One of the main reasons Stephanie Cuevas said she doesn’t drink alcohol is out of respect for her family.

Cuevas, a sophomore in the School of Architecture at Syracuse University, is from the Dominican Republic, where the legal drinking age is 18 and getting drunk at age 13 is not considered “weird,” she said. But Cuevas’ family is an exception to the drinking culture in the Dominican Republican in that both her parents do not drink.

Her father grew up in a poor neighborhood in the Dominican Republic, so he saw firsthand the negative consequences alcohol and drugs can have on people. Since her father worked hard to get out of that environment, Cuevas said she doesn’t see the point in drinking alcohol.

Cuevas is not the only student at SU who chooses to abstain from drinking alcohol. A recent survey by the newspaper and online journalism department at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications found that 41 people out of a total of 315 surveyed said that, on average, they have less than one drink a week.

Another reason Cuevas doesn’t drink is because she is underage in the United States. She said SU has stricter rules about international students who get caught drinking alcohol. Last year, she said, SU had a policy which stated that if an international student was caught drinking alcohol, the school would call the student’s parents.

“I don’t want the school to call my parents and say, ‘Your daughter is drinking here. You are spending all this money, you sent her to a whole other country and she’s drinking,’” Cuevas said.

She added that she doesn’t really like drinking anyway.

Cuevas consumed alcohol for the first time when she was 12. She mistook vodka for water and took a big gulp, which then caused her to immediately throw up. Her next sip of alcohol wasn’t until her junior or senior year of high school.

“I started drinking in a social way, not in a like ‘let’s get drunk’ way, but in a ‘if you go out on a Sunday for brunch with your friends, you can have mimosas’ type of way,” Cuevas said. “That’s like the only kind of scene I drink alcohol.”

At home Cuevas said she has gone to parties, but while she is at school, she said she is always tired. Her architecture major keeps her from having a lot of free time so she doesn’t typically go to parties.

“My Friday nights are usually me sleeping and getting myself back together,” Cuevas said. “It’s more of like I’m not gonna waste my time going out.”

Cuevas added that because she grew up around the Dominican Republican drinking culture, she is already over the idea of drinking alcohol and going out to parties.

She said she doesn’t feel particularly judged by people who do choose to drink, but she notices people are always curious as to why she doesn’t.

“The other day I had a conversation with some people and they were just so shocked. They were like, ‘How can you go to a party and not drink?’” Cuevas said.

But it’s not the potential judgment from people that bothers Cuevas. Sometimes, she said she feels like some people want her to drink, which makes her wary about what they might be putting in her drink.

“It definitely turns out scary in that sense … I don’t want to talk about it because people will know that my body doesn’t take alcohol as well as them so they might actually take advantage of me,” Cuevas said.

It’s hard, Cuevas said, to find activities to do with people at college that don’t involve drinking because some people think they can’t have fun without alcohol. But Cuevas said she likes going to Target because it is her “fun place.”

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Brittany McCarroll said she thinks drinking alcohol is a waste of money and calories.

McCarroll, a sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences, has never consumed alcohol, and she said she doesn’t plan on doing so at any point in her life.

“I honestly just don’t see the point in it. When people drink, they just act dumb,” McCarroll said. “I can have fun without it.”

Since McCarroll is a sister of the Delta Delta Delta sorority, she said she still goes to parties with her friends, but she just chooses not to drink while she is there. Instead she talks and dances with her friends.

McCarroll’s experience at parties, she said, is different from others’ because she has a boyfriend, so she is not looking to hook up with anyone. She added that her overall college experience is different from those who drink because she doesn’t have “those dumb stories” to tell.

While McCarroll has never met anyone at SU that, like her, doesn’t drink alcohol, she said she has never felt judged for her decision to stay sober.

“Honestly, everyone who has ever found out is super supportive,” McCarroll said. “They’re like, ‘Oh that’s awesome. Good for you.’ No one has ever judged me for it.”

Part of the reason McCarroll said she doesn’t drink is the environment she grew up in. Neither of her parents drink alcohol regularly — at most they will drink three times a year, she said.

“I always grew up with them never needing alcohol at parties and stuff so it kind of is like, ‘They don’t need it, so I don’t need it,’” McCarroll said.

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Matt Gehring is not usually one to follow the crowd — and that includes his choice not to drink.

Gehring, a sophomore television, radio and film major, said he simply doesn’t want to drink alcohol, but a lot of people are usually shocked and sometimes even judgmental of his decision not to drink.

“I mean there’s the whole ‘Oh my gosh you’re in college and you don’t drink?’ and then I get the questions: ‘What do you do?’ ‘How do you have fun?’” Gehring said. “OK, that’s a little offensive.”

People who are just getting to know Gehring see him as “super hyper, peppy and a ready ­to­ go guy,” he said, so they don’t usually expect him to be someone who doesn’t drink.

Even though none of his friends are nondrinkers like him, he said he doesn’t have a problem fitting in at parties. In fact, Gehring said he is “definitely the dancer” at parties.

“I look drunk usually in party settings, which is usually why people are like, ‘Oh my God, he’s not drinking?’” he said.

Instead of drinking alcohol like most people at parties, Gehring said he drinks water to stay hydrated and energetic since he likes to dance a lot. He added that he doesn’t like to drink soda, but even if he did, he wouldn’t trust it at parties because it could be mixed with some kind of alcohol.

Although Gehring does go to parties, he said he only likes to go to ones hosted by organizations he’s a part of at SU. He tends to avoid going to Greek parties because he doesn’t enjoy them since the main purpose of a fraternity or sorority party is drinking alcohol and the social aspect of it, he says.

The hardest part about Gehring choosing not to drink was at the beginning of his freshman year when he attended one of his first college parties and was handed a beer.

“I was like, ‘What do I do?’” Gehring said. “Because I did feel a little social pressure at that point. I was like, ‘I just joined this organization. They are gonna judge me so hard because I don’t (drink).’”

But Gehring gave the beer to a friend because in the moment, it was the “best thing (he) could do,” he said.

Now, when Gehring goes to parties hosted by organizations he is a part of, he said he doesn’t feel that social pressure anymore because everyone knows he doesn’t drink.

Gehring’s decision not to drink alcohol was in part modeled after his uncle and aunt, who are both nondrinkers for their own reasons.

“It’s not a situation where something traumatic happened, but I’ve just respected (the fact that they don’t drink), and they are two of the most fun people I know so I’ve wanted to model that,” Gehring said.

Gehring said he isn’t sure if he will drink alcohol in the future.

“I know my parents thought at first that it was a legal thing because I’m a goody two­-shoes,” Gehring said. “It’s not. It’s not like on my 21st (birthday) I’m gonna get super drunk because I can. But I mean I could picture it. I mean if I wanted to, I would. That’s what it comes down to.”

Editor’s Note: Over the past month, The Daily Orange has collaborated with the Department of Newspaper and Online Journalism at Syracuse University on a series of stories relating to alcohol culture on the SU campus. Multiple stories will appear in The D.O. in the coming days.

Published on April 6, 2016 at 10:38 am

Contact Sara: smswann@syr.edu | @saramswann