<p>I don’t understand race car driving either . . . but I’m less worried about my college age kids taking up race car driving than getting drunk and doing stupid harmful things.</p>
<p>I’ve done both and racing was more fun but way more dangerous. And $$$$.</p>
<p>I don’t get why there is so much confusion about mini’s data, since it has never seemed all that surprising to me. You have to pay attention to the distinction between binge drinking and heavy drinking. They are two overlapping subsets of college drinkers. As I understand mini’s various statements (and without going back to check for precision): College binge drinking in and of itself is not necessarily a significant risk factor for future alcoholism, but college heavy drinking is. </p>
<p>Most of what we talk about on CC, and what the article in this thread is about, is binge drinking. Those of us who remember having fun drinking in college were generally binge drinking. The people throwing up on your teetotalling child’s dormroom threshold are binge drinking. Most, but not all, heavy drinkers are also engaging in binge drinking, but most binge drinkers are not heavy drinkers. Obviously, it is probably easier to be a heavy drinker, and not to have that noticed or stigmatized, in a culture with a lot of binge drinking.</p>
<p>Once I followed through the math on some of mini’s statistics, and what they produced was a percentage of future alcoholics that pretty much corresponded to statistics about the percentage of adult alcoholics. That’s why I believe them – they’re not very surprising.</p>
<p>Wow Barrons. I don’t understand it, but I’m impressed. </p>
<p>Anyway, with two alcoholic parents, I worry about my kids, maybe more than most . . .</p>
<p>None of these incidents involve binge drinking as I see it defined currently, just inappropriate drinking.</p>
<p>I didn’ t go to college, but while I was still in high school, there was one particularly memorable accident, in my neighborhood after the “senior” keg.
Several students( tip top students incidentally- class president all that) who were in a volkswagen bug apparently were going fairly quick down a stretch of road and hit a telephone poll killing one of them, and putting another in the hospital for months ( and going home with a steel plate in her skull)</p>
<p>Shortly after I left high school, a friend was in a minor car accident while drinking, he was looked at and released. Several weeks later, he was with us when he began seizing and went into a coma and died. A clot had apparently formed at the time of the original accident- I think he was probably 19.</p>
<p>I met my husband when I was 18, I didn’t realize it at the time, but he is an alcoholic. I thought that he just drank socially, like it seemed many of my peers did, especially the boys. He has stopped drinking now, but there is a lot of water under the bridge.</p>
<p>When I was 20, one of my very best friends died along with another friend, at a party on lake Sammamish. I wasn’t there, because I was home with my boyfriend, but they had attemped to cross the lake on a fairly stormy October night. Their bodies were never found ( it is a very deep lake), and it pretty much devastated me for a long time.</p>
<p>These are just a couple of the incidents that made a big impact on me, in my small suburban community, and I don’t mention the friends, who learned to drink in high school, and never stopped, or the “accidents” that didn’t sound so accidental, the fights, the rapes, the property destruction and gradual dimming of prospects, because they never learned to cope with life without the help of liquid “relaxation”.</p>
<p>So yes I acknowledge that I drank, before it was legal for me to drink. I am lucky that I am not the addictive type. But I also wish that some adult had stepped in at some point, and tried to educate kids about drinking.
For example when the homecoming queen was killed after the senior party. It would have been a great time, to wake up, and realize that students in that area, were drinking alot, that they didn’t know how to look for danger signs in themselves or others and they didn’t know where to go for help if they needed it.
