Why do College Students Drunk so Much?
“Alcohol abuse on college campuses has reached a point where it is far more destructive than most people and today realize and today threatens too many of our youth.” -Senator Joe Lieberman
Why do college students drink so much? This timeless fad has effected this generation in high percentages since the beginning of college education. Today in America it is estimated that approximately 29% of college students are regular alcohol abusers. Another recent study by the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism performed showed that college students suffered 1,400 deaths, 70,000 date rapes and assaults, and 500,000 injuries each year as a result of alcohol. (McDonald) Although binge drinking (5+ drinks in one sitting) is considered a normal part of the college experience many factors contribute to whether or not an individual is more prone to be an abuser.
There are five factors that connect students with alcohol abuse with include: gender, family alcohol abuse, family depression and mental illness, childhood hyperactivity, and deviant behavior before age 15. Deviant behavior, for example, consists of acts such as being expelled from school, fighting, committing vandalism, chronic lying, and stealing. Many people who were antisocial growing up begin drinking abusively earlier in adolescence.
A clinician test given to suspected alcoholics or taken personally is called the Diagnostic Interview Schedule (DIS). The test given to check for pathological alcohol abuse is known as Criterion A for alcohol abuse. Requirements for this test include: wanting to stop drinking but could not, drinking 20 or more drinks in 1 day, having blackouts while drinking, going on two or more binges, continuing to drink with a serious health problem, or making rules to control drinking habits. (Fleming)
Criterion B covers more serious abuse which harm one’s personal and occupational lifestyles. Any one of the following items point to serious abuse: family members objecting to subject’s drinking, professional advice about drinking, job or school troubles due to drinking, accident while driving intoxicated, arrest, or physical fight. (Fleming)
A report from the University of Richmond told a story about a female college freshman who experienced a horrible situation after a night of drinking. It said that she remembered how hard it was to leave behind her family and friends, she remembered having to face the fact that she was a freshman again and how all she wanted was to be well-liked and to fit-in but one thing she does not remember at all is the night she was raped by two freshman males in a room full of people.
A problematic pattern of alcohol use leading to clinically significant impairment or distress, as manifested by at least two of the following, occurring within a 12-month period:
Some people only drink on the weekend, or just not at work. Some people attempt to hide their alcohol abuse while others demand company, or anything in between these various elements. Alcohol abuse or addiction is defined as an individual who a) needs to use alcohol every day to function, b) makes attempts to limit use to specific time with periods of sobriety between incidents of heavy drinking, c) have “binges” of continuous use for long periods of time interspersed with the aforementioned periods of abstinence, d) use in excess of the medical and social norms (Doweiko, 2015). To be diagnosed with an AUD requires the individual to meet 2 of eleven criteria laid out by the DSM-5 within a year, then severity is assessed on the basis of how many criteria are met (NIMH, n.d.). Severity is assessed as mild meeting 2-3 criteria, moderate meeting 4 to 5, and severe meaning meeting 6 or more criteria. These eleven criteria include factors such as having drank longer than intended, reduced interest in activities, increased risk behavior, and other factors that look at how drinking has affected you socially (NIAA,
Balko, Radley. "Let My Students Drink." Reason. (Feb. 2009). Web. 19 Feb. 2016. John McCardell was a former college president who took his experience dealing with underage drinking and decided to develop an organization called Choose Responsibly. The organization supports lower the legal drinking age. He later developed the Amethyst Initiative to help campuses across the U.S. to join together. In the article, Mr. McCardell gives his reasons for starting the growing movement. The purpose of this article is to inform other college delegates and leaders about the organizations they can join they share the same beliefs. It was published in a magazine that discusses rising issues to help promote the initiative. The article is unique due to its interview arrangement which gives it a more personal feel. My thesis is supported by this article because it provides me with
Earls, F., Reich, W., Jung, K. G., & Cloninger, C. R. (2006). Psychopathology in children of alcoholic and antisocial parents. Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, 12(4), 481 - 487.
“80 percent of teen-agers have tried alcohol, and that alcohol was a contributing factor in the top three causes of death among teens: accidents, homicide and suicide” (Underage, CNN.com pg 3). Students may use drinking as a form of socializing, but is it really as good as it seems? The tradition of drinking has developed into a kind of “culture” fixed in every level of the college student environment. Customs handed down through generations of college drinkers reinforce students' expectation that alcohol is a necessary ingredient for social success. These perceptions of drinking are the going to ruin the lives of the students because it will lead to the development alcoholism. College students who drink a lot, while in a college environment, will damage themselves mentally, physically, and socially later in life, because alcohol adversely affects the brain, the liver, and the drinkers behavior.
