Some things go without saying, at least you would think. Unfortunately some things aren’t readily understood until the fifth or sixth time they are told to a person. Telling someone that they are responsible for themselves — socialists being the exception, or at least they think —seems to be hackneyed. Many of us have had our parents telling us this since our childhood.

We’ve said it before, we’ll say it now, and many points in the future we will say it again.

If you lose sight of your drink, don’t finish it. There are individuals out there who are sexual predators, and they cruise bars with malicious intentions.

One more time, just so everyone is clear with what we are putting forward.

If you lose sight of your drink, don’t finish it. Get a new drink.

Don’t leave it with your friends who may or may not be completely inebriated. Don’t leave it with your best friend, who may or may not get distracted by a beautiful someone walking past. Don’t put a napkin on the top of it, no matter what magical ruins you picked up from the latest fantasy romance or wizardry adventure novel.

Either you are physically in control of your drink, or you are not. If at any point you lose control of your drink, take it to the bartender, and ask him to pour you another. Who knows, maybe he’ll be sympathetic to your plight and give you one on the house — we really doubt it though.

It’s better to pay a couple of dollars for a new refreshment than getting roofied.

That’s not to say that even if you clutch your drink with an iron kung-fu grip all night that it still couldn’t happen.

Maybe you have seen a sitcom episode that covered how it’s possible for someone you are around to very casually put something in your drink.

I don’t think that anyone expects you to go through some sort of counter-intelligence training so that you can go to the bar and have fun, but just be aware of who is in close proximity to you.

So far what we want you to do requires that you, to put it bluntly, not be completely hammered. It’s pretty well known that a lot of college kids drink too much. This isn’t something that is new, by any means. So please don’t act like your particular graduating class discovered alcohol when they started attending college.

Take it easy on binge drinking. When you start to feel like you are going to black out, stop drinking. If you aren’t an experienced drinker, don’t feel like you have anything to prove. Just take it easy and enjoy yourself.

There are other easy ways to stay on the safe side of partying.

Know the bar you are gong to. We’re not saying don’t go new places or try new things, but when you are drinking you let your guard down. Being in a place you are familiar with, around a staff that is familiar with you, will not only make you more comfortable, but will also allow you to know when something is wrong much earlier.

Don’t go out by yourself, unless it’s to the movies. Go to the bar with someone, or a group of friends. Staggering home by your lonesome is when you are most vulnerable. Remember that old idiom, “strength in numbers?” It became a saying for a reason. People are much safer in small groups than by themselves.

We’d suggest that the majority of you stop drinking all together, but something tells us we’d have better luck squeezing water from a stone than getting people to frequent the bars less.

We aren’t trying to scare you. We just want you to be more aware of what is going on around you. It is your responsibility to take care of yourself. Taking responsibility starts by taking simple and small measures against the possibility that someone out there might try to do you harm.

The possibility of predators being out there isn’t a possibility at all, it’s a fact.