Any Other Parents Sick of all the Drinking at Schools?

Parents Forum
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<p>A high school classmate of my sister's passed out in a snowbank and froze to death in the middle of a two-block suburban walk home from drinking with a friend. There's a much greater chance of that happening in Ithaca or Clinton than in Manhattan. </p>

<p>But the kids who get seriously injured while drinking in college always seem to be in the middle of a party with lots of other kids around. If a kid is going to drink alone, chances are he's not going to go far from his room to do it, regardless of what's on the other side of his door, and he's going to stop (or pass out quietly) when he's had too much. More commonly, drinking is social activity. Serious trouble arises when the social context puts a student into consumption hyperdrive. There are always other people there.</p>

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<p>The issue here is not whether or not your kid drinks. The issue is the campus culture and whether that has a negative impact on the quality of life.</p>

<p>**Take a low binge drinking campus:</p>

<p>25% non drinkers
45% moderate non-binge drinkers
30% binge drinkers (half occassional, half more than once a week)**</p>

<p>That campus, while it has a hard core binge drinking cohort, is dominated (70%) by students who drink no more than moderately and 85% by students who are not binge drinking multiple times per week.</p>

<p>**Now, compare it to a typical high binge school:</p>

<p>25% non-drinkers
15% moderate drinkers
60% binge drinkers (half occasional, half more than once week)**</p>

<p>See the difference? There is no real culture of moderate drinking. Those who drink moderately or not at all are a minority on campus. Factor in that drinkers make their presence disproportionately known and you have a campus that feels like a drunk tank. Even worse, 30% of the students are binge drinking more than once a week. The research is clear: this has very negative impacts on the quality of life from lack of sleep to fights to sexual assault.</p>

<p>Again, the issue isn't whether your kid drinks or not. It's what kind of quality of life he or she will get for your $50,000 a year. I think all of us would agree that a campus culture where moderate social drinking (or not drinking) is the norm would be far preferable than a campus that just feels like half the students are drunk all the time.</p>

<p>So yes, it is true that there is drinking at every campus. We should not, however, allow that old bromide to hide the very real differences among colleges and their drinking culture. These are not small differences.</p>

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<p>Yep, ID, you're right. They aren't. I get annoyed with the whole "there's drinking at every college" because it just doesn't recognize that the AMOUNT of drinking matters! ----</p>

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<p>Lord knows I had my differences with Bryn Mawr, but getting wasted/sick in public was strongly disapproved of and rare. People went to other campuses to drink, and they were expected to come home without disrupting peaceful dorm life. I've told this story around here before, but: a male Princeton frosh who puked on a dorm carpet my sophomore year provoked such fury among the residents that Princeton was banned from future debate tournaments on campus.</p>

<p>My second year at law school, I saw an uncannily familiar face among the 1Ls. Same guy! He knew he'd taken a trip to Bryn Mawr four years earlier, but remembered nothing else.</p>

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<p>What's up with these Princeton losers? Swarthmore had a Princeton debater visiting for a tournament end up in the hospital with alcohol poisoining a couple of years ago. I think Swarthmore had three alcohol hospital transports that year and two of them were visiting debaters the same weekend.</p>

<p>It's like "dam' bro", you can't go to frickin' Debate Tournament without drinking yourself into a stupor?</p>

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<p>BTW, you can see the challenge the high binge drinking campus presents to the freshman kid arriving trying to get a handle on how this whole acting like a college kid thing works. Suppose that he's a normal bright kid who wants to have some fun, drink a little bit (but not like Otis the Town Drunk), and so forth.</p>

<p>Where are his moderate drinking role models? The whole campus either doesn't drink at all or binge drinks. How hard must it be to find friends who want to go have a couple of beers (like normal people) when only 15% of the campus are moderate non-binge drinkers?</p>

<p>Or, from a non-drinker's perspective. Where is the social life with friends who may have a beer or two, but are not binge drinking to get hammered?</p>

<p>It's easy to see why some students feel very estranged at their own colleges and why it's up to the non-drinkers to find a way to "deal" as opposed to a campus where the heavy drinkers are expected to figure out a way to "deal" with a campus where non-drinkers and moderate drinkers have at least equal stakes in the social scene.</p>

