Are college campuses havens for budding Alcoholics?

In My Humble Opinion
1

In a recent campus tragedy, a freshman girl with a blood alcohol level more than triple the legal limit, fell from a 5th story dorm to her death. Over the past 8 years of my tenure at this school, I have seen similar happenings, and seen lives crushed from the effects of alcohol abuse among college students. Some reasons I have encountered include: First time away from home equates to party time, experimenting to fit in, depression, self medicating due to loss of loved one or girlfriend etc…etc…The epidemic is terrible and I certainly do not see and end in sight.
Possible solutions: more intense highschool intervention, knowledge, knowledge, knowledge…

I had a discussion in class the other day and most students agree that the problem drinkers are few and far between, furthermore, the ones problem drinking are usually, doing so as the result of peer pressure of one sort or another. This last point was one of contention, and some students did not agree that there was much peer pressure.

Future problems steming from routine drinking in college could include dependency, alcoholism, even death…

To the teachers and students of the SDMB what are you thoughts? Any solutions? Anecdotes?
Seeing students degrade infront of your eyes is a terrible thing, and one that needs to stop. I’ve no dilutions, I know this is an epidemic and one of grandiose proportions.

2

Go back as far as you like, back to the Fifties and you will find that a fair percentage of college age males would be classified as alcoholics by the “alcoholism is a disease” proponents. Like most substance abusers, the majority cease their irresponsible behaviour when their life circumstances change - jobs, families, kids. Largely they do so without recourse to any external intervention.

Certainly some individuals would benefit from immediate intervention but I doubt that things are notably worse now than 30 years ago. I meet up once in a while with my school friends and our anecdotes are horrifying, I don’t know how we all survived. The two guys that most would have predicted alcoholism for are head of a State government department and a professor who has worked with a Nobel prize winner. Neither drinks much at all even socially.

3

I think that college is a time for young adults to push the boundaries and either want to rebel against their youth/parents or desperately try to fit in.

What always amazes me is how easily accessible beer and liquor is on a campus and how a blind eye seems to be turned towards the offense of under age drinking.

There will always be alcohol-related deaths on a campus or spring break. Every year this must be done to teach the rest of the herd a lesson.

If there is an addictive personality, it probably would have shown up before college started and just continues on as a coping mechanism.

I think most of college drinking, especially the first year or two, is just what alot of students go through as a phase.

Then again, I’ve never gone off to college, so I’m talking out of my butt.

4

Hm, maybe my school was different, but I don’t remember any pressure to drink. I knew plenty who didn’t drink at all, and they were never forced to, at least not in my presence. In fact, every Wednesday was Ladies’ Night at a club in northern Louisiana, and me, my roommate, and another friend each alternated as designated drivers so we could go. Even then, there were plenty of times when any of us could’ve driven home. Not to say we never got drunk, though.

I did know some problem drinkers. Some might’ve cleaned up after graduation; others might not have. I think that being away from home for the first time (and being 20 miles from the LA border where the drinking age is 18), contributed to most of the drinking in the school, but the problem drinkers would probably have done so regardless of where they were.

5

Universities have hosted heavy drinkers since they stopped being run by monks.

Way before the 1950’s.

6

Unfortunately, I think that the peer pressure most feel is subliminal to some degree.
Student A knows no one on campus upon arriving and hears from their new roomate of a party. They are not a drinker, they attend a the party, meet new people, alcohol is readily available, people are getting tipsy and person A wants in on the fun. No verbal pressure, more of a social issue. I know some students will chime in soon.

7

Interestingly for a commonly accepted psychological “fact” there is very little evidence that peer pressure exists at all. Several studies have indicated that the adoption by individuals of the behaviors and appearance of members of groups is a consciously employed strategy to enhance personal and social power. The actual group members have no interest in whether the individual joins them or not as the group identity is well formed.

8

Overall in the US, it goes thru cycles. In addition, it varies by college. Some are just known as party schools. The more powerful the Greek system, the more likely you will find future AA members wandering around.

We are currently in a very “up” cycle. One cause has been the increased drinking age of 21. A college is therefore a great place for over 21s to fill the demands of under 21s with no fear of being caught.

Another issue I suspect is that college is no longer the golden gateway to success. What’s the point of taking college seriously for 4 years if at the end you end up in a low pay/esteem job? So what if you’re killing brain cells, you won’t need them managing a Krispy Kreme anyway.

The media also heavily promotes the image of colleges being places to drink 'til you almost die. Movies, TV, everywhere. So kids expect it.

