<p>I've been lurking for a while and have read with interest the concerns many have expressed concerning binge drinking. When I went to college some 25 years ago, I would have been identified as a binge drinker as the term has been defined here. So would 2/3 of my dorm-mates. Pretty much every Friday afternoon, we sent a senior to the liquor store with our orders (you had to be 21 to buy liquor then) and pretty much every Friday night, we all drank too much. We slept late Saturdays, got up, and went about our business. Never missed class because of drinking or because we were too hungover. Parking on campus was impossible, so no one had a car, so no one drove, so no one got a DUI or into an accident. No one cared whether the other students on the hall drank or not; no one tried to coerce others into drinking if they didn't want to. I honestly don't recall anyone throwing up in the hall, but I am certain that had someone done so, the rest of us would have been disgusted and made the offender clean it up. Of the people who lived on my (small) floor, I can count, without taxing my memory or consulting the alumni guide, four lawyers, three doctors, two architects, two city planning officials, one economics professor, one pharmicist, and many other solid citizens who not only graduated but did well enough to go on to graduate or professional school, enter the work force, start businesses. We now work, pay taxes, raise children, coach little league, etc. None of us the worse for wear for our Friday night partying. </p>
<p>So, my question is this: am I naive for thinking it won't be any different for my son next year as he starts his freshman year? Are things that different now? If so, how? Why?</p>
<p>Yes, the drinking life is definitely different. There is more alcohol + drugs (pot, cocaine, ecstacy), and more "games" that can lead to alcohol poisoning. Combination drinking (beer, wine and/or hard liquor) is also more prevalent that back in our day!</p>
<p>What you are describing would be a college today with a low binge drinking rate and fairly moderate drinking.</p>
<p>I can't speak for all parents, but my concern is not with college kids having a few too many beers once a week on Friday night and a hangover on Saturday morning.</p>
<p>But, the statistics are staggering. Like 60% of students having vomited in a public place in the past year. Like the number of students being hauled by ambulance to the hospital with near-fatal blood alcohol contents (in the 0.40 range.)</p>
<p>And, the number of kids drinking 5, 10, or more drinks in a sitting multiple times each week.</p>
<p>"And, the number of kids drinking 5, 10, or more drinks in a sitting multiple times each week."</p>
<p>Define "a single sitting"- If a kid has 5 beers over the course of "a single sitting" that lasts 6 hours, I would hardly call that going hogwild, but it would still fit the question.</p>
<p>Also, you might want to keep in mind that any survey collected data filled out by high school or college students is inherently flawed. I know kids who never touched drugs who wouldn't hesitate to answer that they were frequent cocaine users on any anonymous survey. </p>
<p>So... well, whatever. People on college campuses drink. You can't really control your kid once they're out of your house, so you might as well teach them common sense whilst they're in it. But once they're gone, you're just going to sit and imagine all of the horrible things they're doing anyway, regardless of if they are actually doing anything or not. Maybe it's harsh, but my parents raised me not to do stupid things, and I've mysteriously avoided suffocating on my own vomit.</p>
<p>Sorry, I just get annoyed when I hear about how wild and awful we college kids are. It's a little combo of a) how would you know what we're up to, and b) didn't you go to college in the 60s and 70s?</p>
<p>It's the current frequency of vomiting in public that makes me think the drinking situation is very different from when I was in college in the late 70s.</p>
<p>Not only is beer now "funneled" into students' systems, two cans at a time most often, but also the amount of hard liquor that follows it (Grey Goose, the Capt'n, SoCo, gin) and is chugged straight out of the bottle to thunderous applause, is commonplace. Also, the quality of pot (buds in Blunts, e.g.) is alot more serious and prevalent than 25 years ago. And no need to go into coke, X, roofies, meth and the resurgence of acid. Also, I'd guess by now, Piper, that you know that Beirut is no longer just the capital of Lebanon anymore. (For the uninitiated, it's also called beer pong and has elaborately decorated and painted plywood boards for playing fields). And then there's all of the reckless sex (complete with STDs) which accompanies all of it.</p>
<p>And, BTW Piper, all of this is happening in high school, not in college.</p>
<p>so if this is happening in high school- my question would be - where are the parents?
