<p>Everything you could possibly want to know about beer pong:</p>
<p><a href="http://beirut-guide.com/%5B/url%5D">http://beirut-guide.com/</a></p>
<p>Highschool drinking is rampant. Not just on the sports teams either. If you check out police blotters or just talk to the police department, they can tell you the extent of the problem. If a school or parents want to know about drinking, buy a breathalyser. Several parents who have done this have been surprised by the results.</p>
<p>Yes, high school drinking is rampant. I don't know if college drinking is the same or worse than years ago when I was in college, but I am pretty sure that high school drinking today is much heavier and starting at a very early age (and I grew up in a suburb featured on the cover of Time magazine for the tragic consequences of teen drinking years ago). </p>
<p>Last week in a neighboring town the police broke up a drinking party of 35 9th graders - 9th graders! The basement and garage were littered with beer cans and the rooms reeked of beer when police arrived. (They were alerted to the party by a call from several 9th graders turned away from the party). The parents were upstairs and apparently unaware.</p>
<p>How cute. </p>
<p>Mommie and Daddie were letting little Jimmie and his friends have their own little frat party in the basement!</p>
<p>The Mother said, "Honestly, we had no idea" as authorities carried the Beer Pong table and three kegs out of her basement.</p>
<p>What were the parents doing, binge drinking upstairs?</p>
<p>"The Mother said, "Honestly, we had no idea" as authorities carried the Beer Pong table and three kegs out of her basement."</p>
<p>Pretty much. The mother was described by the police as "angry at her child and friends". I bet she was.</p>
<p>And nearly every one of the parents of the kids attending described their child as one of the few not drinking.</p>
<p>. . .probably angry at her child and friends for embarrassing her. . not for drinking</p>
<p>It happens easier than you would think. My neighbor allowed her daughter to have some friends over one weekend. They have a rec room in the basement which is really ground level with direct access to outside. While she was not paying that much attention since it was an all girls' party, some "univited"guests dropped by with booze. The problem was that they came intoxicated and by the time my neighbor saw the situation, there had been some drinking. I just called the police. Can't let them drive off that way cuz if they have an accident, you can be held liable not to mention the danger they are to others, driving in that shape. Can't stop them from leaving, don't know who the parents are. Had to just call the cops.</p>
<p>My brother is raising two teenagers in Manhattan and says the teen drinking/drug scene is rocking just as hard in the city. Because of other crime issues, it isn't profiled as much and the scarcity of open space makes it difficult to find a back parking lot to smoke, drink, and just hang around as you can in the suburbs. That is why you hear more of the problem in the suburbs. More kids with cars and more places to hide and use the contraband. In the rural areas, you won't get caught. But in the suburbs, they tend to hang around the empty fields and parking lots and the cops know exactly where to find and bust them. I see them there all of the time, same old places. It's a wonder more of them are not busted. </p>
<p>We have had a few parties at our house, and I can tell you that patrolling them is no fun. We have a large house, and it is really very difficult to keep track of the kids especially as they come and go. The biggest problem was those who left the party for who knows what reasons. If some kids come with drugs or booze and sets up shop at the party, it is not easy to find. I have known several get togethers aborted by parents when contraband was discovered. I am at the point where I do not want any all kids parties once they are in their teens, certainly not at my house. And despite all of our kids, I have refrained from finishing the basement but for a guest suite that I keep locked up when not in use. It has really come to that. </p>
<p>I don't know how manyof the kids who get seriously sick, even die from binge drinking episodes at college are "virgin" to drinking until they left home. From what my boys have said, usually you are are already a little drunk when the binge drinking starts--it's not something you start from ground zero sober. And they say some of the big binge drinkers are also top student. S1 lived in a house with 5 other guys, 3 of them Asians-engineering/architecture majors. When I opened their freezer, it was filled with vodka. </p>
<p>Having grown up in Germany, and known many people with drinking problems, I am not convinced that the European way of handling drink is so good. It seems that the over 18 driving age and the fact that many families just do not provide or permit cars for their kids is more the reason that you don't get some of the consequences. Plus the fact that the polizei are much more indulgent about drunken behaviour. Urinating in public is not considered a big deal there, whereas it is definitely grounds for a police blotter report here. I remember many weekend nights at cheap gasthouses where kids staggered home drunk. But crime was not a big issue there, you didn't drive, and there was mass transit. It was not unusual for the police to take you to the station until you sobered up and then let you go without involving the parent and without writing up a report. So there are simply no stats about the whole thing. In the suburbs, the tolereance level of the residents, schools and police is quite low so you do get higher reported numbers. </p>
