College Students' Misuse of Alcohol

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College is the great escape from anyone you know: the idea of being utterly free from any parental supervision, basking in your beginning of adulthood and bathing in activities your parents would not approve of. All of these sound nice, but there is a downfall to these activities. That down fall is alcohol abuse. This is an apparent and growing problem in college campuses around the United States. In this study, I wish to get in-depth in the students misuse of alcohol.

Since colleges have been in place, there have been two institutions, which were started initially to reduce the amount of crime on the campus and create a stronger and well-rounded student. These two institutions are the athletic programs and Greek letter societies. The Greek letter society has existed on U.S. college campuses since the founding of the first university. This is also true with the Athletic programs, being instituted at the first university in the United States. Unfortunately in colleges today, these two establishments are now in competition for who has higher drinking rates, rather than who is a better student. In my research I will examine alcohol use and consequences related to substance abuse among students in fraternities and sororities and compare them to the athletes occurrence of alcohol abuse.

In approaching my research I have reviewed many journals, these studies looked over the underling thought that getting young adults into sports it will promote a healthier lifestyles (Skolnick,1993). These studies were all bringing to sight that the alarming rate of alcohol abuse was more prominent and frequent when a student was involved in some type of sport (Leichiter, Meilman, Preseley & Cashin, 1998). One article even said that the athletes ...

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...ng Resident of Greek Houses" Bulletin of the Core Institute 42(9): 248-255.

3) Leichliter, Meilman, Presley, Cashin, 1998. " Alcohol use and related consequence among student with varying levels of involvement in college athletics" Journal of American College Heath 46(6) 257-264.

4) Grant, Haington, Brigham, Clayton, 1999. "Alcohol Risk and Reduction for Fraternity and Sorority Members" Journal of Studies on Alcohol 60(4) 521-531

5) Skolnick, 1993. "Studies raise doubts benefit of athletics in reducing unhealthy behavior among adolescents" The Journal of the American Medical Association 270(7) 798-802

6) Berg, Bruce L., 1998. Qualitative Research Methods for the Social Sciences. Needham Heights, Ma, Allyn and Bacon.

7) Maxfield, Michael G. and Babbie, Earl, 1998. Research Methods for Criminal Justice and Criminology. Belmont, Ca, Wadsworth Publishing Company.

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