<p>^^^Thanks for your post, Julie. That t-shirt thing is truly horrifying.</p>
<p>“As a college RA, I haven’t really observed the supposed general trend that those who are not exposed to alcohol suddenly go wild in college. I’m sure there are a few cases of this happening, but in general, my hardest partiers were partiers back in high school, and my tamest kids have never really partied much at all.”</p>
<p>The data back you up. In fact it isn’t even close. Those who drink earliest drink most, binge drink most, heavy drink most, and are the most likely to end up with alcohol problems and/or alcoholism later in life. In fact, there is a substantial drop in risks for alcohol problems/alcoholism with every year later a youth starts to drink. This includes those who “learn to drink” with their parents; as a statistical matter, it simply doesn’t work - neither here nor in Europe.</p>
<p>**When men and women of the same weight consume equal amounts of alcohol, women have higher blood alcohol concentrations.****</p>
<p>I’m repeating claremarie’s comment and bolding it because it’s so important. So, the woman foolishly trying to “keep up” with her boyfriend’s drinking will get drunker quicker for two reasons. First, a women gets a higher BAC than a similar-weight man for the same amount of alcohol, and second, men on average weigh more than women, so she probably isn’t with a similar-weight man but with a heavier man.</p>
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I get your zeal, but proscribing behavior on the basis of gender is even more disturbing, IMO. </p>
<p>Carry on.</p>
<p>^^^Really? Is it your contention that males and females are do not have biological differences that affect the physical reaction to ingesting substances such as medication or alcohol? That doesn’t seem plausible to me. I would think that differences in weight or fat/muscle ratios and I don’t know what else would matter. But I’d love to hear from someone who knows, and that is certainly not me.</p>
<p>Some things are sex related.
[Are</a> Women More Vulnerable to Alcohol’s Effects?-Alcohol Alert No. 46-1999](<a href=“Brochures and Fact Sheets | National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA)”>Are Women More Vulnerable to Alcohol's Effects?-Alcohol Alert No. 46-1999)</p>
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Don’t misinterpret what I’m saying. I’m not saying that there aren’t, in general, differences. I’m not saying that students shouldn’t be taught about the potential differences in whatever alcohol education measures schools take. I have a problem with the idea that somehow women have “more to lose” or that “young women (are) supposed to understand the true nature of the risks of binge drinking and to avoid this activity” while young men are not or somehow get a different message. </p>
<p>And as I said upthread, the differences in ramifications depend on which effects you are examining, —and the pendulum of severity swings both ways. Some “effects” are more severe in males than females, for example.</p>
<p>“The vast majority of people I know and know of that “go wild” when they go to college are people that were kept from alcohol in high school. Most students that were exposed to it early on know their limits and know how to better “cope” with alcohol. I wish parents would expose their children to alcohol and teach them how deal with it responsibly rather than just setting it completely off limits.”</p>
<p>We have LOTS of data on this issue, and it is just not true. And alcohol use and its effects in northern Europe - including youth binge drinking, heavy drinking, liver cancer, cirrhoses, alcohol-related deaths (with the exception of driving) is higher in every single northern European country than it is in the U.S., and highest among those who “taught” their children to drink.</p>
<p>And drinking among high school age students in the U.S. is now 40% LOWER than it was in the early 1990s.</p>
<p>As to the alleged wonderfulness of the alcohol culture in Europe, here is a comment by an addiction expert, on the alcohol culture in Britain:</p>
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</p>
<p>I can’t link the source here, because it’s a blog, but you can easily Google “The Reality-Based Community”. The author of this snippet is Keith Humphreys, a professor of Psychiatry at Stanford whose expertise is in addictive disorders.</p>
<p>Yep -that is exactly what it’s like ^^ </p>
<p>Mini - you say that drinking rates are higher in every single NORTHERN European country. Do you have any info on southern/ mediterranean European nations such as Italy and Spain, and is there any analysis on why there might be a difference?</p>
<p>thanks</p>
<p>I wonder if the kids who drink the most on campus come from homes where the parents also drink too much?</p>
<p>“I’m not saying that students shouldn’t be taught about the potential differences in whatever alcohol education measures schools take.”</p>
