Drinking on College Campuses
Underage students drinking on college campuses has been a problem for countless years. Parents and professors look over the problem of students drinking and look at their college life in a positive way. They understand the students to be studying, making new friends, or working. Instead, an abundance of students are partying and drinking at these parties. The transformation from high school to college causes stress to the students. Therefore, instead of the students looking towards studying more, they start partying to solve their problems. Once they start partying, it gets harder for them to stop and they become depressed. Students drinking at college has become a provision for them, thinking it would help with their stress and problems rather than causing other predicaments.
Parents would like to think that their children are doing what they’re expected to do while at college rather than drinking and partying. According to Lucy E. Napper who wrote “What Are Other Parents Saying? Perceived Parental Communication Norms And The Relationship Between Alcohol-Specific Parental Communication And College Student Drinking,” states parents perceive their children to be studying and making new friends. The parents presume their children to be cramming in plenty of studying for the upcoming classes (Napper 6, 7). According to Paul J. Gruenewald who wrote “A Dose–Response Perspective On College Drinking And Related Problems,” states students should be making new friends their first year at the college and meeting these friends in classes rather than at parties (Gruenewald 257). According to Henry Wechsler who wrote “Commentary on Fitzpatrick And Colleagues (2012): Forecasting The Effect Of The Amethyst Init...
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...ng Alcohol On College Campuses, Commentary On ' Structuring A College Alcohol Prevention Program On The Low Level Of Response To Alcohol Model: A Pilot Model'." Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research. 36.7 (2012): 1126-1130. Academic Search Complete. Web. EBSCO. Missouri Valley College. 16 Jan. 2014.
Voas, Robert B., and James C. Fell. "Commentary On Fitzpatrick And Colleagues (2012): Forecasting The Effect Of The Amethyst Initiative On College Drinking." Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research. 36.9 (2012): 1479-1482. Academic Search Complete. Web. EBSCO. Missouri Valley College. 16 Jan. 2014.
Wechsler, Henry, et al. "Underage College Students' Drinking Behavior, Access To Alcohol, And The Influence Of Deterrence Policies." Journal Of American College Health. 50.5 (2002): 223. Academic Search Complete. Web. EBSCO. Missouri Valley College. 16 Jan. 2014.
College student drunkenness is far from new and neither are college and university efforts to control it. What is new, however, is the potential to make real progress on this age-old problem based on scientific research results. New research-based information about the consequences of high-risk college drinking and how to reduce it can empower colleges and universities, communities, and other interested organizations to take effective action. Hazardous drinking among college students is a widespread problem that occurs on campuses of all sizes and geographic locations. A recent survey of college students conducted by the Harvard University School of Public Health reported that 44 percent of respondents had drunk more than five drinks (four for women) consecutively in the previous two weeks. About 23 percent had had three or more such episodes during that time. The causes of this problem are the fact that students are living by themselves no longer with parents or guardians; they earn their own money; students need to be a part of a group, be accepted; and they have the wrong idea that to feel drunk is “cool.”
Many temptations are faced in college culture and one of them is underage drinking and driving. Underage drinking and driving has essentially become an epidemic, rapidly developing among today’s youth. College culture has come to encourage drinking and driving through the places and people that surround the students (National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, October 2002). Some people don’t see underage drinking as an issue, when in fact it is a huge issue that every teenager will face. Since underage drinking is illegal people want to rebel by drinking; additionally, alcohol is really easy to get ahold of in college. Since many students are going to drink, the first line of defense is to educate students about the effects of alcohol and what can happen if students do drink and drive. Unless we are able to put a stop to underage drinking and driving through education, and a system called smart start the problem wont get any better.
Why do college students drink so much? This timeless fad has effected this generation in high percentages since the beginning of college education. Today in America it is estimated that approximately 29% of college students are regular alcohol abusers. Another recent study by the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism performed showed that college students suffered 1,400 deaths, 70,000 date rapes and assaults, and 500,000 injuries each year as a result of alcohol. (McDonald) Although binge drinking (5+ drinks in one sitting) is considered a normal part of the college experience many factors contribute to whether or not an individual is more prone to be an abuser.
However, the drinking age does not cause problems in colleges. In fact, “college environments that afford easy access to low-cost alcohol, have few policies restricting accessibility to alcohol, and have lax enforcement of existing policies create the conditions for heavy drinking among college students” (Wechsler and Nelson). The problem of alcohol is not that there is an age restriction, it’s the easy access of alcohol. With easy access of alcohol, creates the possibly of binge drinking to occur, which is most prevalent in colleges. Binge drinking occurs because of the new freedoms young adults have. They are finally away from their parents and they can do whatever they like whenever they like, unlike before. It does not matter if the legal drinking age is 18 or 30, college students are going to drink with an age restriction or
We've all heard it before: "Too much of anything is bad for us." The amount of binge drinking occurring on American college campuses today proves that college students do not heed this warning. Binge drinking, or drinking for the purpose of getting drunk, harms both drinkers and non-drinkers alike. As today's college students come dangerously close to being swept away in the sea of papers, exams, jobs, and interviews, they use bingeing as the lifeboat that allows them to escape the stress. It allows them to forget their worries, fit in with the crowd, and live on the edge in a fast-paced world that normally does not leave time for such activities. Teetering on the brink of adulthood, yet still trapped in childhood makes drinking decisions difficult for many college students. A desire to get away from our usual lives because of societal regulations and conformity, psychological and emotional problems, and the stress of everyday life causes college binge drinking.
