Despite hours spent on education in health classes, campaigns by groups like Mothers Against Drunk Driving and the efforts of high schools to encourage students to make safe choices, some students will choose to take advantage of their newfound freedom by behaving recklessly during an annual tradition known as Beach Week.

By now, students who plan on attending Beach Week this year have turned in deposits for houses and are planning for other expenses. It is a topic on the minds of many students at the moment.

For Shannon, Beach Week meant celebrating the end of high school and rewarding herself for the late nights she spent studying, which earned her entrance into one of the most prestigious universities in Virginia. It was supposed to be a time to cut loose and enjoy being independent, while soaking in the sun’s rays with 15 of her closest friends.

“Beach Week was everything that [I had] hoped it would be,” Shannon said. “No parents watching our every move and complete freedom in choosing how we spent our time. Some people did better with this freedom than others.”

Shannon had not been prepared for the dramatic events that took place over the course of the week, which she described as “soap opera material.” She and her friends were staying at a house in Myrtle Beach near other members of her graduating class. She knew going into the week that many of them saw Beach Week as the climax of an already party-filled senior year, and she expected things to get out of control for a few nights.

As is often tradition among the more reckless AHS seniors attending Beach Week, each night had a different theme, such as lingerie night or ABC (anything but clothes) night. Each night she was met by swarms of inebriated students eager and willing to share their excessive amounts of alcohol and, in some cases, offer recreational drugs they had either brought with them or purchased upon arrival.

Although this behavior is not what all students engage in over the course of the week, her group acted in wild ways that would make parents cringe. Beach Week can be pricey when the cost of a house, food and other expenses are added up, which is why it is normally attended by upper-middle class students.

Shannon wasn’t a complete straight edge in high school, and this week was not the first time she had drank alcohol, but she couldn’t help getting a little nervous as she observed friends whose awareness was blurred by the intense sun during the day and the alcohol at night. At parties, she began to become concerned as they mixed alcohol, recreational drugs and, in one girl’s case, antidepressant medication.

Somehow, despite their dangerous activities, they managed to make it through the week without anyone dying or being seriously injured, though there were a few visits to the emergency room. On one night, a highly intoxicated boy took the advice of an equally inebriated friend and used vodka to sterilize an injury he had gotten while running through the street.

As the rooms of some houses became sparse due to both damaged and destroyed furniture, Shannon’s former classmates would find different places to party. Sometimes this meant going to the hotel rooms of beach weekers from other schools.

Other classmates accumulated hundreds of dollars worth of property damage fees by the end of the week, with broken appliances, defaced furniture and numerous stains from spilled food and alcohol. In one room, a glass table had been shattered when one girl “cannonballed” through it, and other furniture had been tossed out the window into the pool.

However, the lack of seating at some of the houses wasn’t what bothered Shannon; it was the almost tangible tension that filled the room each night as once inseparable friends stopped going to the same parties and let petty drama ruin their friendships.

“There were friendships that were lost during that one week at Myrtle. Parents who stayed nearby ‘just in case’ had to swarm in and keep limbs from being lost,” she said. “Previously inseparable people still don’t talk to each other even to this day. It’s pathetic.”

Regardless of all of the chaos that transpired and the exhaustion she faced once the adrenaline of the week had worn off, Shannon still said she wouldn’t trade the experience.

“Beach Week was an experience that I think many of us wouldn’t replace. We were truly independent for once, and it showed who was mature enough to venture out of the confines of Annandale,” she said. “It also became a running joke that Beach Week was created to keep people from missing each other, which is most definitely what it did for some.”

For another student, Beach Week was about celebrating more than graduation, as her birthday happened to fall during the dates she and her closest friends were in Myrtle. Her housemates had ensured there would be plenty of alcohol for the week, spending an estimated total of $3,000 on beer and every type of liquor imaginable.

She had hoped that her birthday would be the most memorable night of that week, but after the police arrived at their house the night before, plans unraveled.

Widespread panic filled the high and intoxicated partygoers that night, and a mass of people began running from the house. After fleeing the cops and escaping possible underage drinking charges, she managed to run into a low-lying brick wall she hadn’t noticed in the darkness, which left her unable to walk. Still hurt and intoxicated, but not wanting to dampen the mood, she decided to take it easy and sleep it off.

“The next morning I woke up in excruciating pain,” she said. “I ended up spending my birthday in the emergency room of a Myrtle Beach hospital getting X-rays taken, which is not exactly how I thought I would be spending the day.”

Things spiraled further out of control as the parties got wilder. One student, who admitted that much of the week remains a blur, said that drugs such as marijuana, hallucinogenic mushrooms, molly (a type of ecstasy) and cocaine were passed around at parties.

By the second day, the golf cart that had come with the week-long rental had been crashed.

“Someone crashed the cart and the damage to the front was pretty severe. It cracked the headlight as well as part of the plastic front,” she said.

The total cost for the week had already reached several hundred dollars, but when no one would come forward and admit to being responsible for the crash, the additional cost for repairs had to be split amongst everyone in the house.

Despite the hefty price tag on the week, the various injuries suffered and the fights that broke out, many of the graduates involved are planning a “Beach Week Part Two” trip to be held later in May.

Editor’s Note: Names were changed to protect the identity of sources