<p>But either they aren’t being taught, or the message isn’t sinking in. And probably for the same reasons that you give – too many adults seem to “have a problem” with the biological reality that, when it comes to alcohol, men and women really aren’t just the same. The suggestion that women are, in general, “weaker” or more vulnerable than men in this regard is intolerable. The grownups in charge can’t figure out a way to get that message across without offending, so they skip it entirely, or water it down so much with caveats about “averages” that the girls come away without fully grasping the reality.</p>
<p>Every single substance counselor I have ever spoken to has said the later a person starts drinking, the lower the chance of alcoholism. Delaying your first drink until 21 nearly guarantees that person won’t have substance abuse problems. </p>
<p>I completely agree with the RA - those who partied in high school, will be wilder.</p>
<p>And I also believe I’d be way more worried about what could happen to my daughter drunk than what could happen to my son.</p>
<p>Re:#47 Isn’t accuracy of alcohol education more important than political correctness?</p>
<p>parent57-in my personal experience, the opposite is true, the kids that were binge drinking or even just partying hard every weekend were from home where either the parents didn’t drink at all or very little. Alcohol was viewed as a HUGE taboo in those homes and the kids let loose in college. The kids that grew up with seeing their parents drink a glass of wine or two with dinner or a beer while watching a football game were the ones that were pretty responsible with their drinking in college. That’s not to say they didn’t get drunk on occasion but generally went out, had a couple drinks and that was all.</p>
<p>eyemamom, claremarie, and mini (among others): Thank you so much for your comments concerning the age at which a person starts drinking. My observation in college, and my daughter’s observation now, is that the students who drink heavily in college are the ones who drank in high school. The people who didn’t drink in high school didn’t suddenly “go wild” in college. Rather, they either continued to be non-drinkers or drank only occasionally.</p>
<p>On a recent trip to Europe, I saw young people drinking, staggering around, and yelling at 11:00 a.m. – and this was in the “nicer” areas. Many Europeans are quite alarmed at the drinking culture, and there is a lot of talk about raising the drinking age.</p>
<p>My kids didn’t drink in high school, and most of our friends with teenagers did not condone teenage drinking. My first real exposure to the effects of parental encouragement/enabling came when DS started college; more specifically, his experience on a D1 varsity team. The level at which these guys drank, on a regular basis, was astounding, but what was even more astounding was the parental attitude. Many of the parents lived within driving distance of campus, and would get together for football games in the fall and our sons’ games during the rest of the year. All of these events were heavily lubricated, and the parents made sure to have plenty of beer for the guys (the amounts and types were coordinated by email). The annual parent tailgate was held just off-campus, so that there would be no issues with those pesky campus police. It wasn’t until there was a serious alcohol-related incident with one of the players that the coach cracked down, and the parents – ever so reluctantly – went along and planned “alcohol-free” events. But we parents did get together before or after the official events at a bar, and there was a direct and positive correlation between the parents who got hammered and the guys who, according to DS, drank the most.</p>
<p>Certainly, there is plenty of anecdotal evidence to support the impression that kids from strict homes go wild in college, but it’s simply not consistent with our experience with this team.</p>
<p>^^Claremarie, I just got back from a conference championship weekend and was appalled at the amount of parental drinking. There were even drunken skirmishes betwen parents at local bars. The athletes were not involved, but it was interesting how many team members known to binge drink had parents who pre-gamed heavily. </p>
<p>Sadly, the same parental drinking style had been prevalent in our local club team. Poor examples are being set very early with this kind of behavior.</p>
<p>I will have to keep an “eye” on some of the kids from our S’s class. Back when they were in 7th grade playing traveling basketball, several parents from the “A” team from our program were kicked out of the hotel for their drunken behavior. It was REALLY sad. None of those families were allowed to participate in the program the next year and none of those kids are playing varsity ball now, word gets around.</p>
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<p>That’s some magical thinking going on. Of course those with higher tolerances require more alcohol to achieve the same result as someone who has less tolerance. </p>
<p>But heavy drinkers do indeed get drunk, and they also die of alcohol poisoning. If one is drinking hard alcohol and drinking it fast, the bladder capacity is irrelevant.</p>