Mmmmmm privilege
Throughout my collegiate career, I have often noticed sober people’s unwillingness to grant that they are overprivileged, even though they may grant that drunk people are disadvantaged in society. While they may support assisting drunks and drunk rights, sobers often deny that they, as sobers, gain advantages from drunks’ disadvantages. These denials protect sober privilege from being fully acknowledged, lessened, or ended. Sober people are taught to see their lives as normal, neutral, and average, and also ideal, so that when they work to benefit others it is seen as work that will allow “them” (drunks) to be more like “us” (sobers).
When I committed to Northwestern in the spring of my senior year of high school, I imagined a multitude of joys and wonders. I wanted to make the most of my four years at college; I wanted to make dozens of amazing friends, I wanted to cherish every single piece of knowledge I could, and I wanted to find a higher sense of purpose and calling in my life.