Four steps to being drunk in class
College man drinks his night away Photo credit: Briana Mcdaniel
Getting drunk before class is an art form that many dabble in as an amateur, yet few have ever truly mastered. Years of careful study, meditation and deep introspection has led to a surefire list that will allow any lightweight drinker to maintain appearances in even the most difficult class. Behold, four steps to master being drunk in class.
Step 1: Choose your battles wisely.
If you’re going to an organic chemistry lecture it may not be a wise idea to finish a handle of Burnett’s Whipped Cream Vodka an hour before class. One must pick their battles and understand their limits. Match your alcohol intake to the difficulty of the class you’re attending.
A Sierra Nevada before microbiology is probably fine, but you wouldn’t want to go into your most difficult class with four margaritas in your system. However, if you have a three hour film appreciation class, feel free to polish off a bottle of wine or two beforehand.
Step 2: Do not make contact with the enemy.
It doesn’t matter how cool your statistics professor is, or how much you like your European history lecturer, when you’re drunk on campus the professor is your enemy. Let that be repeated for added effect, the professor is your enemy.
Do not ever raise your hand, do not ever talk to the professor before or after class and especially do not give a class presentation when you’re drunk. Presenting in front of the class with more than a shot of liquor in your system is a very bad idea, don’t push it.
Step 3: Drinking is a team sport.
If you can manage to bring some friends along for your debauched misadventures, do so. Having friends that are drunk with you in class can magnify the unbridled joy of the situation, just make sure that they’re team players.
Don’t bring your loud drunk friend along with you, don’t bring any sad or angry drunks and absolutely do not bring someone that can’t hold their alcohol. Nothing blows your cover like the guy next to you spewing chunks all over your calculus test.
Step 4: Retreat effectively from the battlefield.
Your buzz will end eventually, and if you’ve committed to your degeneracy with multiple shots then a hangover will come. Being stuck in a three hour philosophy lecture with a hangover is the definition of hell. Your drunk must be planned around a specific schedule, if you need to draw out a calendar or a battle plan then do so.
If you need to sneak a flask onto campus to keep your buzz going, understand the risks involved. Chico State is a dry campus and you don’t want your fun to end in a black mark on your scholarly endeavors.
Grayson Boyer can be reached at [email protected] or @gray_boyer on Twitter.
Laviathan // Apr 21, 2021 at 6:55 pm
I 100 % agree with this article
Marie // Sep 15, 2020 at 4:44 am
This article inspired me to write my dissertation on college binge drinking and how to drink alcohol in class.
Jack // Jun 25, 2019 at 9:53 am
Article was badass! Good advice — all these fucking losers really just said the exact same thing in the comments. Following each other around like pin the tail on the donkey. Grayson Boyer sounds like a legend, all these commenters sound like a bunch of butt sniffing virgins. Grow a sack, stop bothering the cool people who get drunk in class and get better grades than you do. If I can get wasted all the time and am beating you on the test you are a a sad sack of shit. Get a life, get a girlfriend, stop being pissed that you’re not as smart as you think you are. Get laid my friends! You’ll be less of a douche.
Scott Brogden // Oct 13, 2017 at 10:18 am
I was extremely disappointed after reading the article on “Four Steps to Being Drunk in Class.” This is truly an example of irresponsible journalism, in my opinion.
Sherrie Wolcott // Oct 4, 2017 at 1:58 pm
Hmmm…who ok’d THIS one?
Some gut “thinking” might want to be added here…before “freedom” of speech is put to the test.
As an alumni myself…I would have a hard time donating to a University (let alone the Journalism Department of CSU Chico) knowing I was helping “this cause”.
