<p>"Thompson also praised the members who called 911 on behalf of their intoxicated peers, calling the action “a really amazing and courageous decision.”</p>
<p>Why, if it is covered under the Good Samaritan provisions? (I probably just don’t understand how things are done.) But I thought, under at least some Good Samaritan provisions I have seen, students are liable for disiciplinary action if they DON’T call 911 on behalf of health-compromised peers.</p>
<p>And since when do we celebrate a kid doing nothing more than the ‘right thing.’ If that is what passes for ‘amazing and courageous’ at Dartmouth, it is time for some heads to roll.</p>
<p>If my child had been in attendance and had not been the one making the phone call, I would be mortified. How is that.</p>
<p>I was really appalled by the “amazing and courageous” line also. If my kid didn’t put someone else’s life ahead of staying out of trouble, then I’ve done some seriously misguided parenting.</p>
<p>Please humor me if this is a dumb question, since I am not, nor have ever been a drinker, nor do have I ever had a family member in that category. Could someone please explain how so many heavy-drinking high school kids can attain to the level of accomplishment necessary to gain admission to an elite school? My S and 2 high school friends are at Dartmouth. None of them were drinkers/big partyers and I don’t think they are now either. In fact, none of S’s hs friends who got into any of the Ivies/top LAC’s are partyers. Around here, partying and being a top student are almost mutally exclusive social categories; there’s no time to drink much if you must keep up with all those AP’s and demanding EC’s. And once in an elite school which presumably is academically demanding, how do heavy drinkers handle their school work if they’re drunk and hungover so much?</p>
<p>I can explain a little of it, but great questions. First of all, the data. I’m using Williams data from its own student surveys and assuming that Dartmouth is going to be similar. Roughly 50% of the student body binged in the past two weeks (maybe slightly higher at Dartmouth, given its fraternity scene). Higher for white students, lower for minorities; higher for males, lower for females. Roughly 30% of the student body are heavy (near daily 2+ drinks a day) drinkers (again, higher for whites and males). Probably 20-25% of the student body are total abstainers, leaving moderate drinkers as the smallest group on campus. We are getting to really smallish numbers if we are looking for white male moderate drinkers.</p>
<p>Alcoholics develop tolerance over time. It takes more and more to get the same buzz; and more and more to appear drunk. Hangovers may be less frequent. At some point, for many, they will experience withdrawal symptoms if they don’t drink. Until the body breaks down, many are very high functioning (alcoholism, unlike other drug addiction, is not more common among lower income groups, and for neither alcoholism nor drug addiction does it sort by intelligence). And because of increased tolerance, work may be less affected than one might otherwise imagine (again, until the body begins to break down.)</p>
<p>It is very, very unlikely (statistically) that in a group of 10 friends going to Ivies or top LACs, 3 or 4 (higher at Dartmouth) will not be past two-week binge drinkers, unless they are Latter Day Saints or similar.</p>
<p>“Please humor me if this is a dumb question, since I am not, nor have ever been a drinker, nor do have I ever had a family member in that category.”</p>
<p>I know the exact feeling. Half a beer puts me to sleep. The gene for alcohol abuse/alcoholism just doesn’t exist in my family. So it has taken me almost a decade of professional work in the field to get my head around it, and it still strikes me as surprising. </p>
<p>But by the same token, I roomed with an alcoholic in college, and wouldn’t have been able to understand him as such until 20 years later.</p>
<p>I agree with GFG, it’s hard for me to put my mind around drinking heavily and pursuing the most rigorous intellectual challenge possible. I guess my IQ just isn’t high enough. </p>
<p>Is anyone familiar with the book “Smashed”? I found the young woman’s account of binge drinking and attending college hard to believe as well, although supposedly it’s a true story. I was wondering if it wasn’t another “Million Little Pieces”- mostly fiction.</p>
<p>I can’t imagine being puking-up-blood sick and still being able to study Russian Literature.</p>
<p>I read the book Smashed and while it’s incredible in one sense, found it believable. I think the key is in Mini’s statement ‘until the body breaks down’. It’s like a tobaggan ride that ends off a cliff. While you’re watching a 16 or 18 year old, they’re in the euphoric, fun, early stages. Not all stay on for the full ride, but the ones that do end up going off the cliff. It just takes time to get there. </p>