But I agree, at least what I read on these boards if not what I have observed with my kids, is that drinking is much more competitive and agressive than 30 years ago.
Makes me wonder what these kids are trying so desperately to escape to or from?</p>
<p>"It's the current frequency of vomiting in public that makes me think the drinking situation is very different from when I was in college in the late 70s"</p>
<p>How long have they kept that particular statistic? And how is it collected?</p>
<p>Piper, basically, your description describes my own drinking experiences (though on the whole, it was probably fewer than once a week when I was a freshman/sophomore and actually about until now (I just turned 21, so I have a beer with dinner once or twice a week), as well as most of my friends. Trust that you've raised your kid well, and if he has to make his own mistakes to learn from them, just hope they aren't too dumb.</p>
<p>(btw, collegeparent thank you for making my point that irresponsible habits start at home without getting as frustrated as I probably would)</p>
<p>I couldn't tell you how long they had kept the particular statistic about public vomiting or even what the statistic is. I do think someone has posted statistics about its incidence. All I know is that vomiting in public was essentially unheard of 25 years ago, and now, from comments on CC and from my daughter's friends who are in college and who have visited colleges, it appears common on many college campuses and even occurs at colleges where "binge" drinking is less common. Something has changed.</p>
<p>Blossom -- Ok, well, we must have gone to different schools. At the schools I'm familiar with, it has gone from being rare to common. In my (necessarily limited) experience, it was not even common for people then to drink to the point of getting sick in the bathroom, much less in public.</p>
<p>I just think a lot of you seem to be running on "Good Ol' Days" time... where your shennanigans were charming and funny, whereas ours are dangerous and irresponsible. Makes sense, the memory wants to whitewash all of the completely insane stuff so you can run for President some day.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>so if this is happening in high school- my question would be - where are the parents?<<</p>
</blockquote>
<br>
<p>Actually, I read an article in the paper the other week that parents are "hosting" these parties. I put hosting in quotation marks, because the parents do not provide the booze (legal problems with that), but allow the kids to bring it into their home for the party. These parents collected all car keys from the party participants, stationed themselves by the front door so that no kids could escape. Their point: if kids are going to binge drink, they might as well do it in an environment where they can't get into a car after a night of binging and drive.</p>
<p>I was appalled! But alcohol at high school parties in some high school districts seems to be the norm (normally, the "better" high schools--at our high school we worry more about gang activity!).</p>
<p>I remember hearing about people shooting beer- but never actually seen it and I was a pretty hard core partier
It was the 70's though and it was easier to get drugs than alcohol- plus the alcohol was likely to be nasty stuff- like Southern Comfort or Boones Farm- I woulda never guessed I would go to 20 yr old single malt ;)</p>
<p>Its my understanding that even if they didn't provide it- that parents would be liable as homeowners if any accident occured after leaving the house. I think it is also illegal to facilitate drinking by minors not your own.
While I know some families who allow thier children to be introduced to alcohol at an early age ( watered wine etc) swear that this helps to keep drinking in perspective at a health level, I also know kids who can't differentiate between their parents allowing them to drink at home, and what their parents would think if they drank somewhere else.
I personally am only comfortable with a zero tolerance policy- I wasnt raised to drink casually and while I did get out of hand in high school I dont feel it is hypocritical to have closer eye on my kids.
My older daughter who is now 23 does drink occasionally- but she waited several months after turning 21 to have a legal drink, and as far as I can tell, she doesn't drink to the extent that she would be ill nor does she use drugs with alcohol-
I admit I think a lot of that is temprament. She is more cautious than some, not a big risk taker- her sister however goes for the adrenaline- and while I encourage her to participate in activities that can provide that outlet relatively safely ( like sports etc) I dread the day that she finds that she can lose alot of her anxiety just by having a drink or three.
