3 Drinking Games You Can Play Without Getting Drunk

If you’re anything like me, you’re a college freshman with a mom who sheltered you from everything.

The closest thing to a party you’ve endured was prom, and even then, she made you come home at 10 p.m. Now that you’re in college, you want to experience things with your newfound freedom, but you still have the mentality of an overprotected bird that just left the nest.

If you’re going out to your first party, from what you’ve heard or seen on TV, you may already be expecting many people around you to drink. A new Demos report on youth alcohol consumption found that alcohol remains an integral social lubricant for students with peer pressure and a “fear of missing out” driving excessive drinking. You know you don’t want to be left out of the “party experience,” but you’re still hesitant on whether or not you want to crack open your first can of beer.

There are more ways to have fun at a party than diving into a swimming pool full of liquor. College Ranker, a college resource website, has a whole list of their picks of “the best college drinking games,” which all involve alcohol or beer, but here are three I selected from the bunch to recreate, so you can play without getting drunk, but you can still get buzzed and have a lit time!

1. Soda Pong

Beer pong is practically the most common and classic game to play at a house party. Depending on who you play with, there may be different variations of the rules. However, in the soda pong version, there is a simple set of guidelines to follow without anyone being under the influence.

YOU WILL NEED:

— A long rectangular table

— Two 2L bottles of soda of your choosing

— 1 gallon of water

— The classic red solo cups (25-count)

—A pack of ping-pong balls

— Friends

HOW TO PLAY:

You will set up about 10 red solo cups on both sides of the table in the form of a triangle, then fill them with about three to four ounces of your chosen soda. Split your friends up into two teams with one or two players on each team on each side of the table.

The goal is to toss the ping-pong ball into one of the cups on the other teams’ side. There are two ways to get the ball into the cups: Toss the ball directly into a cup, and the opposing team can’t try to block it or swat it away OR for an easier shot, bounce the ball on the table when you toss it, but the other team gets the chance to block it.

If the ball lands in a cup, the person on the opposing team must drink from that cup, so bottoms up!

2. Cheers to the Governor

In Cheers to the Governor, there are not many rules. All you need is a drink and the ability to count. I’m sure the game would be more fun to play drunk because you may have had too much to drink to even remember the number order. On the other hand, you can pretend to be drunk and still wake up to recall how much fun you had last night. Take your pick.

I “recreated” this game in a way that makes your drink just a beverage, not exactly needed to play, like Spin the Bottle with numbers. The original drinking version is found on the College Ranker website.

HOW TO PLAY:

You and your friends, soda (or water) in hand, will sit in a circle. In a counterclockwise direction, each person says a number out loud until you get to 21. The person who has 21 is allowed to come up with a rule and associate it with any number between 1 and 20; for example, a player might say the person who calls number seven has to drink or that all male players must twerk if they land on the number 12.

The count begins again after the new rule has been applied, and whoever lands on 21 next makes up a new rule. Here’s the catch: All rules stay in place until each number is just about affiliated with a rule, and there is a long list of rules to follow. If you start to forget what each number stands for or you get bored of the rules in general, see what your sober mind can come up with and start over!

3. Power Hour

Caution: This game involves a lit music playlist that may cause a rush of adrenaline to make you energized and dance around until you pass out!

According to College Ranker, Power Hour is a favorite for college students. It is centered around the concept of pre-gaming, which is the term for getting buzzed before going out to party for the night.

To have a power hour, you need a power hour mix, which is just an hour to two-hour long playlist of songs that play in 30 second increments. It is available free on YouTube (my personal favorite Best Summer Power Hour 2016–With Ding, created by FullChubMusic2), or you can just have a friend be your personal DJ and switch between various turn up songs on your favorite Spotify playlist.

YOU WILL NEED:

— The ultimate power hour mix

HOW TO PLAY:

If you were drinking, the objective would be to drink whenever the song changes in the mix, and at 30 second increments, you might be more than buzzed by the time the hour is over. In my version, all you have to do is dance because who doesn’t love to dance? With great friends around and a lit set of tracks to choose from, you can get the party started without even leaving the dorms!

There are tons of college drinking games to choose from, and if you’re still too uncomfortable to fully try them out, reinvent them! Recreate them in a way that you can still have a fun and memorable night without blaming it on the alcohol!