I do not think your D is an “alcoholic” as others have suggested - this is an alcohol “abuse” problem. I have always considered “physical dependency” to define an alcoholic which you have not mentioned.
Unfortunately, the current college campus landscape encourages the abuse of alcohol and it is rampant on the vast majority of campuses. This then carries over to other venues and for some teenagers “partying” is not a complete experience until one is drunk. Then add in peer pressure and you have the “perfect storm” and hence the scenarios you discuss in your OP. I am going to venture that this latest arrest has been a wake-up call for your D.
I am also thinking that perhaps stress might be playing a role here? She is obviously a high achiever and takes college seriously so perhaps she is feeling a bit overwhelmed and is using alcohol as a release. I think you need to impress upon her how all this can affect her future. At this point I do think you need to make this latest fiasco “painful” for her. Make her reimburse the attorneys fees and perhaps even pull back on any discretionary funds you have been providing.
Actually no one on this thread has said that the OP’s daughter is an alcoholic. But the young woman clearly has drug problems: she is addicted to nicotine, which is a problem, and she has been arrested three times in the last year for drinking, which is also a problem.
February ‘14 : “Just got in from work and opened up today’s mail, and there’s an envelope from the police department in D19’s college town. I figured I got pinched for running a red light when I dropped her off last month, but no, it’s an underage drinking ticket from 2 months ago that was for whatever reason sent to our home address.……. My daughter is normally very open with me but she definitely declined to tell me she had been caught drinking last semester.”
July ’14: According to D, smoking is a “fun” “social” “casual” thing “lots of kids her age” do, and because she doesn’t smoke at home it’s none of my business.
And as long as you and your husband do not make her suffer any consequences, she has no reason to change her behavior. As long as she is a minor, it is your business. How will you get her to pay for a lawyer, court costs and fines? Float her a long term loan? That won’t hurt enough to make a difference, will it? If she has spending money for the ciggies and the alcohol, she’s got too much money.
She also has a 20 hour a week off campus job so most likely is not dependent on parents for spending money. So tough for parents to get “leverage” here without pulling her out of school, which I think may be premature.
As a sort of aside, I know that some parents here look back on their college drinking and drug use and say it was enjoyable youthful excess. I know plenty of people IRL who used a lot of drugs in college and have wonderful lives now. But does anyone know someone in their 30s, 40s or 50s who now says, “Gosh, I’m sure glad I started smoking as a teenager! Good decision there!” ?
The smoking I just do not understand on any level. When we were young smoking was in vogue and many college students smoked. Now it is reviled and I do not know any young people who smoke. Where can you smoke these days anyway? Most restaurants and even public spaces do not allow it. Hard to imagine that a group of young girls are finding anything positive about smoking. Most guys HATE it as well which should be some deterrent to girls that age. This sounds like a little rebellion to me - something to get your attention.
MOfWC, idad would agree with me that, sadly, she is probably a nicotine junkie at this point. Smoking is very, very addictive, especially for young kids.
A side note. There are some professional licensure applications that require full disclosure of all infractions, including speeding tickets. It is voluntary, so one can technically forget to disclose some run ins with the law, but when your name gets published in a professional bulletin for anyone to comment on your suitability, stuff can happen!
Hire a lawyer. Or two, depending on the jurisdiction of where her three incidents took place. Have her citations expunged as soon as legally possible. While the aftermath of the citation may have been handled by the university, if an actual citation was issued, there is a publuc record of it in the legal system, even if the outcome was a decision not to prosecute if the student attends alcohol classes and performs community service. Two underaged drinking citations are generally not that big a deal, but the citation does not ever “go away”, either. It is there, in the public records, available for anyone to view.
An arrest, however, is a whole different thing. We do know young people who have been turned down for teaching jobs, government jobs, research jobs, because of underaged drinking arrests. An arrest means more happened than just underaged drinking. She needs a good lawyer, one local to the town where the arrest occured, and one who handles similar cases regularly. Again, the goal is to eventually have the record expunged, if possible.
An expungement will erase the citation/arrest from the casual viewer, but does not ever completely erase them. She needs to be very clear when/if she needs to divulge an expunged citation (hardly ever) versus an expunged arrest (“Have you ever been arrested? Please explain, even if the case was expunged or not prosecuted.”), which may be an issue in job applications. Any job that requires a background check or a security clearance will investigate prior arrests. Even those that were expunged.
Your daughter needs to understand that on a deep, permanent level.
@oldmom but they include in those numbers those who have had an occasional cigar/pipe which many guys do at formals a couple of times per year. The study also included those who chew tobacco which while a disgusting habit is “smokeless” though not harmless. They include those whom I would not define as cigarette smokers. The below link indicats that 17% percent of college males smoked during the preceding 10 days of the survey and likewise 10% of females.
HarvestMoon1, it’s still a sizeable percentage of college students, who really should know better. And as I posted before, many of them are incredibly defensive about it and have posted here that there’s nothing wrong with smoking, that it’s an acceptable personal choice and they could quit anytime they wanted.
Although we may disagree with them the “personal choices” of legal adults are what they are. We can regulate them in our own homes and places of employment but beyond that its really up to them to make better choices.
HarvestMoon1, I’m with you there! My D may have made a choice or two that I don’t like but I am extremely grateful that smoking is not one of them. I think parents with college student kids who smoke really need to say “not in my house, not with my money,” and do whatever they can to encourage/coerce them to stop.
They could expect her to contribute more to her tuition. They don’t have to pull her out of school entirely, but if she has to spend all of her money on her tuition, she has less money for other things (cigarettes, alcohol, sorority dues, etc). If she’s not willing to contribute, then she doesn’t want to be in college enough.
But how does she contribute more to her tuition? She is already working 20 hours per week and maintaing a 3.9. Something will have to give. Loans? Is that prudent from a long term view? OP’s D needs to want to make some changes. Simple as that.
Her drinking sounds normal for people her age, unfortunately. However, that doesn’t mean it’s not stupid. The smoking is a concern, but it will kill her a lot more slowly than drinking heavily will, so I don’t agree with those who said that you should address the smoking first.
She may have an addictive personality, but you won’t really know this unless her peers outgrow their binge drinking and she doesn’t. The only thing you know for sure now is that she isn’t learning from the consequences of her poor decisions. Rather than hiring a lawyer, let her handle the legal issues. It may derail her college success, but it would be better to be expeled for a legal offense than to die in a crash or from alcohol poisoning, two things we all see regularly in the news.
Perhaps the medical criteria for alcoholic is a physical dependency on alcohol.
However, alcohol can be addictive whether one has developed a physical dependence on it or not. By addiction, I mean a realiance on something in order to escape painful feelings. Co dependency is an addiction, so can gambling, shopping to excess, spending too much time on the internet ( of course not College Confidential -lol) . None of these addictions are physically adictive in the medical sense, but they are emotionally addictive and alcohol can be too.
I understand that many college students drink, but the circumstances that co-occur with that drinking can define whether or not it is a problem. Underage drinking is illegal- there is no disputing that, but besides this, when drinking at any age is disruptive to a person’s life, and that person continues to drink regardless of the consequences, then that raises the question that this is a problem.
I am concerned for the OP’s daughter. In addition, if she is drinking as an emotional addiction, then it takes the whole family getting help. I second the recommendation for 12 step programs- if she refuses, then for the other family members to get some insight into why she may be drinking.