Although high-risk drinkers are a minority in all ethnic groups, their behavior is far from a harmless “rite of passage.” In fact, drinking has pervasive consequences that compel our attention. The most serious consequence of high-risk college drinking is death. The U.S. Department of Education has evidence that at least 84 college students have died since 1996 because of alcohol poisoning or related injury—and they believe the actual total is higher because of incomplete reporting. When alcohol-related traffic crashes and off-campus injuries are taken into consideration, it is estimated that over 1,400 college students die each year from alcohol-related unintentional injuries. Additionally, over 500,000 full-time students sustain nonfatal unintentional injuries, and 600,000 are hit or assaulted by another student who has been drinking. Administrators are well aware of the burden alcohol presents to the campus environment. In addition, the 1997, 1999, and 2001 Harvard surveys found that the majority of students living in dorms and Greek residences, who do not drink excessively, still experience day-to-day problems as a result of other students’ misuse of alcohol. The prevalence of these “secondhand effects” varies across ...
According to Smith,?Reports of binge drinking come from all types of campuses across the country. In 1992, researchers reported that more college students were drinking to get drunk than their counterparts a decade earlier, and one recent study reported an increase, just since 1994, in the number of students who drink deliberately to get drunk. Smith - 1. I interviewed my friend Shelly Mitchell, who recently turned twenty-one, and asked her how she felt about finally being legal to drink. She quoted,?It is not as exciting to drink anymore,
WebMD.com - WebMD.com WebMD, 2009. Web. The Web. The Web. 25 Mar. 2014. The 'Standard' of the Roleff, Tamara L. Alcoholism.
There are an estimated 3.3 million teen-age alcoholics in the United States. Adolescents who begin drinking before age 15 are four times more likely to develop alcoholism than those who begin drinking at age 21. Youth who drink alcohol are five times more likely to smoke cigarettes, four times more likely to smoke marijuana and three times more likely to use an illicit drug. Teens that use alcohol tend to become sexually active at earlier ages. Teens who use alcohol are more likely to be victims of violent crimes such as aggravated assault, robbery or rape.
Weshler, Henry, and Wuethrich, Bernice. Dying to Drink: Confronting Binge Drinking on college campuses. Chicago: Rodale Inc., 2002. Print.
These are alarming statistics, especially since we know that rape is widely underreported, suggesting the percentages of rape might be even higher. College students drink more alcohol than the normal public (as cited in Gunby, Carline, Beynon, 2012, p. 88). This is troubling for women because alcohol is known to increase the risk of victimization. In most alcohol-involved rape situations, women voluntarily drank large amounts of alcohol before being raped. It is more common for college women to be raped after being incapacitated by alcohol than it is for them to be raped by force (as cited in Messman-Moore, Ward, DeNard, 2013, p. 50).
Binge or excessive drinking is the most serious problem affecting social life, health, and education on college campuses today. Binge or excessive drinking by college students has become a social phenomena in which college students do not acknowledge the health risks that are involved with their excessive drinking habits. Furthermore college students do not know enough about alcohol in general and what exactly it does to the body or they do not pay attention to the information given to them. There needs to be a complete saturation on the campus and surrounding areas, including businesses and the media, expressing how excessive drinking is not attractive and not socially accepted.
student may not attend class the day after drinking because he or she may be
Test (MAST) measures are screening and diagnostic measure which separates the two group’s alcohol and drug use assessment measures. Which may or may not pertain to one’s lifetime experiences sometimes relevant to being diagnosed or receiving treatment. Mast a broad assessment tool for alcohol abuse is a questionnaire designed to provide a rapid and effective screening for lifetime alcohol related problem and alcoholism for various population. Seller, M.L. (1971) mast must be parsed with other instruments such as DAST that also scene for drug disorders. The MAST is simple to administer; clients are instructed to answer all questions either yes or no. After clients complete the test, the points assigned to each question are totaled. The MAST
Most people do not realize that alcohol is a drug that claims the lives of youth in college campuses across the world. In my case, it took the encounter with the ORL staff at UCLA for me to come to understanding that I am putting myself and those around me in danger through my risky drinking habits. With hours of self-reflection and the help of a cosmopolitan article called The Deadly Drinking Mistakes Smart Girls Make, I have found that there are several risks associated with alcohol that can put me at a quarrel with death. Even so, drinking does not always need to be deadly, and by keeping in mind the well-being of my fellow bruins and the skills mentioned in the article, I can find a balance between drinking for fun and drinking till death.