Think! Think! Think! (Maybe the best suggestion in journalism.)
crackbaby // Oct 4, 2017 at 9:58 am
lmao i’m fuckin ded, thank you. this was phenomenal
Thomas House // Oct 4, 2017 at 2:29 am
Whether the “Four Steps to Being Drunk in Class” was intended in jest, not attending class impaired is the better advice. Riding your buzz at home is better than riding your bike or driving to campus impaired. Missing a class is better than missing a red light or stop sign that results in you broadsiding a car or bike or pedestrian. We can feel infallible thinking “it could never happen to me,” especially with the lowered inhibitions of being buzzed; the challenge of getting away with the “Four Steps” too enticing. Yet we are only human, and accidents happen. Where might liability begin when in that buzzed condition, some reader recalls this article’s irresponsible suggestions, as uses it as the justification needed to attempt what the author, Justin Grayson, suggests. Mr. Grayson would serve The Orion’s readers, its editors, and the Chico community justice by retracting his ill-conceived advice, and publish instead his four suggestions for why staying home when your buzzed is the best advice.
Mustafa // Oct 2, 2017 at 7:06 pm
Wow!
I am horrified by the highly misguided article that not encourages, but gives instructions for being drunk in class. The Orion needs an editorial review board that can review and approve appropriate content for publication while respecting freedom of speech and press. There has to be a standard of journalism that should not encourage unproductive or harmful activities by the students.
ConservativeStudent // Oct 2, 2017 at 5:38 pm
Why is the school sending e-mails that they are concerned about this stuff? Since when do they care? They are the ones who allow alcoholism in the Fraternity and Sorority Houses. I was walking by them Saturday at 2 PM and there were already students playing beer pong, and some guy was carrying a girl because she was already so drunk she couldn’t stand up on her own feet. Than the college sends e-mails if someone is raped, or an article like this is published. If the college REALLY cared, they wouldn’t allow this sort of behavior by students. If the frat houses are run by the campus, they should be bound by the same rules. Why don’t they post police officers at these places? People are supposed to go to university to LEARN, not to get drunk every weekend, or even in between classes. The university has no one to blame but themselves for allowing this kind of behavior by students. The university should do more to stop students from getting drunk. Than they cry when they don’t have money for books or vacation. I am GLAD this article upset the school. Maybe they will finally wake up and realize that students drinking is an issue that needs to be dealt with. How was this article even allowed to be published?
Michael Duterte // Oct 2, 2017 at 3:04 pm
This article was an awful idea. Who approved this? I just lost a few IQ points reading this.
Victoria Pinasco // Oct 2, 2017 at 3:03 pm
Who thought writing an article about drinking in class was a good idea? Are you trying to give our school a bad reputation? Our school has been doing so well on changing our image and straying away from the “party school” reputation. This article does NOT represent Chico State!
Jack Smith // Oct 2, 2017 at 2:49 pm
Wow… gotta wonder what kind of idiot promotes this drinking plan. Just go home and be the drunk. But your real home, with mom and dad. We don’t need your idiotic antics on this, or any, campus.
Last year the idiot who wrote the anti-rape story now this?
Freedom of speech is one thing, but showing us how much of an idiot you want others to be on campus is morally wrong.
Do we need to follow you with a breathalyzer now?
If wanted attention, well congrats, your getting it!
Deb McCafferty // Sep 29, 2017 at 1:42 pm
Who is editing this paper anymore? I’m all for freedoms of speech and press, but who actually thought this was a good idea on any level? And thanks so much for suggesting that we (the instructors/professors) are the enemy. We have devoted our careers to our students. We genuinely care about them, lose sleep over the ones who we fear are unsafe, bring Clif bars just in case one is hungry.
cassundra saulan // Sep 28, 2017 at 9:01 pm
Really? Is this your idea of responsible journalism? Promoting drinking in class? Students have died in alcohol-related incidents in the not too distant past. The University has worked hard to educate students about the dangers related to drinking, yet you choose to promote drinking in class. Since you have this forum, why not use it to write constructive articles that add to the greater good of the student body? With all the possible topics, why would you use your time and energy to scrape the bottom of the journalistic barrel?
Chase Beauregard // Sep 28, 2017 at 8:55 pm
“Tee hee, we’re not encouraging drinking on campus or anything, but here’s a whole article encouraging you to drink on campus!” Typical of this paper to publish intentionally incendiary bullshit to shock people and get clicks. It’s like Buzzfeed, but at least Buzzfeed checks spelling and grammar before publication.
