Total Intoxication: The I.V. Party Scene

 Editor’s Note:  Jill Messina is a recent UCSB graduate.  She will be contributing a series of weekly columns on her experiences during her term at UCSB. 

            After one week of living in I.V., it became abundantly clear that partying hard went hand in hand with life in Isla Vista.  Fortunately, our roommates turned out to be pretty diligent students during the week, but when it came to the weekends, all hell seemed to break loose.  The drinking started early, and with every shot our roommates downed, the louder, more obnoxious, and even frightful they became.  They continued to hound my friend Amy and I to kiss for their enjoyment, and incessantly begged us to flash them, offering to take over certain chores if we would comply.

            In an effort to fit in and be accepted, Amy and I would partake as best we could in the party scene.  Already, Amy had gotten her first Minor in Possession, and we were both binge drinking consistently on the weekends.  It’s not that we didn’t drink or party prior to moving to I.V., but the party scene was so much more intense here.  Coming from a college town and having lived in a freshman dorm at a state university, I really thought I’d seen it all. But compared to I.V., you’d think I’d come from the College of Candyland.  On any given weekend we would see kids puking in the gutter, falling over trying to find their way home, and police officers doling out one citation after another.

            It wasn’t long before you learned where the coke parties were, the Ecstasy parties, the whip-it parties… the list goes on.  People mixing uppers with downers, and every now and again you’d hear about the student who never woke up because of some lethal combination of drugs.  But it was the alcohol abuse that I found to be so staggering. Beer bongs and keg stands were a normal activity at any Del Playa party, with guys chanting for girls to drink as much beer as possible flipped upside down on a keg, chanting 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth.  When I would see the girls the morning after doing what locals call ‘the walk of shame’, I often wondered how many of them even remembered the events of the night prior.

            I find it to be no less than astonishing that I returned home fairly unscathed each night in I.V. after a night of partying.   Because the truth is, my friends weren’t capable of looking out for me, or I for them.  We were all so lost while partaking in the haze that is the Isla Vista party scene.  From staggering home late at night, alone, to not being able to get out of the bed the next morning because we were too hungover, all I can conclude is that I must have had an angel looking out for me.