Its not a necessary part of growing up</p>
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<p>A lot depends on the particular survey. For example, Weschler has two categories:</p>
<p>a) Binge drinking: consuming 5 drinks (4 for women) in one sitting at least once in the prior two weeks.</p>
<p>b) Frequent binge drinking: the above at least three times in the prior two weeks.</p>
<p>While the simple binge drinking category correlates with many negative behaviors on college campuses, it doesn’t correlate with future alcoholism as it includes many students who drink once a week.</p>
<p>The frequent binge drinking category includes students who are binge drinking multiple times per week. This category has a very high correlation with negative behaviors on campus and is, IMO, probably the group that causes the serious disruption.</p>
<p>If I recall without looking it up, nationally about half of the binge drinkers are frequent binge drinkers. So, if you have a 30% binge drinking rate, you might guess that about 15% of your students are drinking heavily multiple times per week and causing disruption. 15% is probably night high enough to make the campus feel like it’s a drunk tank. On the other hand, if you have a 60% binge drinking rate, nearly a third of your students are probably drinking heavily multiple times per week. That’s a very disruptive force on campus.</p>
<p>That is essentially correct. Note that binge drinking was redefined in 2004 by the National Institute on Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse (and accepted by Wechsler and others) as 5 drinks (4 for women) within a two-hour period. When they made the redefinition to be more clear, they quickly discovered that it had no impact on the data whatsover.</p>
<p>“Heavy drinking” is dual defined as drinking (2+ drinks) nearly every day, or frequent bingeing (3-4 times every two weeks.)</p>
<p>“If I recall without looking it up, nationally about half of the binge drinkers are frequent binge drinkers. So, if you have a 30% binge drinking rate, you might guess that about 15% of your students are drinking heavily multiple times per week and causing disruption.”</p>
<p>This is what varies from campus to campus. At our common alma mater, with a bingeing rate of around 50%, 29% (according to the college’s own survey) are heavy drinkers. I have seen similar data for Duke and Dartmouth and several other schools, which means it is more than half. But I have also seen data for schools where the heavy drinking rate is well less than half the binge rate.)</p>
<p>There is indeed an association between college heavy drinking and current and future alcoholism. There are more than a few students who are already alcoholics, often having started to drink as young as age 14 (or even earlier). But the disruption to campus life (and associated risks) are, for most folks, the larger concern.</p>
<p>That’s right, Mini, “the disruption to campus life (and associated risks) are, for most folks, the larger concern.”
…because that’s where the behaviors of others are altering and diminishing the lives of those not choosing those behaviors. As a parent-stakeholder in the process (paying for rooms, paying for access of kids to professors) I’m aware of the “air-time” taken up by others. I’m sick of having to pay a divided percentage of “dorm damage” distributed equally among all residents at the end of the term, for example. I’m also sick of parents who consider that a wink and normalcy of college living. Maybe for your kids; not for mine.</p>
<p>The problem with many of the conclusions reached here is that they conflate and inflate data. </p>
<p>I have never seen Williams generated statistics that specifically refer to ‘binge” drinking. This is an emotionally weighted term that skews interpretation to suit the agenda of the interpreter. </p>
<p>Two years ago Williams published a survey that classed 29% the respondents as “heavy drinkers” defined by the report as drinking 10 or more drinks per WEEK. </p>
<p>Another survey, which was actually a study on diversity, polled different ethnic groups and compared behavior in several areas, alcohol consumption being just one of many. Of the 1000 students who responded 27% of all African Americans, 53% of all Latinos, 39% of all Asian, and 58% of all Whites “Had five or more drinks on one OR MORE occasions in [the] LAST TWO WEEKS.” </p>
<p>No question but that 10 drinks is a lot of alcohol, but 10 beers spread out over a week is not necessarily abusive. No question but that “five drinks in a row” meaning 5 shots lined up on the bar and chugged one after another is unacceptable and dangerous behavior; however, the Williams College Diversity Initiatives Self Study did NOT imply that scenario. </p>
<p>One thing is irrefutable: We have LOTS of data. What we don’t have is consistent data from school to school or sensible criteria and definitions.</p>
<p>Using Williams own data as a springboard (29% had 10+ drinks a week, 58% had 5 drinks on one or MORE occasions in the last TWO WEEKS) and combining other reports from other schools and other professional surveys which use other definitions lead to the following nonsensical conclusions:</p>
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<p>When applied to Williams, these are outlandishly misleading comments, taken out of context and combined with unrelated data and incendiary language.</p>
<p>Of course, we hate boorish drunken behavior. Of course we hate destruction of property. NOBODY IS DEFENDING SUBSTANCE ABUSE.</p>
<p>Believe me, don’t believe me. Love Williams, hate Williams. I don’t care. But I do care that Williams own statistics are being outrageously and inaccurately manipulated.</p>