2008 Woodie Awards
Alchol nowhere to be found, but drunkenness abounds
Ashley Fuquay
Issue date: 10/4/07 Section: Campus Life
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Keith Karkut has performed as a hypnotist for 22 years and in 23 different states. His program is called Hypnotic Intoxication where he mixes hypnotism for entertainment and alcohol education. Karkut performed on Sept. 28 in the Thompson Student Center ballrooms for a very enthusiastic audience.
What is so unique about Karkut's show is that he hypnotizes his volunteers to think that water is alcohol, making his volunteers think that they are drunk. He also gives important facts on alcohol consumption.
"Alcohol is a depressant. What people don't understand about alcohol is what it actually does. It slows down your momentum, slows down your pulse rate, to the point that you slow down and eventually become comatose," Karkut said.
The biggest message he tried to stress was not to put a drunk person in a shower because they might drown and to never leave someone who is intoxicated to the point of being unconscious to "sleep it off".
"If you're friend is so drunk and passed out that you can't shake them, you can't wake them, you can't cause pain to make them wake up, if their breathing is starting to slow down or getting a little more erratic, if their skin is turning blue in color and they feel cool and clammy, you need to get your friend help. It is not just they're drunk and they need to sleep it off because here's the deal folks, college students across our nation are not waking up," Karkut said.
"One person every 20 seconds dies of an alcohol-related death," said Karkut, "The scariest statistic of all is that 2 to 3 percent of college students don't make it to their graduation because of alcohol-related deaths."
This program was sponsored by the Student Programming Association to bring attention to the AlcoholEdu program. For more information on AlcoholEdu, visit www.tarleton.edu/~alcoholedu.
What is so unique about Karkut's show is that he hypnotizes his volunteers to think that water is alcohol, making his volunteers think that they are drunk. He also gives important facts on alcohol consumption.
"Alcohol is a depressant. What people don't understand about alcohol is what it actually does. It slows down your momentum, slows down your pulse rate, to the point that you slow down and eventually become comatose," Karkut said.
The biggest message he tried to stress was not to put a drunk person in a shower because they might drown and to never leave someone who is intoxicated to the point of being unconscious to "sleep it off".
"If you're friend is so drunk and passed out that you can't shake them, you can't wake them, you can't cause pain to make them wake up, if their breathing is starting to slow down or getting a little more erratic, if their skin is turning blue in color and they feel cool and clammy, you need to get your friend help. It is not just they're drunk and they need to sleep it off because here's the deal folks, college students across our nation are not waking up," Karkut said.
"One person every 20 seconds dies of an alcohol-related death," said Karkut, "The scariest statistic of all is that 2 to 3 percent of college students don't make it to their graduation because of alcohol-related deaths."
This program was sponsored by the Student Programming Association to bring attention to the AlcoholEdu program. For more information on AlcoholEdu, visit www.tarleton.edu/~alcoholedu.
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