A student's perspective on college drinking - Opinion piece from Stanford Daily

Parent Cafe
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<p>Whether it is a “phase” or not, if it is a problem, why would we just ignore it? 3-year olds have temper tantrums. We know it is just a “phase” (in most cases). But do we just let their behavior go unchecked? Isn’t that what binge drinking is–out of control, unchecked behavior? </p>

<p>Although this writer expresses many reasons to justify why students drink (“But it also makes us relax, laugh more, socialize easier. Really, it is an accepted social crutch: something to do, a way to let loose, a get-out-of-jail free card we use to explain far too many things.”) she does not come close to explaining why they drink excessively. Mature responsible social drinking is also done to “relax, laugh more, socialize easier.” And without changing the attitudes that lead to excessive drinking to begin with, we will accomplish little.</p>

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<p>I would agree with scansmom.
If you are participating in behavior that is harmful, illegal,dangerous, just because your peers are also participating in that behavior, does not make it less stupid and wrong.
I realize that when you surround yourself with those that have similar values and behaviors, it can be difficult to look at your own behavior and ask " is this right for me? Is this what I want?".</p>

<p>For example, I am reading a book by a woman who spent summers with relatives who matter of factly behaved “badly”. However, she didn’t realize that others behaved differently, and felt it was very normal.
No it didn’t scar her for life, she grew up to be news producer for ABC and marry a Polish prince ( who tragically died a few weeks after the death of his best friend & his wife, who was her best friend)-but I wonder how long you can stay in an environment and still be able to see beyond it.</p>

<p>We all have tried to explain and justify immature harmful behavior. Having a strong command of the English language and using it to defend our choices, doesn’t make the behavior less harmful or immature.</p>

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<p>You’re all still missing the point.</p>

<p>636</p>

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<p>You’re all still missing the point</p>

<p>I don’t think so.</p>

25

<p>Telling a dog that it is a dog does not get the dog to stop eating trash.</p>

<p>All you’re doing is agreeing with everyone else that this is a problem.</p>

<p>WE KNOW IT IS.</p>

<p>Like I said earlier, bringing the problem to light is not the point of the article. Everyone seemed to ignore that part, though, and kept whining about “No, it IS a problem.”</p>

<p>636</p>

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<p>I think you’re missing the point</p>

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<p>A big piece of the article seems to be about rationalizing why college age kids drink so much and why it is okay (helps us relax, socialize, etc.). The author says maybe they will not <em>need</em> alcohol as much post college. Why do college age kids <em>need</em> it in the first place? Yep, I’m missing the point. I wish more people, especially young people would also <em>miss the point</em> of drinking to excess.</p>

28

<p>

I agree with this. Especially the “more people”. I find myself avoiding functions anymore where alcohol is going to be a focal point. Young people are certainly not the only ones who make asses of themselves under the influence.</p>

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<p>JHS- loved the story of the Philadelphia Police Commissioner!!</p>

<p>What interests me in this discussion is the point-of-view of the family of a non-binging student who wants to see their child enjoy college. The example about drunk students stepping on the birthday cakes is real.</p>

<p>Parents have a point-of-view, because many of us struggle MIGHTILY financially to send students to college. I am SO SICK of stories of drunken boorishness taking over the social scene and airtime for (yes) MY child, and many others. It’s a “silent majority” thing. </p>

<p>It REALLY hurt my heart when our son wrote home about having to move out of his freshman dorm room. Not only did it STINK from the boy’s vomit, but this binge-drinking roommate brought in drunk friends to the room, who FELL OVER on his electric instrument for which we made great financial sacrifice and meant the world to my son’s major IN MUSIC (one of two majors).</p>

<p>My son leapt through the air and cradled the instrument just before it crashed to the ground and shattered. That was a last straw, and he moved out midway through Freshman year.</p>

<p>You know, as a parent, I deeply resent killing myself with hard work to pay for a dorm room where my kid gets minimal use, has to mop up someone else’s vomit, and can’t be confident that his possessions are safe. There was also the time and effort to relocate…but okay, that’s just life and everything’s a learning experience.</p>

