A MADD trailer shows the consequences of drunk driving.

Every year, various campuses at Northern Virginia Community College hold an alcohol awareness week, which doesn’t sound like much fun from a college student’s point of view. But aside from the tables with fliers warning about the effects of alcohol and a trailer displaying a mangled car from a drunk-driving accident, mocktails were served to those willing to undergo an obstacle course while wearing beer goggles, much to the delight of onlookers.

Mocktails are non-alcoholic cocktails. And these beer goggles don’t make anyone look good, least of all the wearer. According to Jose Galliani, community outreach coordinator for Kaiser Permanente, the goggles give the wearer an experience similar to a 160-pound person having four to five beers in an hour, which would result in a 0.80 blood alcohol level.

Galliani guided the sobering activities around the college, which were previously held at the Medical Education campus and were taking place at Annandale campus on the day NOVA Fortnightly came to observe. Kaiser Permanente provided the beer goggles, and the Annandale campus provided the free drinks. Galliani said the company does this to raise awareness of what can actually happen without having to preach to students. Activities like the beer-goggle obstacle course tend to be more effective than just telling people how impaired they would be if they drank several beers.

Maria Severichs, a first-year business major, said the course was difficult because she saw two cones where there was only one. “I don’t drink. I’ve never drank in my life. I wanted to see how it actually feels,” she remarked.

The obstacle course took place in the cafeteria. The non-alcoholic mixed drinks were served to anyone who wanted one. Those people were then invited to put on a pair of clunky beer goggles. There were two different types of goggles, daytime and nighttime. The daytime goggles were actually considered tougher because of all the extra light coming into the wearer’s eyes. Each person then tried to walk around orange cones placed on the floor.

It looked easy, but every goggle-wearer knocked down some, if not all, cones.

Jilla Fakhri, an information technology student, said the goggles made her dizzy. “You know how to do it. You try to pass [the cones], but you cannot.”

In addition to the obstacle course, students were invited to throw a Frisbee into a box, which sounded much simpler than it was for someone wearing beer goggles that made objects appear in duplicate. Galliani said the program used to include having people try to catch a Frisbee. However, people tried too hard and ended up getting hurt.

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I couldn’t report on the beer-goggle obstacle course without trying out the goggles myself. My experience can best be described as disorienting. I thought I was stepping in one place but was not. I tried hard to keep my composure and control of where I was walking and the direction I was going in. Still, I ended up knocking over most of the eight cones. Massive fail.
— KJ Mushung

By: KJ Mushung

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