9

Being a psych prof. it would be silly not to ask for a sight. A quick reference search found a mildly weak study stating this:

Addiction is a well respected publication, but some of the assertions in the article I’m not wholly convinced hold up to a good model of psychologicial tendencies of adolescent behavior. Whether a smoking teen wants to hang out only with other smoking teens is peer pressure or not is an idea that needs a little more support.

There are instances where peers will try and get someone to drink or smoke something by coercion…“Oh come on…its fun…it’s cool” etc…etc…

In my view that is peer pressure. My sense is, that most college students who drink do so to be a part of something. A means to initially fit in. no?

10

I never felt any pressure to drink during my party days. Most people drank at the frat parties I attended, but nothing was said about the ones who didn’t.

“Hey, want a beer?”
“Naw, I don’t drink, thanks”
“Hey that’s totally cool. You know what you are sooooooo cool I love you and hey there’s two of you” passes out

And that’d be the extent of it. Most of the teetotalers would bring chocolate milk and usually ended up being DD’s for the night.

11

My perspective from Johns Hopkins: If one is socially well-connected, it’s possible to find a party about three nights a week (Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, since students here often arrange their schedules to avoid having class on Friday). Age has absolutely NOTHING to do with that. Finding booze during the rest of the week usually requires buying it yourself or finding someone who is of age to buy it for you. What’s generally considered a problem drinker here is someone who drinks the night before a class enough to impair performance IN class, through residual drunkenness, hangover, being totally unable to complete work, or whatever. By that standard, there aren’t that many problem drinkers around, and the general attitude toward them seems to be one of wary tolerance, combined with assertions that they definitely have a PROBLEM and bets on when they’ll enter rehab.

12

There is this FindArticles.com | CBSi but the stuff I was referring to is much older. Your last point is quite true, the “peer group” may offer enticements to join in a perticular activity. The point is that it is the makeup of the individual that dictates whether one conforms. When I was a teenager my peer group were largely drinkers, we encouraged everyone to drink but we didn’t care if some individuals chose not to. So friends of mine that had sufficient “ego” resources to hang around with us without conforming could do so. The rest of us took the easy way - do what the herd does. I will try to dig up more references.

13

Seeing as I was in high school with Hanne Tischler (the girl I think the OP referred to), this is a personal issue for me. The problem is the general attitude towards drinking - the overindulge-when-you-can attitude is causing a lot of drinking issues.

I’ve always been the sober one at parties, partially because I drink for taste and not intoxication, but also because I’ve seen some people dangerously drunk. One anecdote in particular: A party had gone downhill fast when people started going shot-for-shot with each other. We managed to get the really drunk people home, and left the horribly schnockered host and her friend there, knowing they usually can take care of each other.

Twenty minutes later, we were getting a late night meal and my friend’s cell phone rang, with the host’s friend on the line. The call (in her incredibly high-pitched voice): “Help me get Mommy(Her pet name for the host) off the floor! I’m eating (vodka-soaked) pineapple outta the sink…” We ran over there at ungodly speed to help her and drunk-sat all night till she could stand up and safely sleep without getting alcohol poisoning and dying.

For a few moments, we honestly thought the host was dead or something. That was a terrifying moment, but it apparently hasn’t stopped her from drinking heavily at other parties.

14

The girl you are refering to was the one in Hawaii right? No saddly, this student is another student all together. And this recently happened. I do not believe it hit the national news…at least I did not see it.

15

Yup, in fact many college students fall into the “binge drinker” type of alcoholic, who doesn’t drink most nights of the week, but once the weekend (or what passes for one at a college campus - they may begin on Thursday night or earlier depending on your schedule) arrives, they make up for lost time post haste.

I went to UW-Madison in the late '80s-early '90s, and frankly, many of the social events involved house parties and drinking. Sure, there were plenty of other things to do on weekends, but those were harder to seek out casually - they were clubs, scheduled activities, etc. Friends at house parties wouldn’t necessarily pressure you if you weren’t drinking, but I know I quickly realized that if I hadn’t at least been slowly imbibing (even staying non-intoxicated), drunk people tend to be hard to deal with being around.

Once I reached age 21, my level of drinking dropped off dramatically. No binges on weekends at all; if I went out to a bar with friends, I’d have one or two drinks. In fact, my alcohol consumption was highest as a freshman (I recall having about 12 plastic cups of beer at one party, over the course of 4 hours perhaps) and declined slowly during the following years, but fell off almost completely after I turned 21. I hadn’t drank at all before going to college.