<p>I think that’s why it’s so hard for parents’ anti-drinking message to get through. It looks like fun. I was just told by a parent in our school that it’s no longer enough to ask if a parent will be present at a party. You have to ask if the parent serves alcohol to minors. I can’t wrap my head around this: that your child is somehow safer is (s)he drinks in your own home. As if parental presence somehow interrupts the biochemical changes that take place while drinking. If they did, who’d want to drink anymore? And why does that parent think it’s okay to serve alcohol to other children? Call me old fashioned, but I think my kid is safer if they know it’s against the law and that if, after hearing me say it’s not acceptable, it’s a different health issue for young adults vs. mature adults, they still want to drink they’ll have to work really hard to hide it from me and it probably isn’t worth the risk that I’ll find out. </p>
<p>How in the world can a parent encourage underage drinking?</p>
<p>It is viewed as “a really amazing and courageous decision” because calling 911 was tantamount to ratting out a hazing ritual. Dartmouth administrators are well aware of the code of silence and sanctity of hazing among Greek organizations.</p>
<p>I do realize that; I’m just “amazed” by the misplaced sense of priorities that one would even consider that when someone’s health/life is at stake.</p>
<p>GFG–see what parents don’t know thread. Maybe everyone you know of is a non-drinker but the odds are highly against it.</p>
<p>barrons: lol, yeah I was reading that thread earlier. My guess is that my son’s friends don’t fall into the correct statistical category, as they are mostly Indian and Chinese–not white. (I had always thought Chinese people WERE white–I mean they’re certainly not yellow as per the children’s song, lol–but S told me his Chinese friends most definitely do not count themselves as white.)</p>
<p>Edit: I’m afraid the above makes me sound rather stupid; of course I know Chinese people aren’t Caucasian. I guess since it’s such a melting pot here where I live racial categories have become somewhat meaningless and little-used. I’m white, H is Hispanic (though he always believed growing up in S. America that he was white, since there the comparison is with the indigenous peoples), so what is my S?</p>
<p>I think every kid should have a credit card sized card in their wallet that states how many drinks it takes to get alcohol poisoning and also states the symptoms of alcohol poisoning.These should be issued at the beginning of every school year middle school through college (they already exist). Now they just need somebody sober enough to read it. And that thing about your kids friends parents offering them booze… yep it happens and shocks the heck out of you which parents it is!</p>
<p>“I read the book Smashed and while it’s incredible in one sense, found it believable. I think the key is in Mini’s statement ‘until the body breaks down’.”</p>
<p>It can take a surprisingly long time for the body to break down. My Dad - always a heavy drinker really didn’t fall apart until he was in his late 60s or early 70s. Unless you lived with him you would never think he was an alcoholic. He was never visibly drunk. He had a very responsible job and did it well. But until recently he’s had 4 plus drinks every day. </p>
<p>Mini no doubt knows better, but most of the people I knew who drank too much in college confined it to weekends.</p>
<p>In many instances, I don’t believe students equate being passed out in a pool of your own vomit as being health or life threatening. After all, they’ve seen that situation lots of times and no one has been hurt, right? Maybe a hangover and some embarrasing pictures but nothing more serious. And, if a student is concerned, with the code of silence and sense of “brotherhood/sisterhood” that permeates these activities (after all, you wouldn’t be here if you didn’t want or need to belong to the “family”) someone will most likely convince you that the student you thought was in trouble really isn’t because this happens all the time at college and your following through with your concern will bring unwelcomed and unwarranted consequences to the “family”.</p>
<p>I am using the term “family” because I don’t necessarily want to imply that it is just Greek organizations where this code of silence exists. It can be among sports teams or even tight knit group of friends. In any case, I agree with the official at Dartmouth, it does take great courage to go against the prevailing wisdom of the group that this is not serious to stand up for your own gut feeling that this is. I applaud Dartmouth’s administration for making a positive statement about the individual who stood up against the group to do the right thing. If we don’t spotlight and reinforce “just doing the right thing” then the culture becomes one of “just don’t get caught doing the wrong thing”. Personally, I prefer the former.</p>
<p>keepmesane…excellent post.</p>
