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good deal for it.”

For those who find it hard to part with their home-style dos, they travel back to their roots.

D’Amelio is on the women’s lacrosse team, was on the orientation staff for two years, worked for the leadership program at Cabrini College and is in the honors program. “I think that I am a responsible person,” D’Amelio said. “I am usually the one out of a group that has motherly tendencies. I’m usuallythe one taking care of other people and making sure everyone is OK,” she said.

When D’Amelio got to the bar she said that she never set a limit for herself as to how many shots she was going to have, but she said, “Ihad expected to know when to stop myself from having too many drinks.”

“I was worried about her,”

Denise D’Amelio, Cristina’s mother, said. “I thought she would know her limits and that the people she was with would take care of her.”

Approximately between the hours of 10 p.m. and 2 a.m.

D’Amelio had 11 shots, two mixed drinks and one pony.

“People kept buying me drinks after I had said to them that I didn’t plan on getting so drunk. I tried to make that a point,” she said.

According to DrunkDrivingDefense.com a person can calculate their blood alcohol content on a chart according to their weight and how many drinks they have had in an hour to know their blood alcohol level.

“I knew it started to get bad when I went to the bathroom at the bar and I had to hold onto the walls of the stall tokeep me from falling over,”

D’Amelio said. “After that, getting in the car I couldn’t control anything coming out of my mouth even though I knew it was wrong. I remember thinking if I had gotten something to eat on the way home at like McDonald’s I might not get as sick.”

Radford University’s alcohol awareness website e xplains that having food inside of the stomach decreases absorption of alcohol, and not having any food increases absorption of the alcohol, increasing intoxication. Also, mixed drinks with a carbonated beverage speeds it up, while drinks with fruit juices slows it down.

D’Amelio said, “It was sad when I needed two of my friends to hold me up walking back to my apartment. It was the worst night I ever had drinking.”

Approximately 1,700 college students between the ages of 18 and 24 die each year from alcohol-related injuries, including automobile accidents, and 599,000 are injured, according to the College Drinking website. “I have never drank that much in that short amount time,” D’Amelio said. “I don’t want to get that drunk again to the point of getting sick. It took me three days to get back to feeling normal.”

She continued to say that she thinks that a 21st birthday is a rite of passage. “I would definitely take my friends out for their birthday, but I don’t want them to get sick and not enjoy themselves.”

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