All everybody does is chide college students about alcohol. “Don’t drink. Don’t party. College is a privilege, you know.” From what I can tell, there are only two ways for a student to address alcohol.

You may drink heavily — binge on alcohol, vomit everywhere, skip class because of hangovers and generally wreck your life by using a powerful drug irresponsibly.

Or you may not drink at all. Not a drop, under any circumstance.

Actually, it is worse than that: some people have a sip of wine with their families or for religious occasions but say that they “don’t drink alcohol” to avoid being associated with binge drinkers.

This leads us to conclude that we have successfully taught millions of American youth that casual social drinking is not only impermissible, but also impossible. This is a shame.

It would be remiss to say that alcohol doesn’t cause many tragedies America — we have all had to deal with annoying drunks, and some of us have lost love ones on account of one too many beers.

At the same time, it is not fair to say that any alcohol consumption will have dire consequences. Look no farther than our own professors.

If you have spent more than a few hours with a professor — in office hours, getting lunch, or at a conference – you come to find that a good number of published, peer-reviewed faculty members formed networks and connections over a drink at a conference. Some of them enjoy a glass of wine with dinner.

Have members of the University administration never watched football while sipping a beer? Even our President used some liquor to settle some feelings.

The point is that drinking can be done in a responsible way, it is done responsibly all around us, but it is too much of a taboo to talk about openly. Which means that only the loudest groups get to voice their opinion on the topic: those who are vehemently against drinking, and those who keep us up all night with their parties.

Honestly, seeing dozens of trash bags containing empty Bud Light cans at a tailgate must mean that college students are drinking a little bit too much. Nobody drinks that much because of the taste.

Here is a novel idea: let’s teach our students and our children about safe and responsible alcohol consumption. Perhaps if our elders had the freedom to be open about their own drinking habits, we might learn from their example.

To me, the idea that we might encourage people never to drink a beer — and thus never gain exposure to that facet of American life — seems strange to me. Absolutely, people should not be pressured to drink — but we can do a better job depicting it as a moderate sort of activity.

Most of us who drink legally do it in a responsible way. We have too many jobs, too much schoolwork and too much ambition to waste our lives under the influence. If drinking is such an ubiquitous thing and since there is agreement that alcohol can be consumed in an appropriate way, why do we keep hearing lectures about the dangers of alcohol, rather than guidance on how to be responsible?

Tell Jay your thoughts on America’s alcohol culture to letters@technicianonline.com.