<p>I have no solutions to any of this. I wish kids had alternatives to just hanging around and drinking. Rec centers with DJ parties and game rooms that can be monitored for substance fee use may be some answer. Where do these kids go and what do they do in their free time? The answer is not a pretty one.</p>
<p>Well, here's one small part of the answer. Not a substitute for parental action, but a piece that's often neglected when we wring our hands over this problem:</p>
<p>Anyone thought about the fact that the War on Drugs does not include alcohol? Where are all the government-sponsored ads that say: this is your brain after five drinks? Could it be the liquor lobby needs to be taken on in the same way that the tobacco lobby eventually was?</p>
<p>The ad campaign, and in-school campaigns, against drunk driving have been pretty effective, I think. (Thanks to Mothers Against Drunk Driving.) A lot of kids who would never dream of getting behind a wheel drunk still drink enough to put their lives in danger from alcohol poisoning. There is a designated driver, who takes the role seriously -- often a kid who is glad not to drink anyway. But everyone else then becomes a designated drinker.</p>
<p>A couple of summers ago, I went to buy my son a deck of cards to take with him to camp. The only decks available at the local drug store were in the Toy Section and had either kiddie cartoons on them (too young) or the Budweiser frogs. I once came across a board game called "Drink 'Til you Puke". Like Monopoly, but with consequences. Somehow, I doubt this game was aimed at adults. There is a ton of money being made, marketing to people too young to drink while pretending that it's aimed at responsible adults. Remember Joe Camel?</p>
<p>
[quote]
It happens easier than you would think.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I know it does. </p>
<p>On the other hand, everyone of our kids know who the drunks and stoners are at their high schools. We hosted quite a few parties at our house and discussion about the invite list was a prelude to every one of them. </p>
<p>I guess the "cool" kids weren't on the invite list to parties at our house. The invite list did tend to get smaller as high school progressed -- my D didn't want the hassle of policing big parties any more than I did.</p>
<p>I also did walk-throughs, both inside and outside, at fairly regular intervals in addition to being visible cooking buffalo chicken wings, etc.</p>
<p>Here's a reprint of an interesting Wall Street Journal article describing how Anheiser-Busch money and influence impacted an alcohol abuse initiative at Florida State University:</p>
<p>The beer companies love "social norms" campaigns because they don't address their best customers: the hard-core college drunks.</p>
<p>Ah, but the thing is - the vast majority of students who show up on prestige college campuses don't show up as "hard-core college drunks". For the most part, the students at Amherst could easily have shown up at Swarthmore, and vice versa. It is the culture on campus that majorly turns the spigot on or off. I think folks cut colleges far too much slack with the canard that they "all come out of high school that way." These are educational institutions, training the future leaders of the country, and they have the resources to deal with it if they so chose, instead of bellyaching about the drinking age, which they can't change.</p>
<p>Nor do I think (take out the college) that they are "hard-core drunks" either. I have two published studies of heavy frat drinkers, and ten years after graduation, their alcoholism rates are virtually the same as those of the moderate drinkers from similar social settings. The danger is not in the future, but in the present, both to the drinkers themselves, and the damage to the overall campus environment. </p>
<p>Social norms campaigns don't work when the norm is 58% of white students binging a minimum of once every two weeks, and often more. Might be a reason for radically expanded AA. (hmmm).</p>
<p>As a high school senior in a wealthy suburb, I would like to briefly comment on high school drinking. Yes, as aforementioned, it is rampant. I truly can acquire any amount of hard liquor or beer quite easily. In fact, the majority of the time, employees of alcohol distributors such as gas stations and beverage marts do not even ask for identification. If they actually do, most will accept any poorly made fake i.d. And to be honest, I would estimate at least a third of my class "binge drinks" (I would define binge drinking as 6 or more) both nights every weekend. It is somewhat sad that non-alcoholic activities are so infrequently done now, but I can understand the rampant drinking. I personally enjoy binge drinking and truly do not believe it has any effects on my academics. Furthermore, as long as the binge drinker is responsible and can control his or her actions, I do not see a huge problem with this ever increasing trend. The fact remains that drinking makes a person more sociable and have fewer inhibitions and thus, the trend will only continue...oh, and yes, kids are now starting to drink earlier. It is quite common now for freshmen to binge drink twice a weekend.</p>