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<p>I don't think it's as simple as that, ID. I have been told from several students at a couple of different schools that, as you say, the moderate drinkers are hard to find. They are generally NOT freshmen, NOT in a frat and NOT pre-gaming or tailgating. The non-drinkers are, in many cases, library dwellers who have no social life at all. (you may slam me for this, but I'm just quoting what a number of students have told me- and they also say a number of the library dwellers are Asians) So those are not the "fun-loving, non-drinkers" that the parents on here talk about. My point is that the percentage of heavy drinkers may actually appear larger than the statistic would show, even at the schools claiming a lower percentage of heavy drinkers. If the non-drinkers, in large part, are holed up in the library or dorm rooms, guess who is left?</p>

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<p>I think it's crazy. It's treated as a given, a rite-of-passage, as an integral part of the college experience.</p>

<p>My father's an alcoholic. He has four alcoholic siblings. My in-laws have alcoholism in their extended family as well. I abstain from all alcohol because when I started drinking in college I was instantly binge drinking and out of control. I also abstain, because after years of abstaining, I still really miss it, and I'm 45, so that can't be good. </p>

<p>My s hung with a non-drinking crowd in high school, but I really tried to prepare him for the rampant drinking he'd see on campus. I told him that I wished I could say that he could go and be careful, have a few beers, have some fun, but be smart about it. I told him that the reality in our family is when you start drinking in college you keep drinking, but stop the college part. You don't finish. I didn't. My brother didn't. My uncle who had a full ride engineering scholarship didn't....... My son is also on scholarship. I told him he had one amazing shot at a free college education, and if he blew it, he might never have another shot. </p>

<p>I was disappointed by IU's approach, as they had them do an online Alcohol.edu course that basically focused on how to drink safely, how to tell when someone has alcohol poisoning. It didn't offer any suggestions to the kid that wants to have a social life without all the puking. I know the philosophy behind it: kids are going to drink so let's make sure they know how to be safe. I know why that's important, but there was never a mention that it doesn't all have to be about drinking.</p>

<p>So, my son lives on an honor's dorm floor that has mandatory quiet hours. I don't think they follow this, and I don't think anybody enforces it, but what it does is make it really unappealing for the partiers to live there, so they don't. I'm not so naive as to say that nobody in the honor's community drinks, but nobody is throwing up in the hallways, or pooping the bathroom floor. He's heard plenty of horror stories from friends in other dorms so he knows he's very lucky to have the situation that he does. He's already signed up for next year, and I actually thought he'd ask for an apartment, but apparently it's not unusual for the honor's community to stay together for most or all of their undergrad. I'm so incredibly pleased and relieved.</p>

<p>I know everybody doesn't have the option to live in an honor's dorm. My younger son probably won't. I think colleges need to step up and offer non-drinking dorms--and I know some do. I think a lot of the partiers at college were partiers in high school and are just looking to continue the party. If my kid successfully navigates high school by avoiding those kids, then he shouldn't have to pay a fortune to live with one in college. </p>

<p>My s is at IU, which is often in the top on lists of party schools. He's found a great group of friends who are interested in other things. If he can do it there, then anybody can do it anywhere. Just avoid the Greek scene and he'll be fine.</p>

<p>And just in case you alums are going to go nuts for that comment, I'd like to say that there was an alcohol poisoning death at Wabash this year. Freshman kid, came from non-drinking home. He called home repeatedly distressed about the pressure to drink. Now he's dead. Tragic. Last year another boy fell off a roof and died. Too common. Too awful to risk it. Too many of these stories to ignore.</p>

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<p>Helenback I can totally relate. A few differences though; I did not warn my D about family history; good for you. Her take on alcohol edu was a little different. She said she was identified as a nondrinker and was told how to care for her drinking cohorts....</p>

<p>She wanted to choose a substance free dorm, but being in another program superceded this. She thinks shes struggling more than her high school peers to "be happy", but doesn't suggest she's not found enough nondrinking ways to "fit in". She does seem to prefer socializing with upperclassman who live on a different campus.</p>

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<p>^^ I went to IU and most of my friends drank. I really don't think it was as bad as what I am seeing at my kid's Ivy. I don't ever remember shots or beer pong. We drank one or two nights a week and that was on the weekends. It was harder to get alcohol and there weren't as many fake IDs, although I did have one.</p>

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<p>I hope this is not true of debate tournaments in general. My D has been going to a few in high school, and does say she enjoys them a lot. I wonder what she means?</p>

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<p>"It's treated as a given, a rite-of-passage, as an integral part of the college experience."</p>

