<p>Just talked with son and was relating some of this information. He rattled off names of boys we knew who supposedly drink 6-12 beers on a normal day and much more on "party" days (not students at his school). I was shocked.</p>
<p>The girls are just as bad - if not worse, because they can't handle the amount of alcohol that boys can.</p>
<p>D on a sports team said a majority of the players have shown up to practice (in the afternoon) drunk at least once this season.</p>
<p>True MAMom, my other son said at his college, the only alcohol poisonings that ended up in ER and the two near deaths that he knew about were all girls. And most usually freshmen.</p>
<p>"I had no idea that full-time 18-20 year olds were the exception. I guess I assumed that most were in school full time and the exceptions were the adult evening class students."</p>
<p>The average undergraduate in the U.S. is 24.5 years old. </p>
<p>"Is this binge drinking, any drinking, alcoholism, all of the above or is it broken down."</p>
<p>Binge and heavy (meaning 2+ drinks a day on most days) drinking.</p>
<p>mimi, do you have data on Af Am students drinking rates at schools that are predominately white. </p>
<p>When I was in college (early 70s) blacks and whites did not socialize together after school hours. I honestly dont remember ever seeing any of my friends drunk to the point of passing out or puking. I never acquired a taste for beer cheep wine gives me a headache and I couldnt afford the expensive stuff. I remember many of my girl friends were the same. The males drank a few beers or hard liquor, but slowly over the course of the entire evening. No one would want to embarrass themselves by not being steady enough on their feet and unable to dance.</p>
<p>Yes, both in aggregate and at some specific schools. (I have all the schools in Washington State, and selected others, and then the national data from the Harvard School of Public Health.) But I only have it for binge drinking and abstinence rates.</p>
<p>African-American binge drinking rates are routinely between 33%-50% than that of white students at the same institution. (Drug use rates are the same or slightly higher.) They are also more likely to be total abstainers.</p>
<p>"We have the data for out-of-school 18-20 year olds. It is lower than for full-time college students. (Up to age 21, drinking is associated with higher incomes; the same is not true for drug abuse.)"</p>
<p>What is the sample size compared to actual numbers. This statistic is one I find a bit harder to buy into. A 40 hour work week still leaves plenty of time to drink. I would have to ask where the data base is being drawn upon.</p>
<p>Is there a link I can look at? </p>
<p>Again I am not proalcoholism, but I do question some statistics as they often are gathered to prove an arguement, not necessarily reflect the truth. It could come down to the sample group, sample size and how the question is worded.</p>
<p>"But I only have it for binge drinking and abstinence rates."</p>
<p>So is the question only about binge drinking? So if an 18-20 year old HS grad is consuming 6-12 beers nightly he doesn't count against the stats because he doesn't binge?</p>
<p>"What is the sample size compared to actual numbers. This statistic is one I find a bit harder to buy into. A 40 hour work week still leaves plenty of time to drink. I would have to ask where the data base is being drawn upon."</p>
<p>Most of the national data is drawn in select studies from the ongoing National Survey on Drug Use and Health, conducted by the Office of Applied Studies, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration. This is a huge annual data bank, based on three-year averages, obtained from face-to-face interviews with more than 68,500 individuals ages 18-25. Many (but not all) of the reports are posted at <a href="http://www.oas.samhsa.gov%5B/url%5D">www.oas.samhsa.gov</a></p>
<p>High school data comes from the Monitoring the Future, a huge annual national survey sponsored by the National Institute on Drug Abuse since 1975. They also have followup studies on college students, which they have been covering since 1980. This is a huge 50-state sample. (By the way, in one way I misspoke. While heavy drinking and binge drinking are significantly higher among college students, daily drinking is around the same, or maybe a tad lower. Daily drinking bottomed out in 1994-1995, with a non-college youth daily drinking falling from 8.3% in 1980 to 3.2% in 1995, and college drinking from 6.5% in 1980 to 3.0% in 1995, reflecting the huge success of the higher drinking age law. The drop in college drinking up til that point reflected the changing demographics of the pre-21 college population, with much higher proportions of African-American, Asian-American, and Hispanic students attending college.)</p>
<p>The National Institutes of Health, National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism also conducts a regular "National Epidemiology Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC)." More data than you'd ever want to see! Often takes me a year to page through it all. Because of defunding by the Bush Administration, they are behind in their publication schedule, with the last epidemiologic data reference manual published in January 2006 for the years 2001-2002.</p>
<p>"So is the question only about binge drinking? So if an 18-20 year old HS grad is consuming 6-12 beers nightly he doesn't count against the stats because he doesn't binge?"</p>
<p>Binge drinking is defined either as 5+ drinks in one episode or, alternatively, 5+ drinks in two hours (turns out, the data is similar.) It is virtually always underestimated because from experimental data we know that 1) students regularly underestimate number of drinks by 1 (so a 4-drink non-binger usually had 5); and 2) When they pour drinks, the average student drink is actualy 1.75X the standard. Thus, for the non-binge drinker who says he actually had 4 in fact, on average, had 8.5 drinks (5 X 1.75), and half of them had more! So all the numbers you've seen thrown around on binge drinking are significant underestimates.</p>
<p>Thanks Mini,</p>
<p>As I said I am not pro alcoholism, but what statistics might report and what you "see" sometimes are far apart, making the statistic a less reliable indicator of the condition. </p>
<p>The ole SWAG on having a drinking problem was a 6 pack a night every night.</p>
<p>"but what statistics might report and what you "see" sometimes are far apart, making the statistic a less reliable indicator of the condition."</p>
