The Merciad

Student Editors

The Merciad is the official student-produced newspaper of Mercyhurst University. It is published throughout the school year. Our office is in Hirt, Room 110.

The Merciad welcomes letters to the editor. All letters must be signed and names will be included with the letters. Although we will not edit the letters for content, we reserve the right to trim letters to fit. Letters are due Mondays by noon and may not be more than 300 words. Submit letters via email at merciad@ mercyhurst.edu.

College is a time to grow in your independence, test your limitations and learn from your mistakes. One of the most common activities that college aged students struggle to figure out is how to consume alcohol safely in social settings.

A new trend has popularized recently via social media that is addressing this very issue. BORGs, or Blackout Rage Gallons, have become a drinking trend in which gallon-sized jugs are filled by mixing the alcohol of choice, water and flavoring along with electrolytes or Liquid IV. The addition of electrolytes helps to ease the hangover one might experience after drinking a gallon filled with an alcoholic beverage.

There are many other positives that common people and experts have identified in the use of BORGs. For one thing, gallon plastic jugs contain a cap which has been regarded as a way to protect the individuals drink from being spiked. This

I believe that one of the most beneficial aspects of using BORGs, especially at campus parties, is that the consumer can decide the proportions of liquids within the gallon.

For example, if you are not looking to get drunk or even blackout, you have a lot of control over the amount of alcohol poured into your gallon and can deter drunkenness from happening.

College students face a lot of peer pressure when they are at a party, but if they show up with their own drink, they can ward off any other person who might nag at them throughout the night.

The benefit of this is that it promotes individual harm reduction which is a high concern for young adults.

Despite the benefits of the BORGs, I believe it is important to remind people using them that blacking out can be dangerous. There have been incidents on other college campuses across the U.S. that have been unsafe for college students drinking from BORGs.

With that being said, there is a simple way to avoid blacking out using BORGs, all someone has to do is add a lesser amount of liquor to their gallon. It is also super helpful that half to most of the gallon contains water, which will absolutely support hydration in comparison to just drinking straight up alcohol. Depending on the amount of liquor added to a BORG, they can slow the consumption of alcohol in comparison to other alcoholic drinks on the market. This is of key importance because this method is not so harsh on the body by allowing it to process the alcohol being consumed.

The popularity of BORGs spurred from TikTok posts about the additional trend of naming the drinks, usually with funny phrases or puns like “Borg to Be Wild” or “Legally Borg,” which has caught the eye of other college students across the country.

Although there have been benefits linked with using BORGs, there is still a warning about drinking alcohol on college campuses in order to protect students from any harm that could come with the recklessness of being blackout drunk.