“80 percent of teen-agers have tried alcohol, and that alcohol was a contributing factor in the top three causes of death among teens: accidents, homicide and suicide” (Underage, CNN.com pg 3). Students may use drinking as a form of socializing, but is it really as good as it seems? The tradition of drinking has developed into a kind of “culture” fixed in every level of the college student environment. Customs handed down through generations of college drinkers reinforce students' expectation that alcohol is a necessary ingredient for social success. These perceptions of drinking are the going to ruin the lives of the students because it will lead to the development alcoholism. College students who drink a lot, while in a college environment, will damage themselves mentally, physically, and socially later in life, because alcohol adversely affects the brain, the liver, and the drinkers behavior.
...ementation of screening and counselling programs and comprehensive community interventions can reduce college drinking and associated harm to students and others.
Alcohol use has been an important part of the American college experience since the eighteen century. The early form of drunken college kids with a lifestyle known as “the collegiate subculture”. In the 17000s when “the sons of the rich came to college for four years of pleasure and social contacts. They considered academic work an intrusipon on their fun and they were content to pass their courses with a ‘gentleman’s C’ grade. The collegiate subculture is antieducational with students associated with party scenes, taking precedence over academic endeavors.” Modern college drinking is not limited to power elite, usual universities partiers are from the wealthy. Students use alcohol to demonstrate their privilege status. College for them is not the only pathway to success. They are already success through family wealthy backgrounds. Alcohol consumption is a way to let everyone know about their status and that they had already “made it”.
One of the main reasons students feel the need to binge drink is peer pressure. They do this because their peers are doing it and they want to fit in better. College dorm rooms offer many different places for students to drink. Dorm rooms give a great place for a few people to get together, and before you know it “everybody’s doing it”.
According to a national survey conducted by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, “almost 60 percent of college students ages 18–22 drank alcohol in the past month, 1 and almost 2 out of 3 of them engaged in binge drinking during that same timeframe” (NIH). Binge drinking culture refers to the recent rise and normalization of college age students drinking excessively. The CDC describes binge drinking as “a pattern of drinking that brings a person’s blood alcohol level to 0.08grams within two hours” (CDC). For many young adults, college is one of the first times they will experience complete freedom. This freedom often leads to partying, which goes hand in hand with the consumption of alcohol. However, since the age at which
Numerous students, school organizations such as fraternities and sororities, upper level students and other people around campus condone it. This places immense pressure on the incoming freshmen to fit in and may lead them to party more and focus on their academic studies less. Virtually all college students are affected by drinking, whether directly or indirectly. Even if the student doesn’t drink; noisy dorm hallways or a roommate who has had too much to drink can keep them up. The problem with college drinking is not necessarily the drinking itself, but the negative consequences that result from excessive drinking.
In recent studies by U.S News and World Report, college campuses are turning off the tap. In other words banning alcohol entirely. One of the reasons for the banning of alcohol on campus is due to the outstanding reports of alcohol related incidents that have taken the lives of students. September of 97’, Scott Krueger, and eighteen-year-old freshman at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, died from alcohol poisoning while at a Phi Gamma Delta initiation event.(Reisberg, 1) The lack of action taken by MIT caused the students’ parents to sue them for their irresponsibility.(Reisberg, 2) Another accident that occurred due to alcohol was to a twenty-year-old Louisiana State University student named Benjamin Wynne. Wynne had apparen...
Binge or excessive drinking is the most serious problem affecting social life, health, and education on college campuses today. Binge or excessive drinking by college students has become a social phenomena in which college students do not acknowledge the health risks that are involved with their excessive drinking habits. Furthermore college students do not know enough about alcohol in general and what exactly it does to the body or they do not pay attention to the information given to them. There needs to be a complete saturation on the campus and surrounding areas, including businesses and the media, expressing how excessive drinking is not attractive and not socially accepted.
According to National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, more than 1,800 college students die from alcohol-related causes every year, while about 800,000 are being assaulted by other students because of drinking. About one in every four college students who binge drink also admit that they have experienced academic problems. Binge drinking is drinking multiple drinks in just a few hours to get drunk. Despite the fact that college drinking has caused many issues, it has not been stopped, yet. In article, “Why Colleges Haven’t Stopped Binge Drinking,” McMurtrie (2014) explains that this issue has not been resolved yet because many people still see alcohol abuse as general issue instead of seeing it an individual behavior. Because colleges
In 2008, over 80% of United StateS college students have had at least one alcoholic drink in a span of over two weeks (Johnston, O’Malley, Bachman, & Schulenberg, 2009). 40% of these college students binge drink, having four or more drinks. This exceeds the rate of other non-college peers. Research suggests