It is the Friday night of Sam’s first week as a freshman in college. Sam really does not know anyone, but his roommate has an older brother at the school. Sam really wants to fit in and meet some new friends. His roommate says, “Come on. Let’s go to a party.”
Sam makes quite the impression at the party when he shotguns five beers and completes a risky dare from an upperclassman and jumping from the porch roof to the ground. Suddenly, Sam has a lot of new drinking buddies and nights of binge drinking ahead.
The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) reports that 80 percent of college students drink alcohol and more than half say they have binge drank in the last two weeks. As a matter of fact, the drinking may very well have begun in high school. According to the nationally representative, “Monitoring the Future Study,” in 2012, 42 percent of high school seniors reported drinking alcohol within 30 days before taking the survey and 24 percent said they binge drank in the previous two weeks.
Some may be experienced drinkers before they go off to college and some may not, but either way it is a whole new experience or culture; a culture where excessive is impressive. Jimmy Williamson, the chief of the University of Georgia’s campus police, was quoted in an article titled “Alcohol’s Hold on Campus, in The Chronicle of Higher Education” said, “As a culture, we’ve super-sized and we’ve taken it into our drinking.”
The move from high school to college is a drastic change. Freedom, decision making, different time schedule and most importantly, no parents. Students outnumber adults in a huge social circle. Kids in general are obsessed with what their peers think of them, but at the college level, it takes on a whole new meaning. Will you be liked, turns into will you be loved? Will you make friends, turns in to will you look and act like what is socially acceptable? Will you be able to handle AP classes, turns into will you be able to handle the party schedule and an academic schedule? Will you get into college, turns into will you succeed and find a job? The pressure intensifies during this transition.
Colleges seem to think that if they put this information out there for students to see and educate them, they will change.
In the article, “Alcohol’s Hold on Campus,” the University of Georgia’s Associate Director of Health Promotion, Liz Prince, said, “What we know about students is that telling them, bad, bad, bad, don’t do it, it’s wrong, just doesn’t work.”
At Cabrini, if a student gets three alcohol violations they will be sent to counseling and a mandatory substance abuse assessment. The first and second violations include a fine and an alcohol education program. The education is there and yet there are still third violation offenders according to Cabrini’s guidelines.
“The thing I hear from most is they think this is what you are supposed to do in college; supposed to drink, supposed to party,”Jessica Burman, a licensed Psychologist and counselor at Cabrini, said. “We try and remind them that not everyone is coming in to our office, getting in to trouble with Residence Life and getting sent to the Dean of Students for their alcohol use/misuse. There is a reason why they are sitting in front of us and it’s because it’s greater than what is the average.”
The group College Parents of America revealed even more unsettling facts about alcohol consumption through the Screening Mental Health company in 2002. They found that 400,000 students between the ages of 18 and 24 have unprotected sex while intoxicated and more than 100,000 students were too intoxicated to even know if they consented to sex. In addition, their study found that 31 percent of college students fit the criteria for a diagnosis of alcohol abuse and six percent with a diagnosis of alcohol dependence.
While all of this information, the risks and the consequences are spelled out and witnessed by college students across the country; they still misuse alcohol.
High school drinking had to be secretive being underage and once you are 21 it is your right to legally drink.
According to Mary Larimer, PhD, director of the University of Washington’s Center for the Study of Health and Risk Behaviors and associate director of the Addictive Behaviors Research Center, personality plays a big part in one’s use/misuse of alcohol.
Alcoholism tends to run in families and genes or genetics are responsible for about half the risk for alcoholism, according to the NIAAA. A person’s environment plays a role as well.
Studies have shown that drinking can be a result of some other issue or problem in a college student’s life. Abuse, loss, health issues, emotions and social anxiety can lead to alcohol misuse and addiction. According to the NIAAA, alcoholism tends to run in families and genes or genetics are responsible for about half the risk for alcoholism. A person’s environment plays a role as well.
Rob Goodman discusses in an article titled, How to be Intoxicated, in the Chronicle of Higher Education, how learning to manage intoxication is probably one of the most difficult tasks of adulthood. As kids we become addicted to video games, TV shows, our cell phones, social media and more. We have trouble knowing when enough is enough. Alcohol is no different.
Drinking in college has definitely become part of our culture. Immaturity leads to bad habits, but bad habits can lead to alcohol dependence.
