With WILD just around the corner, it’s about time to decide how early you’re going to wake up Friday morning to start drinking, whether you’re going to go to classes drunk, if you’ll try to smuggle a water bottle full of vodka to the Quad and how you’re actually going to make it to the incredible show Sister Hazel and Robert Randolph are going to put on.

Well, at least that’s what a lot of students are thinking about.

But for a considerable number of Wash U. students, WILD is not an excuse to drink all day. In fact, a considerable number of Wash U. students don’t drink at all.

Students’ reasons for alcohol abstinence are wide-ranging. Some students are simply indifferent.

“There isn’t really a reason why I don’t drink,” said freshman Joe Brown. “I just don’t want to.”

Junior Jason Dowd added, “I’m just generally not interested. I don’t really see the point.”

Others have more specific reasons for not drinking.

“I don’t even drink soda because of sports, so how could I drink alcohol?” said freshman Kim O’Keefe, a Wash U. women’s soccer player.

O’Keefe also sees herself as a role model for her sister.

“I want her to know that she doesn’t have to give in to the pressure of her peers if she doesn’t want to,” O’Keefe said.

Junior Andrew Shearer just doesn’t care to make the time for drinking.

“I’m busy a lot of the time so I don’t actually have the time to go off and do that kind of thing,” Shearer said.

Another common incentive among students to refrain from alcohol use is their religious beliefs.

“It’s just not honoring to [God] to just be totally drunk and out of it,” said freshman Dave Schneider.

Schneider acknowledged that Jesus did drink wine, but added that “he also did not go to the point of super excess.”

Of course, there is also the often overlooked, seemingly nonexistent law making 21 the legal drinking age. Schneider also spoke of the fact that is technically illegal for him to drink.

“It’s good to try to honor the state on a personal basis,” Schneider said. “It’s the law for a reason.”

But both Dowd and Shearer are of age. Dowd said his 21st birthday didn’t affect his feelings about alcohol.

“The way I feel now is the way I’ve always felt,” Dowd said.

Shearer, on the other hand, has become somewhat of a social drinker-but not at Wash U.

“I have more social drinking habits at home,” said Shearer. “But here it’s not often. I’ve had a few glasses of wine but just for relaxing.”

Shearer does maintain, however, that alcohol will probably never become any larger a presence in his life.

Both Schneider and O’Keefe said that they probably will drink after their 21st birthdays.

“But not to the point of drunkenness,” Schneider added.

Though some do feel tempted at times to drink, students who choose not to drink seem to receive more respect than ridicule.

“I’ve heard one minor comment,” Schneider said. “I think it was something like, ‘Oh you would be like that’ when I said that I wasn’t drunk at all [at a party]. I’ve gotten more comments like, ‘Oh that’s really admirable.’”

In the same way that people who do drink respect those who don’t, the students who choose not to drink don’t look down upon those who do.

“I try not to look down on people because if that’s how they have fun that’s perfectly fine,” said Schneider. “I don’t care for it personally. But if that’s how they can find happiness, then by all means find happiness.”

Shearer doesn’t look down upon everyone who drinks, “only on the people who drink and do unnecessarily stupid things.”

Among other things, their groups of friends-drinkers or not-help these students resist temptation, rather than try to pressure them to drink.

“Some of them don’t drink as much when I’m around,” O’ Keefe said. “And not because I ask them to; just because they don’t.”

“None of my friends really drink to excess,” said Dowd. “Some of them drink occasionally, but [they are] not aiming to get drunk.”

Schneider spends time with different people during the week than on the weekends to avoid people who drink, hanging out on the weekends with “a pretty sober group of people.”

These students also resist temptations to drink in ways other than their choice of friends and activities. Shearer said his need to focus on school has a lot to do with it.

“It’s a fairly simple choice for me because I know that I have things to get done,” he said.

For Schneider, avoiding certain situations is the easiest way to avoid temptation. “It’s just a personal resistance like to any other temptation,” he said.

While most students who don’t drink surround themselves with others who don’t, O’Keefe often goes out to places where most people are drinking excessively.

“I just like to dance,” O’ Keefe said. “I don’t gotta be drunk to dance.”

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