmed today as being from alcohol intoxication:</p>
<p>(link to Newsday article)</p>
<p>I suspect that from the message his grandfather gave to the press that this was expected by the family. How tragic and sad.</p>
<p>"That is why 911 should be called if there is any question."</p>
<p>Very true. At the same time, if one's idea of fun in college is getting that drunk, it's likely that one's friends also will be too drunk to have the judgment to call 911.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, Matthew posted on CC that he knew that he could drink with impunity because he knew about alcohol's risks and also had friends who'd take care of him. Parents on CC including one doctor tried to argue him out of his delusions about the safety of his drinking habits. As we have seen, his clinging to his assumptions about his invulnerability proved fatal.</p>
<p>I feel very sorry for his family. I know that when a person has that kind of delusional mindset, there's nothing that anyone can do outside of illegal drastic measures like putting them under a 24-hour guard to save them from their own ill advised actions.</p>
<p>I just wanted to chime in with some helpful, anonymous, personalized information regarding alcohol consumption. Please check out these links and pass them along to people you care about. Let's work together to prevent more tragedies.
<a href="http://www.alcoholscreening.org/%5B/url%5D">http://www.alcoholscreening.org/</a>
<a href="http://depts.washington.edu/mcsurvey/bal/index.php%5B/url%5D">http://depts.washington.edu/mcsurvey/bal/index.php</a></p>