Be All That You Can Be in Substance-Free
By Laurel McFadden
Staff Writer

I learned the other day that I am apparently part of a system of intolerance, social ineptitude, and reclusion. It was a bit surprising to be so suddenly and negatively categorized. Further reading revealed that my dorm situation deemed me practically a crime against social harmony. Shocking. It seems living sub-free comes with a disturbing stereotype I hadn't counted on.

Enlightenment in these matters came from the report recently released by the Committee for Investigating the Alcohol Culture at Pomona College (CIACPC). I had known being substance-free was to a certain extent unusual, but am now learning of the deep-running social grudges between sub-free and otherwise. It is impossible not to be aware of the extensive alcohol environment at Pomona, but it is relatively easy to live around it in peace - or so I thought.

The reasoning, to my personal experience, behind choosing a sub-free dorm is usually based in a desire to focus energies on things more productive than drinking. Some choose, with every right, to follow some concentration of the drinking path, while others of us have decided to remove ourselves from practices that cannot be denied as often distasteful. However, alcohol is a significant part of the college experience, whether participating in its use or not. The claim that living in substance free housing makes one ignorant of drinking is totally erroneous. There is plenty of opportunity to run into any number of inebriated students every weekend. Those of us who decide to live in substance free dormitories do so in a simple attempt to avoid the unpleasantries of a largely drunk population, not to form some strange ostracism of most of our classmates.

What is interesting is that most comments of intolerance come from students in non-sub-free dorms. Are sub-free kids really such a nuisance that we encroach upon alcoholic fun? It is to be expected that there will be some disagreement between groups. The fact that such activities are disfavored by a good percentage of the population, though, is merely a division of opinion, and it is about as accurate to say one party is "intolerant" as it is to call the other. And while some drinking students seem to have no problem appointing sub-free students as socially disabled, there is an abundance of complaints from the same drinking people that they feel stereotyped by people who just don't like drinking. There have been many tirades against the supposedly disillusioned sub-free people, but not many have pointed out that it would be nice to actually not need alcohol poisoning training. Before bashing the students who avoid the pressure, maybe some focus should be put on the alcoholic environment, which honestly seems to be a social and safety problem.

A major source of this unrest is the social pressures put on students to drink. The unwritten social criterion that mind-altering substances are a pre-requisite for community acceptance is a disturbing trend. Before being overly distressed by my newly-realized identity as a social outcast, however, I considered that most of the time random people don't know you're sub-free until you tell them. Somehow it doesn't seem accurate to judge all individuals by their relative alcohol use, branding those who decide against living with alcohol as automatically "socially inept".

It is argued that substance-free students are at a disadvantage both socially and practically for their living arrangement. Lack of experience with alcohol can lead to dangerous drinking situations as a sophomore, and alcohol "education" is less stressed for those who assumedly have no need for it. To a certain extent this may be true, especially as expressed in personal accounts in the alcohol report. On the other hand, it would seem much more reasonable to chastise the dangerous social emphasis on alcohol rather than berate the sub-free system. Sub-free is a retreat from this typical college alcoholic culture, and is as much a personal choice with some consequences as choosing to drink is. Individual choices made due to outside peer pressures are not proof of that sub-free is a "horrible" system.

To my own experience, I was actually fairly unaware of the attitudes voiced in the CIACPC report. A good number of my friends drink, and I don't know of anyone who actively attempts to avoid friendships with people from drinking dorms. If anything, the lack of mixing between groups goes both ways, in that they don't really get over here, and we don't get over there. Neither can be blamed for preferring their more comfortable environment.

Substance-free housing should not be a social stigma. The complaints stimulated by this conflict of interests bring to light opinions that are surprising to find in Pomona's liberal environment. Rather than getting tied up in the dichotomy of cultures, drinkers and sub-free alike need to realize that everyone has their choice. I hope we're all mature enough to realize that in our diverse environment, no one can or should be stereotyped. Be happy with your drink, but don't berate me for staying alcohol free.