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As an appreciator of the English language, I am always eager to welcome a new word into my vocabulary. Recently, I came across a gem whose definition stumped me, and implications intrigued me: butt-chugging.
You, too, may have heard this word recently, as it’s been scattered around news headlines, punch-lines and water-cooler discussions, ever since Sept. 21. That was when a University of Tennessee fraternity member was taken to the hospital with a blood alcohol level above .4 after allegedly funneling wine into his rectum. The student, Alexander Broughton, 20, claimed during a recent press conference that he did no such thing and merely drank too much.
(CU Independent Illustration/Josh Shettler)
Whether Broughton did or did not butt-chug is beside the point. A YouTube search of the word brings up video after video of people anally inserting alcohol into their bodies, proving that it exists and is a real thing that humans with presumably functioning brains are doing.
Naturally, I have to ask myself: what is the appeal to giving yourself an enema of the alcoholic variety?
Scientifically, it’s supposed to get you really drunk really fast as the alcohol bypasses liver filtration and goes straight to the bloodstream. You know what else will get you really drunk really fast? A few extra shots. Via your mouth. Like a normal, albeit, probably irresponsible person.
What concerns me most about this whole situation is that butt-chugging is not unique in its weirdness. People are partaking in other disgusting ways to blackout, as well.
There is the use of vodka tampons, for example, in which alcohol is soaked into the tampon and inserted vaginally with that added bonus of bypassing the liver and, additionally, preventing the smell of alcohol on your breath. Those crazy UK folk across the pond found numerous people “vodka eyeballing”, in which alcohol was poured directly into their eyeballs, and “vodka snorting” in which they snorted the substance through their nostrils.
Elena Silvestrini, a 19-year-old sophomore studio arts major, said she once witnessed people drink an unidentifiable alcoholic substance that was concluded to be a cleaning product from Brazil.
“They were fine, but I guess it tasted really bad and stung their throats,” Silvestrini said. “I think one guy might have puked right after drinking it.”
While I marvel at this flagrant disregard for bodily harm, I must commend them for at least consuming the substance orally.
I don’t mean to be the party pooper here, but can we all just agree to not intake alcohol via cleaning products, our butts, our eyes, our nostrils or any other orifices I’m missing aside from our mouths? Is that really so much to ask? I’m not saying you can’t black out, I’m just saying can we refrain from reaching a point in time when it’s appropriate to say “remember the good ol’ days when we’d drink through our mouths?”
Winding up in the hospital from alcohol poisoning casts enough negative light on a person. With the addition of a blinded eye or beer bottle stuck up your butt, you quickly become the drunk, adult version of the ashamed little kid sitting in the emergency room with a crayon stuck up his nose.
Don’t be that kid. Don’t let the first link that pops up when your name is Googled have the word “butt-chug” in it. Don’t take your liver for granted; get obliterated the respectable, old-fashioned way.
Contact CU Independent Staff Writer Elizabeth Hernandez at Elizabeth.hernandez@colorado.edu.
