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Alcohol abuse among adolescents
Binge drinking as a larger social issue
Causes and consequences of binge drinking
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Recommended: Alcohol abuse among adolescents
In Beth McMurtrie’s article “Why Colleges Haven’t Stopped Binge Drinking”, colleges have been and are continuing to drop the ball when it comes to stopping binge drinking by college students. McMurtrie begins the article by explaining the impact that binge drinking has on the lives of students involved. Some colleges are beginning to overlook the problem completely. It appears that the whole problem has been purposely overlooked in many instances for many different reasons. There are those out there that believe that binge drinking and college life go hand in hand and that these that partake of such will get it under control when they are ready.
¨Long-term overconsumption of alcohol causes death of brain cells, which can lead to brain disorders as well as a lowered level of mental or physical function.¨ (Patterson) People who have consumed excessive amounts of alcohol no longer have basic control and functionality of their mind and body. ¨Alcohol dependence, or alcoholism, occurs when the body cannot function without alcohol. Alcohol affects certain neurotransmitters in the brain. When the brain becomes accustomed to the way that alcohol affects these brain chemicals, it can no longer send proper signals to the rest of the body without the presence of alcohol.¨ (Patterson) Once someone has developed a dependence on alcohol, he or she will continue to drink regardless of any serious physical symptoms caused by alcohol.
Some of the effects include; Reluctance in obtaining medical for peers who have had too much in drink due to the fear of implicating themselves for drinking illegally. It contributes to an epidemic of binge drinking as well as unhealthy drinking habits on the campuses. This affects the life of a teenager as a student. Secondly underage drinking has contributed to a shift towards surreptitious behaviors that undermine the law making it difficult to police the matter because the students are hardly decisive ones. For instance driving while drunk has caused horror stories of the carnage on the roads that would supposedly if the law on the minimum age for drinking is
Most people would probably associate college age men and women with drinking alcohol in excessive amounts. This is a typical stereotype of college students. It seems that a lot of college students just assume the responsibility of drinking because they are college students. This seems to be the norm. Thomas Vander Ven, in his book Getting Wasted, studied college students on three different campuses in order to decipher the mystery behind the reason college students tend to drink (Vander Ven 2011).
Journal 5 The author, Sabrina Erdely, begins the article by expressing all of the ways college students spend their time on weekends, as well as most weeknights. All of the activities she listed had one thing in common: alcohol. Erdely then goes into detail describing just how important getting drunk on the weekends is to students. “The challenge to drink to the very limits of one’s endurance has become a celebrated staple of college life. In one of the most extreme reports on college drinking thus far, a 1997 Harvard School of Public Health study found that 43 percent of college students admitted to binge drinking in the proceeding two weeks.
Should College Allow Drinking in Campus? In April 2002 The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism(NIAAA) published a report, updated in 2005, that suggests a strong relationship between alcohol and other drug abuse and variety of negative consequences of students who used alcohol and drug. The report estimates that each year 1,700 college students die from alcohol-related unintentional injuries, including motor vehicle crashes. In addition, it further estimates that alcohol is involved in 599,000 unintentional injuries, 696,000 assaults, and 79,000 cases of sexual assault and acquaintance rape among college students. According to a number of national surveys, about 40% of college and university students engage in heavy episodic
Within residence halls, RA’s often put on programing that educates about drinking. It seems that many of the the campaigns are focused on alcohol addiction, not on binge consumption. This issue is relevant to the client because college aged students often die from alcohol related injuries, binge drinking makes this more likely to happen.
The rate of alcohol abuse is so “widespread among college students, that 20% of students are considered heavy drinkers” (Nugent & Jones, pg. 290). Colleges must take steps to try to educate and help students drink responsibly.
Since then, the trend of binge drinking has come along in American colleges. Henry Wechsler and Toben Nelson, writers of the article Will Increasing Alcohol Availability By Lowering the Minimum Legal Drinking Age Decrease Drinking and Related Consequences Among Youths maintains that, “College students are more likely to engage in heavy drinking than their peers who do not attend college, with 2 in 5 students nationally engaging in binge drinking on at least 1 occasion in the past 2 weeks” (987). Binge drinking is defined as the consumption of five of more drinks in a row
This is understandable as often this is when students have moved away from home and have the freedom to do what they want without their parents present. Some high-risk drinking events tend to be more prevalent in young adulthood. For example, homecoming, athletic events, spring break, pregame partying, and graduations have all been associated with excessive drinking among college students. This goes to show how the younger generation is very willing to drink. In 2002 the National Institute on Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse issed a Call to Action to adress drinking on college campuses, based on findings of an expert panel.
Many adults and teenagers are drinking alcoholic beverages for different reasons. Teenagers are drinking because of peer pressure. They want to fit in with society and are afraid they might be isolated or discarded from a group of people or a party. Some teens drink to escape sadness and loneliness. After a break up, the first thing the teenager does is drink.
It’s a spiral that never stops spinning, as the problem at hand keeps being passed down from generation to generation with no sign of fixing it. The budgets in colleges don’t normally account for binge drinking because the administration is more focused on getting kids to attend their college, all money goes to marketing, or teacher salaries,
However when a male drink more then 5 serving of alcohol or a female has 4 serving of alcohol in a short time this is consider binge drinking. There are many health problems that can rise from binge drinking three of these are impair judgment, black outs and alcohol poisoning. The first problem that a binge drinker will experience is impairing judgment. This can lead to accidents, injuries and motor vehicle accidents. When in this state of mind an drinker might make wrong judgment calls that he would normally not.
Binge Drinking Binge drinking is utilizing a significant amount of alcohol. College campuses represent the most significant setting of binge drinking because a college is a sociable place where people connect and get together. College drinking remains a problem and students will fight for their basic drinking rights. Colleges should enforce underage drinking laws in and around their campus because binge drinking has many disadvantages. Parents will be satisfied with the college’s decision which is to control binge drinking on campus.
College Students’ Exposure to Alcohol Drinking Drinking alcoholic beverages among college students is widely common nowadays in this generation. Several reasons can be recognized why students drink alcohol. According to the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence Inc, (2016), improving self-confidence, altering own identity (to adapt), curiosity, lack of parental advice, problems of daily living, running away from family dilemma, experiencing academic difficulty and other mental-related problems drive the teenagers to drink alcohol. Considering the reasons stated above, these can be some of the many ways how young people manage with their personal, emotional and social problems that they are experiencing.
