A few weeks ago, some guy in a fraternity at LSU drank himself to death. I mean, he actually drank so much alcohol that he fell over and died. I don’t know the circumstances that actually led to this drinking binge, but I can’t figure there’s any reason in the world to drink as much as this guy did. Unless, of course, you’re in a fraternity.I was in a fraternity my freshman year at the University of Arkansas. I’m not going to say which fraternity it was, mostly because I don’t want anyone associating me with it, and I’m quite sure that feeling is mutual. But it was the greatest lesson in humility I have ever experienced. It’s a lesson no one should ever have to endure. I don’t want to group all these fraternities together. There were some good ones, I’m sure, and there were many of them that didn’t haze their pledges. But I spoke with a lot of the pledges from other fraternities that year, and from what I could gather, they went through the same things I did. It wasn’t that we were beat or that we had the senior members enslave us or anything. The hazing that we endured was strictly mental, but to be quite honest, I would’ve preferred mowing the lawn at 4 a.m. every morning than what I went through. Mostly it was the peer pressure. I mean, I was a freshman from a modest-sized town. I had drunk alcohol maybe once or twice in my life, and I know I wasn’t alone among the pledge group of my fraternity or any other. These guys would round up beer, vodka, whiskey, and whatever they could find and just force it on us. It was like we supplied the entertainment for these fellas. They’d get kicks out of watching us stumble and retch, and most of the time, they would take advantage of our inebriation (I was once coerced into buying a round of tacos for an entire restaurant). And for those who didn’t drink, they were more or less shunned. I mean, sure, the older guys would say, “Hey man, that’s cool. You don’t have to drink or anything. We’re not going to force it on you, and we’re not going to think any less of you or anything.” But, the younger guys could tell that they lost a few points of respect by turning down a shot of Crown Royal. After the second or third week, most everyone would just break down and chug the stuff. And the guys around us would just cheer and rave like we’d won the World Series single-handedly. This became positive reinforcement for heavy drinking. To some people, these fraternities are like religions. It’s something they need to rely on, something to have faith in, and they will go to any lengths to defend it. This “brotherhood” means more to some of them than their families. Trying to get out of a fraternity is an entirely different column, one I choose not to go into. I’ll just say, it’s almost like quitting a gang. You either have to be murdered or get married. I, myself, faked an engagement. And even after that, I had several guys call me and try to coax me out of it. They swore, even after I quit, that I’d always be a brother to them. Four years later, I’ve never spoken to one of my former “brothers” since. I want to reiterate, again, my fraternity may have been an exception. I don’t want to lump the rest of the fraternities on campus together. Besides, I did gain a couple of very valuable abilities from my fraternity. 1) I can drink half of a bottle of vodka without puking and, 2) more importantly, I know not to drink a half bottle of vodka. Dustin Rowles writes for the Arkansas Traveler.