<p>Justice came, however, when this same roommate got arrested in the town during soph year for DWI, nearly killing another student. The college required him to GO HOME for a semester, get his life together, and return to campus only if he did all that. Which he did. I guess he graduated a semester late. I was glad his parents faced financial consequences for his drinking, too.</p>

30

<p>well it finally worked?
With our nice jobs, we treat ourselves to nicer things — fancy clothes, better cars, less-disgusting alcohol.</p>

<p>Why would you drink anything that you think is disgusting?</p>

<p>The above statement, and other supporting comments illustrate to me, that she is using alcohol as medicine- it is supposed to make her more relaxed, more social, so she endures it even though she doesn’t like the taste or the expense.</p>

<p>Its pretty sad, that she is a senior in college, and I assume reasonably intelligent, but she still feels compelled to drink alcohol, because that is what grownups do.</p>

<p>I drink because I like it- not just getting a buzz, because I don’t drink that much, while I certainly feel the effects of one mixed drink- or one bottle of beer, but I like the flavor, I like the aftertaste & I like the bite.
I even like the smell, and the color. I especially like the different shapes of glasses they come in.</p>

<p>But someone who is considering “preloading” to save money, who drinks even though she thinks the taste is disgusting- & who tries to get the effects of alcohol as quickly and cheaply as she can-
she has a drinking problem, now.
It doesn’t matter if she only drinks once a month or once a semester.</p>

<p>If she counting on circumstances to force her to stop drinking, she may be in big trouble when she finds out as a working adult, with business and social obligations, that alcohol may be even more available to her than as a college student working on her degree.</p>

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<p>she might also lose a “nice job” or two, early in her post-college career, as I’ve seen happen around me with new graduates who can’t keep it together when they have to, y’know, SHOW UP at work at 8:30 a.m. come hell or high water.</p>

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<p>Either you folks have short selective memories or this is a unique self-selected group of the dullest college students on the planet. You drink in college because it can be fun as can smoking good pot and all the other bad for you things around in the 60’s/70’s era and mostly still around today. Many potentially dangerous activities are done just to do it. Why does anyone really need to climb a mountain drive a race car? I guess if you don’t get it there is no explaining it. Now if you are not having a good time doing it–then don’t do it. Because fun is the point.</p>

<p>Mini, you wrote “The reality is that, in the next 20 years, roughly a third (slightly more) of the college binge drinkers will become abstinent or moderate drinkers (the wine sippers), a third (slightly less) will become heavy (near daily) drinkers, but not alcoholics, and a third will become alcoholics, if they aren’t so already.”</p>

<p>I see no mention of ultra-frequent bingers or any other qualifiers.</p>

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<p>Thank you for finally bringing in the voice of reason, barrons.</p>

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<p>I would hardly compare training for high altitude climbs to preloading liquor before going to a party and complaining about the cost and the taste.</p>

<p>I know some people who are high altitude climbers and I have read books by many others. To prepare for a climb takes months if not years of training, committment, and focus, it isn’t something you just do thoughtlessly, like choking down shots before you go “out”</p>

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<p>Many would call both a waste of time and energy. I watched a bunch of folks trying to climb Everest on TV. What was supposed to impress me about that other than their stupidity?</p>

<p>Mini, I read through 300+ pagers of the latest Monitoring the Future study and found nothing to back your claims. Provide a link or something concrete.</p>

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<p>"Mini, you wrote “The reality is that, in the next 20 years, roughly a third (slightly more) of the college binge drinkers will become abstinent or moderate drinkers (the wine sippers), a third (slightly less) will become heavy (near daily) drinkers, but not alcoholics, and a third will become alcoholics, if they aren’t so already.”</p>

<p>I see no mention of ultra-frequent bingers or any other qualifiers."</p>

<p>Read the previous paragraph. We do know, from literally dozens of studies, where the college bingers end up, but only because we also have general data regarding how many become heavy drinkers while in college. We even have studies about fraternity v. non-fraternity drinkers, and where they end up, data on what happens to binge drinkers year over year, and data on the behavior of college binge drinkers before they ever got to college. We also have data on future risks for liver cancers, cirrhosis, and alcohol-related deaths, and some little data on future income (college drinkers do quite well, though they started off with higher than average family incomes.)</p>