<p>By hard-core drunks, I'm referring to the frequent binge drinkers. To me, it doesn't really matter whether they are alcoholics during their subsequent Wall Street careers. In the college context, this group plays the role of the town drunk. I think it is best to refer to them accordingly and not let them off the hook with euphemisms like "frequent binge drinkers" for their behavior. This group, ranging from 15% to 35% of the campus, consumes 75% of the alcohol. It is this group of hard-core drunks that is causing the problems. Call 'em drunks. If they don't like it, stop acting like Otis of Mayberry.</p>
<p>If I were Momrath or Haon, I'd be angry too. The drunks are giving the good kids at great schools a bad name. </p>
<p>I don't think you can let the colleges off the hook. IMO, they are, for all intents and purposes, targeting drunks in the admissions process, which in turn reinforces the drinking culture, which in turn attracts more hard-core drunks, and a vicious cycle continues unabatted. </p>
<p>Even the schools that make some token anti-drunk effort tip-toe around the centers of campus drunkenness -- the frats, etc. Or, attack it in some roundabout way such as a housing initiative designed to address some vague "euphemistic" problem on campus. Call the drunks drunks and get on with it.</p>
<p>interesteddad</p>
<p>Thanks for your energy in keeping the facts out there. The problem of college drinking, and societal drinking, persists in large part because of the huge number of people who refuse to acknowledge that there is a problem.</p>
<p>I do take exception to the notion that colleges are intentionally accepting problem drinkers. Given all the health, disciplinary, and legal troubles they create, I find it hard to believe colleges seek them out. The problem is that there is no reliable way to identify them. One can use group characterisitcs, but this would be profoundly unfair to those who share these characteristics, but do not drink.</p>
<p>On the racial distribution of alcohol use and abuse: this is not just a college phenomenon. It is found throughout the country, and it is consistent over time.</p>
<p>Lots more information available at </p>
<p><a href="http://www.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/Social/Module1Epidemiology/Module1.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/Social/Module1Epidemiology/Module1.html</a>
For those who subscribe to "Many 'binge' drinkers are sober", let me ask you, would you get in a car with one of these "sober" people at the wheel?</p>
<p>Confused Applicant is from a wealthy suburb. Has no reservations about posting his family's income on the internet ($850,000k per year). Thinks there's no excuse for anyone scoring under 1000 on the SATs and that complaining about the 5 minute bathroom breaks for the new SATs sounds like a feminist agenda. And, seems to be mightly proud that he and a third of his high school classmates binge drink at least two nights per week. Of course, he and his buddies are going to be (politely speaking) "frequent binge drinkers" at college. Duh.</p>
<p>Do you really think it would be that hard to identify and accept fewer kids like Confused Applicant? The colleges already know where the drunks are coming from. I bet that if you took the average drunk at these elite colleges and reviewed the admissions folder, it would scream "spoiled rotten". I bet the adcoms who reviewed Confused Applicant's folder already what he'll be on campus. Probably a big time frat boy. It's not that the system (parents, high schools, colleges) don't know who the drunks are. Come on. It's that they don't want to know, so they play Mickey the Dunce. "I had no idea 35 kids were in my basement drinking....." Puhleeze. What? 35 drunk kids were sitting around reading poetry? Hello!</p>
<p>I don't think you can come up with a profile for a binge drinker or the alcoholic-to-be. Everyone loves to point to the "spoiled rotton" rich kid from the rich suburb or private school, but the fact of the matter is that the problem is as rampant if not more in the middleclass and poorer areas. Having lived in both with teenagers, I can tell you that kids without the money and the safe haven of homes tend to drink in the parking lots and fields with stolen and purchased liquor. I lived in a less affluent part of Westchester County in NY for several years, and I can tell you that there was much drinking/drugs/sex/crime among the teenagers there. There wasn't as much publicity about it or concern as that was resevered for the truly flagrent cases, but statistically those kids ended up in trouble without a college option unlike the ones in the more affluent suburbs.</p>
<p>I know some tee-totaling very rich kids. They are wonderful people, not spoiled rotten, hard working, earnest, and I would hate them to be disadvantaged by a stereotype. </p>
<p>A more reliable method to discourage the drinkers from attending is to moderate the drinking environment. </p>
<p>How about
1. Providing substance free housing to everyone who requests it? If this means an entire dorm must become substance free because the college needs one more SF room to accomodate demand, then the dorm becomes SF.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Identifying the most desirable dorms and making them SF. You want to live in Beautiful Dorm? Great, it is SF.</p></li>
