<p>My DD’s college also requires that someone throwing up due to alcohol be sent to the hospital so there may not be “something else behind it”.</p>
<p>As these things go, this isn’t that bad. At least until you get the insurance bill. Our daughter called us at 7 am on Labor Day her sophmore year, sobbing and saying “Momma this is the worst day of my life.” I could hear someone in the background saying “Tell her you weren’t raped.” She had gone to a music festival 150 miles away, and had woken up in the middle of the night and gone to look for the Porta-Potties. The cops saw this pretty blond girl stumbling around, and when they confrounted her, she got belligerent. They gave her the choice of going to the h</p>
<p>Sorry program crashed. They gave the choice of going to the hospital, or going to jail. She went to the rural hospital. Her dad drove the 8 hour round trip drive to pick her up. After insurance it ended up costing about $1000, for ER and mental health evaluation fees etc. Her friends were frantic, because they didn’t know what had happened to her. She graduated in 2012 and has been a model citizen since, so it wasn’t the end of the world. I know it is hard when they do things you have warned them against, but some people just have to make their own mistakes.</p>
<p>My kid’s campus is huge and many parties are held off campus. With mixers (parties with a fraternity), they are usually driven by sober brothers or they have pre-arranged buses to take them. I tell my D to take a cab (or share a cab) if there is no ride because I would prefer if she didn’t walk home after few drinks. She is given enough allowance so taking a cab shouldn’t be a hardship on her. She takes cabs to go grocery shopping sometimes, and by splitting it with 2-3 other students, it’s actually very reasonable. OP may want to look into if it’s an option for her son and encourage him to do so next time he is out.</p>
<p>Just a word here to remind our kids to use the trusty old “Buddy System.” I will be ever-grateful that when my son over-drank he was with friends who were smart enough and good enough to phone us. None of us should ever hesitate to call for help if someone is partially coherent. Also, the buddy system can prevent many horrible mistakes in judgment, especially when drunk, such as we are seeing at UVa right now, in which a girl was out alone quite drunk and is missing.</p>
<p>My girls always say, “Leave no one behind,” especially when they are drunk</p>
<p>That could be an awful lot of kids in the hospital if every drunken vomit-er needs to go. But you know what? Whether or not there’s more to the story probably doesn’t matter. There will be a bill and some sort of citation from the school (fine, alcohol awareness classes, mandatory counseling or addiction screening). These kinds of violations don’t get reported outside of student life (believe it or not, grades and academic matters are far less private than what happens in housing). His profs, likely, will never know, and as long as there are no future alcohol violations, this one will not come back to haunt him.</p>
<p>^^It probably depends on what state the OP’s son is in and/or the local municipality what the consequences will be. The son probably knows (from classmates). </p>
<p>A girl at Rutgers died this morning following drinking at a frat house there. That’s the dreaded phone call. Hopefully your son will have some sense knocked into his head by his experience. </p>
<p>This could be a positive life changing lesson for him. </p>
<p>Nephew fell drunk and broke a tooth as a college freshman walking home after attending a frat party. He then no longer considered joining one- I’m sure his parents had a voice in that. He went on to an elite medical school. Never heard of being hospitalized for being sick from drinking without life threatening problems- a waste of medical resources.</p>
<p>Cheer up- in retrospect this could be a major enough incident for your son so he does much better in college than he otherwise would have. Not as likely to continue the drinking lifestyle he tried.</p>
<p>@electronblue - Yes, you’re right, that is the dreaded phone call. I do hope he’s had some sense knocked into him by the experience and whatever consequences he suffers as a result. And he certainly should have university-imposed consequences for breaking the law and the code of conduct he signed onto when he decided to attend. But it occurs to me to wonder if the other side of the coin (e.g., the of-age students who threw the party and served underage guests) are ever held responsible. I know I can be fined like $2000 <em>per occurrence</em> if I provide alcohol to underage kids, so the fines rack up pretty quickly, and I’m not thinking most college students have that kind of $$ sitting around. If the people who throw these house parties that lead to the “underage drunk students in trouble” headlines were held accountable too, it seems like they’d start paying a bit more attention to who they were serving, and/or the # of house parties would decline and with them the headlines…</p>
<p>Where my daughter goes to school, if an RA is involved, the campus police get involved and if you are under 21 you get arrested for minor in possession. If the campus police decide you need to go to the hospital, you go the station after you recover. Down to the station, into jail, post bond, the real deal.</p>
<p>Op,
I haven’t read all of the posts so I apologize if I’m repeating what others have said.
Your title “Dreaded phone call” sounded so dire. Thank goodness it was not death, permanent injury, jail, etc.
Your response of not really over-reacting or under-reacting sounds good. This is the only thing that I would add to your next discussion.
In reality, kids are often going to drink alcohol. It will be safer for them if they learn how to do it with some training wheels from you rather than from a black and white line in the sand that it is wrong.
Generally,
- Drink a drink slowly (nurse it) so that you can get a sense of how buzzed you feel after 1 drink
- Start off by internally limiting your drinks to 2 or 3 for the whole night
- Drink a red solo cup of water between each of your drinks
- Buzzed might feel good, but black out is not good
- Have a wing man who can watch over you and you watch over him
- If he is going to have a shot of alcohol, then no more shots for the rest of the night
NEVER drink and drive or get in a car with someone who has been drinking.</p>
<p>Kudos to the RA. It’s a hard job.</p>
<p>You already had the call, why are you asking us what to say? It’s clearly a teaching opportunity about moderation but also a learning / growing moment for the young man. Alcohol moderation is not often taught unfortunately. I’ve had several conversations with my kids over the years and shared some bad youthful experiences of my own. Glad he is OK! :-)</p>