<p>Where the differences lie, and why direct inference cannot be made from the binge data, is that (as, again, I already noted) the percentage of college binge drinkers who become college heavy drinkers does in fact vary pretty widely school to school - it is very high at my alma mater (where 29% are heavy drinkers), much lower elsewhere.</p>

<p>You will find some summaries of the data in Monitoring the Future, 2006, Volume 1, 25-26 (to go further, you need their complete data book which is not online); also, by the same authors in Addiction 100, 512-524 (“Selection and Socializtion effects of fraternities and sororities on U.S. college susbtance use: A multi-cohort national logitudinal study”; you will find binge and heavy drinking data among college students in Wechsler et al. from the Harvard School of Public Health -here are links to 30 or 40 studies from them - <a href=“http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/cas/AllIndex.html[/url]”>http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/cas/AllIndex.html&lt;/a&gt; You might also choose to familiarize yourself with CORE Survey from Southern Illinois University, which is the most common assessment instrument used at colleges and universities - <a href=“http://www.siu.edu/departments/coreinst/public_html/[/url]”>http://www.siu.edu/departments/coreinst/public_html/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>I’d love to see the data. I have worked in a fair number of pretty large offices with people who readily admitted drinking their fair share in college and I can think of only one person who was over 30 and a real alcoholic. And she was the one that came off as the most hard working and straight laced but was a secret drinker and started missing work in the morning. Then she broke her ankle while walking drunk to the liquor store from home. The rest of us had put away our drinking hats and moved into the typical middle-age life of work and home. If anyone drank they certainly hid it well. My school has a 60% binge rate and I keep in touch with about 500 people from my dept. For most of us the only time we get lit up anymore is at the biannual reunion. For old times sake.</p>

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<p>I have five college classmates (out of a class of 300) who I know died of either liver cancer or cirrhosis in their 40s. (There may have been more.) Three out of five had advance degrees, all were successful, all were married with children, one was a bank president. My roommate (as I’ve said before) was an alcoholic, but not a partier or binger - as long as he had his two shots of vodka in the morning, he was okay. He was murdered a block from Harvard Yard (probably returning from a liquor run, but I wouldn’t classify that as an alcohol-related death.)</p>

<p>As I wrote, even while in college, the percentage of students who move from bingeing to heavy drinking varies quite widely - very high at my alma mater and some of the other prestigious institutions for which I have seen the data, but much lower at others. It HAS to be - there just aren’t enough alcoholics who are Penn State or UColorado graduates! ;)</p>

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<p>Many would call both a waste of time and energy. I watched a bunch of folks trying to climb Everest on TV. What was supposed to impress me about that other than their stupidity?</p>

<p>Not familiar with that- as I really don’t watch Tv except to catch a few minutes at the gym, but since I have been going at least 5 times a week, I admit that can add up ( I am motivated by training for a surfing /snorkling vacation) That might seem “stupid”, I suppose for someone who isn’t interested in gliding along the surface of the water, but I intend on my body to last a long time, and finding new experiences to challenge it makes me feel 30 years younger.
What I feel is “stupid” are people whose days are spent consuming & or accumulating wealth, so that they can then consume some more- but we all have different values and interests, right?</p>

<p>I guess some are more interested in tossing back a few- but at least I will be able to * remember my exploits* ;)</p>

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<p>The only people I knew from college who have died prematurely had colitis that had nothing to do with drinking as they could not drink much due to their condition. We have a monthly alumni newsletter that covers major life events for our group so I tend to hear about things between the reunions that about half the alums attend every two years.</p>

<p>The Tv show</p>

<p><a href=“http://dsc.discovery.com/convergence/everestbeyond/everestbeyond.html[/url]”>http://dsc.discovery.com/convergence/everestbeyond/everestbeyond.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;