Joe Sixpack: The Stupid Drink, defined

IT'S BACK-TO-SCHOOL time, which means it's time for another installment of Joe Sixpack's Freshman Guide to College Beer-Drinking.

I'm going to assume most of you have already completed course work in Intro to Keg-Stands and Basics of ID Forgery. So we'll skip directly to what I hope will become not only a lifelong lesson, but a hip, new term at urban

slang.com: The Stupid Drink.

That's the drink that takes you from a fun night to a night you regret, from being in control to losing it, from drinking to drinking too much.

The Stupid Drink is not my original idea, although Lord knows I've downed my share of idiocy. Instead, it comes from students at the Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, who coined the term in their winning entry in this year's National Student Advertising Competition.

Their assignment: Develop a campaign to combat dangerous overconsumption of alcohol by college students.

Overconsumption is a big deal on college campuses these days. Freshmen undergo lengthy, often overwrought orientation about the evils of alcohol that invariably equate beer with alcoholism, crime and death.

What caught my eye about the Stupid Drink is - though it's targeted at underage drinkers - it doesn't preach abstinence.

Professor Edward Russell, the faculty adviser who worked with the students, explained "that's because we know the abstinence message doesn't work . . . It's been tried many times by well-meaning people, and the problem keeps getting bigger."

Moreover, the campaign willfully rejects the B-word: binge.

When the Syracuse advertising team surveyed their campus, fellow students laughed at the term because, under its common definition (five drinks for men, four for women in two hours), virtually everyone they know is a binge drinker.

Yet they all know overdrinking when they see (or feel) it. There's a line that's crossed, they agreed, and it's different for every drinker. It may be a feeling, a situation, an environment, a number or a specific form of alcohol.

That's the Stupid Drink.

The problem for students is recognizing their own Stupid Drink before taking that decisive sip.

"It seems to take three or four years for students to figure out where that line is," Russell said. "The big idea is: How do you shorten that learning curve, to be safe as quickly as possible, to maybe six months?"

Teaching students (including those under 21) how to drink is completely counter to most campus alcohol education programs. If the Stupid Drink campaign is ever launched, it will surely see some backlash, especially as the competition's sponsor and proposed client is the Century Council, the nonprofit funded by distillers to fight drunken driving and underage drinking.

That's why I think the Stupid Drink may work better as a viral campaign, one that becomes a natural part of public discourse despite abolitionists.

The Stupid Drink is too good to be a mere advertising slogan. "It's something that friends could comfortably say to you without being preachy," said Russell. " 'That next one is your Stupid Drink.' "

One of the best ways to avoid the Stupid Drink is to set a limit before you crack open the first one. Count your drinks and stick with it. No one ever regretted not drinking one more.

Pace yourself. Alternate between beer and water.

And what if you ignore your pregame plans? How do you know if you're about to drink your Stupid Drink?

Put down your cup now if:

_ You can't taste your beer.

_ You are staring at yourself with a stupid grin in the bathroom mirror.

_ Your shot is on fire.

_ You're slurring your words.

_ You're dancing with an inanimate object.

_ You're standing in front of a tattoo shop.

_ Someone just ordered the second round of kamikazes.

_ You just told someone, "I love you, man."

_ A friend tells you that you've had enough.

Joe Sixpack by Don Russell appears weekly in Big Fat Friday. For more on the beer scene in Philly and beyond, visit www.joesixpack.net. Send e-mail to joesixpack@phillynews.com.