<p>On this particular list, I think you are right, and in two ways. The first is that alcohol use, by any measure, is higher (often very signficantly higher) at the prestige privates and flagship state universities we talk about most on this list than at the predominantly urban, commuter, ethnically diverse, universities with major part-time student bodies, or student bodies where a large proportion of students are working part- or full-time.</p>
<p>And, secondly, I think (not sure of course) the vast majority of folks on these forums have white kids in school, and they tend to have much higher drinking rates. But because we all like to think of our own kids and their friends as middle-class angels, we are not very quick to admit it. We are always dealing with "odds" of course, unless we have direct knowledge, but if you have a white male student attending quite a few of the institutions I have referenced, the odds are 50/50 or better that they've binged in the past two weeks, 1 in four (or higher) that they drink nearly every day, and 1 in 6 or 7 that they will become an alcoholic in the next 20 years (if they aren't already.) The odds are, I would think, that they are not likely to tell you about it.</p>
<p>I certainly agree that most on these forums fit the profile you describe, Mini. AND many of us do not want to see what is going on..the "its not my kid" syndrome. My eyes were opened after talking to my son, the Ivy grad. I am sure his experience was typical. Not ALL his friends drank/did drugs, but i would say most did. And most graduated with honors. </p>
<p>The other sad part is how easy it was for the kids to just skip class, if the class was large; and still do well. Partying had no effect it seemed. What's the point of an Ivy education then? He got the most out of the smaller classes he took at the sister LAC. He would say he met great, smart people, had incredible internships and contacts, did learn (even if some of that learning was by reading alone) All true...but it does make me wonder</p>
<p>"1 in four (or higher) that they drink nearly every day"</p>
<p>that may be pushing it a little. I go to a pretty alcoholic campus and most of the drinking occurs thurs-sat every other day there is minimal alcohol involved. My roomate being the exception, but def not 1 in 4 of us</p>
<p>I've got the data from Duke and Williams own student surveys (in both cases, it is a little higher than that.) And higher for white males.</p>
<p>Are the data from Duke and Williams available to the public? If they are, perhaps it might be helpful to start a thread with links to drug/alcohol surveys sort of in the same way there is one identifying schools with good merit aid. I think it would be tremendously useful in helping consumers be informed in their choices. Without valid surveys, it is a bit too easy to dismiss tales one doesn't like as being merely anectodal. </p>
<p>I've got a high school junior who is attracted to a number of schools that are likely high on the drinking scale, and I would love to show him something more persuasive than merely "I read on CC that . . . ." I've been looking around online for information, but I thought if others had access to surveys that it might be helpful to those who aren't skilled with Google or don't have time to do the research.</p>
<p>"Binge drinking is defined either as 5+ drinks in one episode or, alternatively, 5+ drinks in two hours"</p>
<p>I think there is a huge difference between 5 drinks in 2 hours and 5 drinks in one episode if an episode is defined as a party for instance. When I was in school it was not unusual for a party to start a 6 o'clock and not be over until 2:00 a.m. That's eight hours. If that's what you are using for statistics no wonder they seem so "alarming".</p>
<p>Secondly, if these are self-reported surveys, they should be seriously suspect. I know that my son gets these kinds of surveys in high school and all his friends think they are a big joke. Do they suddenly become serious when they take the same type of survey in college?</p>
<p>I will certainly admit that as a college student I made my drinks stronger than any professional bartender. After my freshman year, my parents were hosting a party and asked me to bartend. About halfway through the party my father, who had noticed that several guests were a bit tipsy, asked how I was mixing the drinks. I told him, "Same as in college -- 50/50". He did ask that I be a little more stingy with the liquor after that.</p>
<p>I've written this before on other drinking threads, but it still doesn't make sense to me that at a place like Williams the kids could afford (time-wise) to party like that. The academic demands are so intense. When I'd road trip to different colleges the party ones (Trinity, even Princeton) were less demanding academically, where Williams and Yale were more sedate because they were working so hard all the time. Maybe things changed.</p>
<p>I would also question the validity of student surveys.</p>
<p>I think mini has already addressed some of the points above. (1) At one point, he said there was no meaningful difference in results if "binge" was defined as 5+ drinks in "an episode" or two hours. (2) He also talked about studies regarding the validity of student surveys -- of course, they're not accurate; they significantly understate the amount of alcohol consumed.</p>
<p>I don't know why we're trying to pick holes in the data. I am suspicious of the conclusion that things have changed much in the past 20 years, but not that there's cause for concern. I do think some parents lie to themselves about their children's behavior.</p>
<p>dke: All I can say is that my experience differed. As I said above, I was going up to Williams semi-regularly for a while to see a girl when I was in college, and it was wall-to-wall alcohol everytime I was there. And she and I were "good" kids, serious students, not, in context, heavy drinkers, although we would have tripped all of mini's wires repeatedly. And I have testified repeatedly about the alcohol culture at Yale, although I agree that it was less than at the "party" schools.</p>
<p>I certainly recall plenty of alcohol, etc. at Williams in the late '70s, but I remember it being almost entirely on the weekends. The tales of weekends starting well before Friday night seem to be something new. As far as managing a difficult work load was concerned, some kids studied Friday and Saturday night between dinner and when parties got started. </p>
<p>I also remember a lot of the "wall-to-wall" alcohol being keg parties on the big weekends, like homecoming, winter carnival, with hard liquor available at some parties. Certainly lots of people drank every weekend. There has to be a big difference between those types of affairs and the pre-gaming that takes place now. The old style may have contributed just as much to alcoholism, but I don't think it led to as many cases of alcohol poisoning.</p>