My goal is to teach her to resist peer pressure, and also to keep close tabs on what she does outside of school- so far I haven't had a problem. In fact she and three of her friends had an intervention with a friend from another school and a drug/alcohol counselor at that school, because they were concerned about their friends alcohol use-
I think all schools should have drug alcohol counselors, this woman had been able to educate them quite a bit while they were still in middle school and young enough to learn something :)</p>
<p>
[quote]
"It's the current frequency of vomiting in public that makes me think the drinking situation is very different from when I was in college in the late 70s"
How long have they kept that particular statistic? And how is it collected?
[/quote]
Well, this is a very important question. Such statistics are the result of anonymous surveys sent to several hundred students each year. There's no real control in place to determine the veracity of student answers. The infamous Wechlser survey offers an inducement to students who participate--if they turn in a completed survey, they get entered into a raffle for a free spring break trip or some such thing. Is it really true that 60% of college students drink to the point of vomiting in public? Are college students having a little fun with the social scientists when they fill out these forms? I don't know, and neither do the surveyors. I have my doubts about these surveys, and I agree that the definition of binge drinking as used by Wechsler and his followers is absurd.</p>
<p>The 60% number I posted was incorrect. Here are actually surveyed results from one Ivy League university regarding incidence of drinking side effects within the 12 months prior to the survey:</p>
<p>62% had played drinking games.</p>
<p>51% had vomited because of alcohol use in a private setting (such as a bathroom).</p>
<p>19% had vomited because of alcohol in a public setting.</p>
<p>11% had deliberately vomited so they could drink more.</p>
<p>20% had urinated in a public setting while under the influence of alcohol.</p>
<p>Just a note about the surveys: Wechsler and others don't just go out and ask questions and assume that all answers are equally valid. There is an entire panoply of survey methodological techniques developed over the past 30 years regarding the accuracy of self-reporting mechanisms. These include everything from questions coded in such a way as to seek out inconsistencies, to actual observed tracking of behaviors of subpopulations over time. There are very real controls. Indeed that is how researchers have discovered that binge drinking is underreported in the surveys - students generally underestimate the number of drinks they have by one, and when pouring drinks, they overestimate what a 1ounce drink would look like by 1.75 to 1. These are Harvard School of Public Health professionals who know how to calculate confidence intervals. Wechsler is quite comfortable with the underestimates (the average student who reports 5 drinks actually had 6, with each drink being 1.75x the size of the standard measurement - in other words, s/he had closer to 10), just noting that it is relatively rare for a student who reports binge drinking within the past two weeks to have done it only once.</p>
<p>I don't have college data going back over 30 years. The national data I have on the general population indicates that per capita alcohol consumption has declined as the population has aged, and that the number of abstainers has increased. At the same time, within the population as a whole, chronic drinking, heavy drinking, and binge drinking are at all-time highs.</p>
<p>Having just graduated from HS, I haven't gotten into the whole drinking culture yet, and don't think I will. I might get this from my parents...they will only have a drink with dinner on rare occasions. I don't really like the idea of letting go of all my inhibitions, if you will. I've been around my friends and classmates drunk, and to be honest, it doesn't seem that fun and it disgusts me, in a way. They stagger around and end up puking everywhere (and when you puke, it's one of the first signs of alcohol poisoning!!!) They're pretty much miserable after that, and I or someone else usually end up taking care of them.</p>
<p>Now, I won't say I've never had a drink (I did when I was in Mexico earlier this summer, but it's legal there.) And I don't think it's horrible to drink socially and in moderation as long as you know your limits. But drinking till you black out or to get drunk night after night is NOT healthy.</p>
<p>Regarding drinking games, the big one around here is shooting or "bonging" beer, where a can or two is poured down a big funnel with a tube on the end. The drinker is supposed to chug the whole thing and not choke. There's beer pong too, which I think is some variation on ping pong.</p>