Emily // Sep 28, 2017 at 1:22 pm
This is disgraceful. This makes Chico look terrible, and truly makes me embarrassed to attend Chico State.
Tim // Sep 28, 2017 at 12:06 pm
Four steps to wasting your money and your life in College:
1. Go to class drunk.
There’s no amount of alcohol in the world that can make you more interested in organic chemistry, just as there isn’t a flavored liquor in existence that can boost your mind’s ability to cope with new and difficult concepts.
2. Go to class high.
Similar to drinking alcohol before class, getting lit before your literature class is a surefire way to miss the greatest collection ideas about humanity that humanity has. Also, your professor can smell it because, if you’d paid attention in organic chemistry or 3rd grade you’d know, the sense of smell is a thing.
3. Demand nothing of yourself.
Congrats, that was easy.
4. Don’t go to class.
Congrats, you’ve joined the elite members of society that offer nothing of value. There’s a lingering hope in some of your professors that one day you’ll see you could have done something worthwhile with your life and you take on the challenge of going back to school. We’ll see you then, at Jr. College, and we’ll also encourage you every step of the way because not everyone can resist wasting a portion of their lives and no one should be ignored when it comes to education.
Erin // Sep 27, 2017 at 10:18 pm
Why the hell is this in a school newspaper? Terrible editors approving this to print.
Nancy Park // Sep 27, 2017 at 9:46 pm
I have worked at Chico State for 12 years and have met and worked with many outstanding students. These students go to class, are serious about their educations, are concerned about current events, and help less fortunate people in their communities. This ridiculous piece of writing is a slap in the face to all of them – a perpetuation of that tired old “party school” image. If this was supposed to be satire, it didn’t work. If it was supposed to be funny, it wasn’t. Why doesn’t the Orion print more news? There is so much going on – the repeal of DACA, the work of the Cross-Cultural Leadership Center, serious budget problems hitting the School of Humanities & Fine Arts, an increase in reported rapes on campus (6 in the dorms last year). A Chico State student was SHOT last weekend and the Orion only published a tiny story that was no more than a rewrite of the University Police Department’s press release. For the sake of your future careers in journalism and for the sake of the University, please get it together!
Nancy Jorth // Sep 27, 2017 at 9:06 pm
Disgusting!
You should be ashamed to print this article!!!
Jodi Rives // Sep 27, 2017 at 3:46 pm
Shameful and gross. When can we expect the articles: “Four steps to getting hit by a train when you’re drunk” and “How to haze people when you’re drunk” and “How to rape fellow students at frat houses when you’re drunk” and “How to mow down nursing students when you’re drunk”? This paper was never particularly noteworthy, but the mediocrity of the past glows like Pulitzer-level journalism in comparison to recent offerings. Is there no oversight of any kind going on there?
Casey Dinsmore // Sep 27, 2017 at 2:00 pm
Sounds like the beginning of a lifelong addiction to alcohol. I know this is probably an attempt at humor but I find it sad. You would too if you ever lost someone due to alcohol related causes.
Crystal Vasquez, MS, RD // Sep 27, 2017 at 12:58 pm
As a Chico State Alumni I am ashamed at the Orion for writing such crap. You should be counting your lucky stars you are privileged enough to get a college education, but no, instead you encourage students to drink away their education.
The Orion is turning into a joke. What happened to the award winning writers, photographers and stories? This is a bunch of crap and not worth the paper it is printed on and the electricity it took to open this article up on my phone.
amelia // Sep 18, 2018 at 6:48 am
Sup hoes it’s your girl junky McSpankinhymer back at it again with crippeling depression, i don’t know what these Barbra Bush pieces of shit are on, but i shot up in AP Philosophy one time and realized that everything is meaningless, now i live in a washing machine box on park av. and i’m posting this from the computer at a library i broke into because the yakuza are after me for stealing there cats, anyways 10/10 would do again keep it real titty-sprinkles don’t trust the government and birds make bad pets.