Former The Real World: Hawaii cast member Ruthie Alcaide knows all about the perils of boozing beyond safe limits. During her stint on the MTV reality television series, she became infamous for drinking heavily and for losing consciousness at various bars, as well as for her wild and inebriated antics. She was even drunk enough at one point to perform a table dance for an unlikely audience ? the wife of her boss. Her housemates called in the paramedics to help her during the very first episode, wherein she had typically passed out from all the liquor and needed to be revived.

At present, however, she has been trying to get back on track and escape from being trapped in the bottle. Last Tuesday on August 28, she was one of the guest speakers at Odessa Community College who shared her experiences with other students, teaching and telling them honestly about the dangers of alcohol abuse and how it had nearly wrecked her existence. Fans of the show will recall how she went on drinking binges, throwing glasses around and shattering them while her housemates got fed up and attempted to intervene. With the help of her two sisters and her housemates, she was eventually convinced to enter rehab for her serious addiction, though only after her housemates threatened to evict her.

While she initially felt betrayed by their decision, she reluctantly agreed, and was only allowed back into the house once she'd finished her regimen of treatment and recovery. And though she was very open about her experiences, Alcaide emphasized that the key to doing the right thing was not to restrict themselves from drinking or otherwise enjoying themselves, but to do everything in moderation. She warned her audience to be careful while having fun, and that they should be prepared to pay the consequences if their cautiousness lapsed.