<p>“Mini no doubt knows better, but most of the people I knew who drank too much in college confined it to weekends.”</p>
<p>I really don’t know if that has changed. My roommate was a near-daily (daily by senior year) drinker - vodka only. I would have thought mostly weekends. But if the hear-current data from Williams (and Duke) are to be believed, roughly 60% of the two-week binge drinkers are also “heavy drinkers” (nearly daily). </p>
<p>Statistically, roughly half (or just a little more) of those will become alcoholics as defined in the DSM-IV, if they aren’t so already. Genetics plays a very heavy role.</p>
<p>I was certainly what mini defines as a “binge drinker” in college, and probably went through periods my freshman year of being a “heavy drinker”, too (although that got old fast). I’m sure it interfered with my academic performance, but not enough to keep me from doing very, very well at a very good college (about exactly as well as my wife, who had a glass of wine every month or so). It was not confined to weekends at all. Thursday was a BIG night, and my sophmore year some friends sponsored a regular Tuesday night party (because who has parties on Tuesday night?). I tended to have classes in the late morning and afternoon. I would go to class/work, say, from 10 am to 10 pm (with long, leisurely meals, and maybe some soccer on fall afternoons) and then party 10 pm to 2 am (not every night). I very rarely felt hung over, and if I had drunk THAT much it was probably Saturday or Sunday and I had some recovery time. I danced a lot at parties. It really wasn’t that hard.</p>
<p>I became more and more aware of the effects of alcohol on me as time went on. I stopped drinking every day about 2/3ds of the way through my first year, because I thought it was depressing me. I went through a period of often having one drink a day during an internship in NYC my third year, but I decided that you could become dependent on that and the behavioral changes, while small, were definitely there, so I cut that out. By the time I was a senior, my best friend and I decided to drink only two days a week (a big maturity step), and as the year went on we cut back a lot on the amount we drank as we realized that one of his roommates was an alcoholic whom we were enabling. (He had an interesting situation – a group of four roommates that essentially stayed constant for four years, where one was a complete teetotaller, one a very moderate, occasional drinker, and two were very party-hearty types, one of whom actually wound up as a deeply alcoholic street person for a while years later.) I cut back more on frequency and quantity in grad school when my schedule got crazy (and my non-partying girlfriend moved in), and then really cut back when we had kids because I realized that even one beer affected my patience and engagement with them.</p>
<p>GFG–I would agree that Asians and Indians are far less likely to drink much if at all. Hispanics and Blacks are in the middle and whites are the most party-hearty drinkers of all. On average of course.</p>
<p>This thread is very timely because my non-drinking high school varsity rower has applied early decision to Dartmouth. He spent two nights on campus in late September, staying in a dorm, visiting classes, and even going to one frat party. He said that while some guys at the party were drinking, plenty were not. His hosts, all athletes, assured him that there is no pressure to drink at these parties, and no one offered him a drink during his visit. The reputation for heavy drinking at Dartmouth is still a big concern of mine although my son does not seem to be worried in the least. Dartmouth was the 11th college we visited and the first one that he got excited about, so I am trying to be positive and supportive despite my worries.</p>
<p>Spoke with my Dartmouth '10 about the social scene. He affirmed that his class is the worst the college has had as far as alcohol-related incidents. Ambulances and fire trucks are regularly seen around campus on party nights. S would agree that most people attend parties, and do so for the purpose of drinking a lot and hooking up. </p>
<p>That said, S feels no pressure to drink. First, nothing about the party scene appeals to him, and second because he’s there first and foremost to study. He has a hometown friend at Dart, and the two of them spend a good bit of time together studying. Also, he has become involved with several clubs on campus and has met nice people, though he does not see them outside the club functions. He admits that part of the reason for that is because he hasn’t tried to arrange more interaction but believes he could pursue that if he chose to. S is not a kid who needs to feel popular or have tons of social interaction, so the situation is good enough for him.</p>
<p>He seems content enough. I would have preferred a different social environment for him, but of the schools he was admitted to this was his favorite for other reasons which he deemed more important.</p>