<li><p>Making all housing offered to underage students SF. After all, it is illegal for them to drink, so the college is under no obligation to sponsor illegal activity. If anything, they are obligated to provide a legal environment to their students. Students 21 or older would be the only ones to whom "drinking permitted" dorms would be offered.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Even action 1 would get the attention of the confirmed drinkers in the applicant pool. They might conclude that it will be more fun to drink elsewhere. Actions 2 and 3 up the ante, and would encourage those who equate "fun" with "drunk" to choose a more hospitable school.</p>
<p>These maneuvers would reach the target audience without rounding up innocent people in the process. In fact, an elite college that took these steps might find itself innundated by kids relieved to have a place relatively free of the hassles of the drunks.</p>
<p>Some have presented the argument that "My friends and I all drank like fish in college, and we are now all professionals. Therefore, the drinking did us no harm". Not convincing. It establishes the straw man of the homeless drunk sleeping on a park bench as the only evidence of harm from drinking. There are plenty of problem drinkers and alcoholics in the learned professions. There is plenty of divorce, lost work days, spousal and child abuse and of course drunk driving among professionally successful people. Part of the problem stems from some of the attitudes expressed on this thread. If someone gets good grades in high school that does not mean they are free of a substance abuse problem. Treating them as if their GPA excuses other behavior is the same sort of enabling that leads star high school football players to conclude that they are invincible. Getting good grades in college and in graduate or professional school does not mean drinking is under control. Alcohol is a dangerous drug, lots of people function as problem drinkers for years, and suffer from it. It is like drunk driving. Many people do it for years before they kill someone.</p>
<p>Like I said interesteddad, thanks for all the information, and the energy to refute the "everybody does it" objections.</p>
<p>Mini,</p>
<p>Can you post the references?</p>
<p>Thanks</p>
<p>I agree with Mini, that the future drinking issues are not at stake as much as the present dangers of kids drinking too much. And this is not just a college problem. It 's just that colleges have the high concentration of kids at this age where they are simply irresponsible about drinking and the consequences of it. If I should get a DUI, I am not going to call mama about it, I take the financial and legal consequences. These kids bring all sort of other people into play when they get caught doing something sad or stupid while they are drinking.</p>
<p>My sons' school is often characterized as a spoiled rich kids' prep school with all of the attendent stereotypes, but I can tell you having spend years in the suburbs, city areas and dealing with the public, parochial and independent schools in all sorts of settings that the stereotypes just do not hold unless you are looking for them. Most of the kids at S's school are very smart kids from families that range from mid income to high that want the best possible education and environment for them. There are a small number of top name celebrity and development kids, but they are not overrepresented in the troublemakers, I assure you. There are also a small number of kids who are on full scholarship from outreach programs, most of them not seen in suburban school settings as some of these kids truly come from disadvantaged settings. Again, they do not overrepresent the troublemakers though it seems that they do have issues with learning to keep in line with the more minor rules. But these kids know well that they are there on scholarship and are not likely to go out for a night of drinking and stay away from the heavy trouble. I would have to say that over all the drinking/drugs episodes are far less than what our typical suburban middle income highschool experiences. But if an episode occurs, it generates more interest and comments from such schools which fuels the stereotype. A few years ago, the public highschool here seriously considered getting rid of the prom--making it a total non school event that had to be taken care of outside of the school setting with no school involvement at all or endorsement. Apparently, too many kids came too obviously drunk, many got sick, the behaviour was so bad, that they did a lockdown of the event and called the parents to come pick up their kids right on the spot. Breathalysers indicated that more than half the kids were drinking, and many kids escaped being tested. A typical suburban school. But when I lived in the city, there were similar problems with the kids going to the public schools in the city. The big difference, and the reason, I pulled my kids out from those schools, is that there were also heavy duty assault problems at those schools. Your kids were truly at risk at those city schools, not for drinking, drugs, etc but getting attacked. I draw a very firm line, there and have not looked back. But because safety issues were so paramount at those schools, there wasn't as much discussion about the prom or drinking. Those schools did not seem to be a bit interested in what the kids did once they left school grounds whereas at the opposite extreme at private schools you can get expelled for activities done away from the school on your own time.</p>
<p>On study on post college</p>