I think college makes it easier for alcoholics to fit in, as many of their fellow students are engaging in the same behavior - if they stick to binge drinking. However, people that drank a fair amount every night were quickly noted as having a “problem” and were seen as a cause for concern by most students. I don’t think that the collegiate experience - from what I’ve seen - “causes” alcoholism, in that alcohol would be encountered and drunk anyway (often even before going to college), and that even most college students have standards about what is just “partying” and what’s “having a problem.”

16

There was one in Hawaii? I knew the recent one in Pennsylvania. Sad about there being more than one.

17

When I attended Penn State, I was a younger student (got there at 16, and graduated at 20), so I never was part of the drinking scene. A lot of my friends were, though, and I had the misfortune to live near their Fraternity Row, so I saw the aftereffects of some pretty bad parties.

Nothing, though, prepared me for my exchange year at Leeds University in England. I know Leeds is a bit of a special case–when I was at Oxford some people there called it “Drunkard’s Uni”–but the amount of alcohol consumption there was almost epic. Many people I knew there were drunk three, four, five nights a week. It was nothing to see somebody drink ten pints or ten shots in an evening. I even knew some lecturers who were often drunk. I’m not a tetotaller, mind, but the drinking was just out of control there, and it put Penn State into some perspective.

Knowing friends of mine from HS who didn’t go to college, I would think excessive drinking as a youth is more just a function of being away from your parents, and being allowed to drink legally for the first time. Yes, the depression and stress drinking may be somewhat unique to college students (and I knew several students who did it), but I don’t think the drinking itself is that unusual, at least not on the American campuses I’ve been involved with.

18

I think that alcoholism is mostly just a symptom of what college really puts you at risk for: mental illness. I knew of several people in college who had nervous breakdowns and one who ran away to join a cult. Going to college is one of the biggest transitions you can make in life. You might be away from home for the first time and in a new town, with a new set of peers and friends. You have the freedom to be whoever you want, but that can entail jumping from identity to identity. You might have pressure to do well in school and work a job on top of it. All this and you’re 19. I think people turn to drinking to ease the feelings of lonliness and dislocation.

“Budding alcoholics” sounds fishy to me because I don’t think most people continue to drink like that after they leave school. A small percentage who can’t handle life become drunks but they probably would have done so in a non-college situation anyways.

19

I’ll speak only from my own college experience. I went to a small (under 2,000 students) liberal arts college in a small town. Without the draw of a larger city’s nightlife or cultural events, social life was pretty much restricted to on-campus festivities. Sure, many of said festivities featured booze as a prominent event. But there did exist options–many of them sponsored by on-campus groups–that specifically did not serve alcohol and did their best to remain non-alcohol events.

I’d probably be less concerned about peer pressure explanations for binge drinking than I would about those students mentioned who are using alcohol to deal with the stress of college or university life; those who are depressed, homesick, or just not adjusting to the experience in a healthy manner.

20

It has not particularly affected me through college. Being a somewhat Socratic respecter of law (show solidarity and respect for the good laws, even by obeying the stupid ones), I never really drank before 21. In the year since I became of-age, I’ve gotten anywhere near drunk only once, and usually don’t have more than a drink every other night or so. It’s never interested me, and as I think about my roommates, who really have been a wide swath of the male college population, I never really have seen anything I’d call alcoholism.

There was the man-whore social drinker my freshman year, but I rarely saw him drunk, and went to a few house parties with him and friends, and he never really got rip-roaring. (I was the teetotaler at those parties, but most people that wanted to know why I wasn’t drinking respected my “I just don’t drink” answer)

The second roommate, psycho-violent gangsta, never really seemed to touch a drop as far as I know.

Third, graduated Woody Allen wannabe taking advantage of fairly cheap rent, had a bottle of vodka in the freezer, went out with friends a night or two of the week, but was certainly never drunk (and of course, he was of age).

Fourth and fifth, one of age and the other not, never drank and rarely drank, respectively. The of-age who never drank simply had a personality that hated addiction and was very clean living (no caffeine, low-sugar, low-fat, took exercise classes for fun). The underage had some liquor stowed away in a closet, but rarely got it out, and rarely went out.

And now roommates five and six this year, both of age along with me, one drinks about as much as I do, the other not at all. The former will go out to bars with friends, but stops before he has too much, even in a walking town. He has his small collection of liquor and sometimes has some Guinness in the fridge. I have my own set of rum, vodka, and usually a bottle of two of wine. We share as need be, but mostly it’s a little something to unwind at the end of the day, a drink or two.

It’s not to say there aren’t the binge rip-roaring drinkers around my campus. Only, they are easy enough to avoid and still get along well enough and find things to do. No pressure.