<p>Helenback--that's what has always bothered me about the college drinking experience. Each and every parent I've talked to has a fatalistic attitude--'they're all going to do it, just find a crowd that doesn't' -- while no one seems to ever question the underlying assumption that binge drinking is a de rigueur aspect of college life for the average student. I don't care for that at all and do not think it needs to be that way. I like interestedad's idea of reporting statistics and at least publicizing the activity so parents/students can have some info on the issue.</p>

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<p>What about the fact that it's already going on in high school- and in a number of cases, junior high?</p>

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<p>Alcohol</a> Coalition Committee Strategic Plan - Reports - Princeton University</p>

<p>Binge drinking at Princeton is about the national average. President Tilghman wants it lower.</p>

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<p>My son tells me that he believes there was a higher percentage of kids in his class in high school (a small public high school in suburban New Jersey) who were heavy drinkers/drug users, than he's run into so far at the U. of Chicago.</p>

<p>And, no, he doesn't hole up in the library or his dorm room. In fact, he likes to take the train to downtown Chicago to do his studying a lot of the time, because it doesn't make him feel quite so stir crazy with all the work he has -- he gets reading done on the train, and then finds a coffee shop or similar place where he can just sit at a table for hours and work.</p>

<p>I think he'd go nuts from boredom (and/or be much more likely to start drinking) if he went to a non-urban school, where he couldn't get off campus to explore interesting neighborhoods, find new, inexpensive, places to eat, go to museums, etc, etc. Or if he were confined to Hyde Park, because he says you run out of new and different things to do pretty quickly there, outside the campus itself. </p>

<p>One of several reasons he's glad he didn't end up in New Haven.</p>

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<p>Thanks 07dad and Alumother-interesting articles.
What are thoughts of this. My daughter doesn't drink, attends a top LAC with heavy drinking. Her thoughts are that the kids that binge to the point of health risks may be doing so in order to cope with underdeveloped social skills (eg massive social anxiety). She speculates that some of the heavy drinkers may have been so overstructured in their HS extracurricular lives and so focused on top grades and scores in HS that they failed to develop normal social coping skills. Of course this isn't true of all folks who drink to the point of ETOH poisoning but I thought it was an interesting point she made. It sounds like the bingers don't know how to really have fun.</p>

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<p>Division</a> of Student Affairs :: NEWS :: Duke names first head of Alcohol and Substance Abuse Prevention Center</p>

<p>Duke names first head of Alcohol and Substance Abuse Prevention Center
Thursday, August 28, 2008</p>

<p>DURHAM, N.C. -- Thomas Szigethy, who instituted a number of innovative substance abuse programs at the University of Connecticut, has been named Duke University’s associate dean and director of the Alcohol and Substance Abuse Prevention Center.</p>

<p>As the new school year begins at Duke, Szigethy will begin meeting with students, parents, faculty, staff and other interested groups on and around campus to discuss issues surrounding alcohol and substance use on Duke’s campus.</p>

<p>“Alcohol and substance abuse are issues that often have their roots in the college years, with effects that can last a lifetime. In that respect, Duke is no different than any other college or university,” said Dean of Students Sue Wasiolek. “Tom will help us -- that means everyone on campus -- identify and understand our behaviors and how they contribute, both positively and negatively, to alcohol and substance use issues here at Duke.”</p>

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<p>
[quote]
I think colleges need to step up and offer non-drinking dorms

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I agree. Let the drinkers drink somewhere else so the serious non-drinking students can get their quiet and rest.</p>

<p>I visit the site rateyourstudents, where profs and TAs gripe about the quality of their students, and their willingness to work. Why can't schools bite the bullet and make the classes hard enough so that kids don't have the time to get wasted several times a week? Let them flunk out if they won't step up.</p>

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<p>I just want a no-getting-wasted dorm.</p>

<p>It IS possible to find a balance -- Chicago and Harvard are the two campuses where I've spent the most time, and they both have a good mix of options. It's totally fine to dance at parties with alcohol at those schools and drink nothing, or have one or two, and no one cares either way. People do overindulge sometimes, but it's occasional, and you're not condemned as a prude if you are irritated by someone's disorderly behavior.</p>

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<p>Here's the deal, technically all dorms with freshmen should be non-drinking dorms. As students should not have alcohol in their rooms if they are not 21. However, in practice there are always certain dorms where the party types will congregate. </p>

<p>My advice is to ask current students or even the housing department which are the "party dorms" or "greek dorms" and then avoid them. Usually, it's pretty easy as those tend to be the most popular places to live.</p>