Stopping College Students Abuse from Alcohol Consumption The problem college students have, especially freshmen, is about abusing alcohol consumption after feeling free and independent due to leaving their homes. Now that they have their own dorms to sleep in and do not have their parents breathing over their shoulder for everything they do, who is going to tell them not to have a few alcoholic drinks and instead finish their assignment due the next morning? Being that college students are turning into independent adults, it is their responsibility to make their own choices and face the consequence each decision brings with it. Other people, and things around them can only do so much when it comes to a decision they have to make. …show more content…
Many eighteen and nineteen-year-old students have been told by their parents, like myself, what to do and what not to do as well. “The drinking age is 21 for a reason, and that is when you will drink!” my mom reminded me as we were buying a small refrigerator for my dorm. Sure enough, I was already making comments in my head, “Well I am mature so a few drinks will not do any bad.” As college students are told the same things, how to avoid going to parties and stay focused in school, most will have the eagerness to do the opposite as what they are told and to also decide from own experience if drinking alcohol and partying will do them bad or not after. Unfortunately, when college students try to learn from life experience and test their limits with alcohol, many negative outcomes can be created from this. This is why a factual presentation done by second or third year undergraduate college students to incoming freshmen on the seriousness of alcohol consumption can be a solution. College freshman hear from students that have recently gone through what they are going through than what their parents went through when they were their age, having the fact that things can be much different from then until now. Also, with
General purpose: To persuade. Specific purpose: To persuade the audience about the benefits of changing the Minimum Legal Drinking Age from twenty-one to eighteen. INTRODUCTION Attention Gainer: Have you ever wondered how much life would change if the United States allowed Alcohol to be consumed legally for college students, specifically for an eighteen year old?
For countless young adults after high school the next stepping stone is college, however, students are not only learning from the classes they attend, but also from the parties. Consequently, they are being introduced to alcohol and plenty of it; learning how to shotgun a beer or attempt a keg stand is all the rage. Suddenly, people are viewing college binge drinking as a right of passage for even their youngest students. Thus, demands the questioning of lowering the drinking age to counteract college binge drinking. “The reality is that at age 18 in this country, one is a legal adult. Young people view 21 as utterly arbitrary—which it is. And because the explanation given them is so condescending—that they lack maturity and judgment,
“According to the CDC, about 90% of all teen alcohol consumption occurs in the form of Binge Drinking, which experts say peaks at the age of nineteen.” (qtd by Listfield). Binge Drinking is the consumption of excessive amounts of alcohol in a short period of time. The author, Emily Listfield, defines that the standard alcohol consumption over a two hour period is considered to be four beers for women and five beers for men. This has become a great distraction for college students nationwide and a major dilemma on college campuses. Nearly two hundred thousand students visit emergency rooms each year due to the abuse of alcohol, and more than one thousand seven hundred students die. In the article “ The Underage Drinking Epidemic”, Listfield identifies the problems that underage drinking can cause, the dangers that could happen, and four solutions on what parents can do to keep their kids from binge drinking.
Peer Pressure is frequently involved with excessive drinking on college campuses. Alcohol is prominent in the college culture because it is presented at many social affairs and is part of many gatherings with peers. “Because peers are the most salient social referents in the college environment, they are a potent influence on alcohol use. Most new acquaintances at college will be drinkers: recent research indicating that four out of five college students drink. In addition, college peers tend to be more approving of alcohol use.
The legal drinking age of twenty-one, far from being the solution to the problem of underage drinking, has forced young adults eighteen to twenty to drink illegally and without supervision. Instead of saving lives, it endangers lives, because adolescents have no chance of learning how to drink responsibly. Students often excuse their heavy drinking with the mantra, "Everyone is doing it. It's part of being in college." In addition, lowering the drinking age can bring many adolescents back into social situations where they can experiment with alcohol under the supervision of peers and adults.
High school is over and it is your first time away form home, what are you going to do? The typical college student wants to party! Of the people that were surveyed over half believed that the legal drinking age should be lowered. [O’Kane 1] The legal age to drink in the United States is now 21 years old; college freshman, sophomores, and some juniors are not of the legal age to drink. This causes a problem on many campuses; several students are experiencing their first time away from parental care in a setting sinonomus with drinking and clubbing. Some feel pressure from family and friends to receive excellent grades while attending school, sometimes the pressure is too much and going out and
Alcohol abuse is a serious health problem when it comes to college students. "The average amount of binge drinkers on college campuses is 50% of men and 39% of women" (<a href="http://www.oregoncounseling.org/ArticlesPapers/">http://www.oregoncounseling.org/ArticlesPapers/</a>). There are various reasons why students drink and serious short and long term effects on the body and mind. Alcoholism is a serious problem for college students and there are many actions being taken to try to lessen the problem among colleges throughout the country.
Jokes have been made about America’s new favorite pass time being binge drinking. Finding a party to drink at is no longer hard. The new question asked is “which party should I go to?” In fact, teenagers show the highest rate of binge drinkers. Studies show that there are more underage drinkers than legal drinkers. While having the drinking age at twenty-one does not do much for curving drinking on college campuses, because most people graduate at twenty-two, lowering the drinking age will not help stop binge drinking in college (Griggs). If anything, lowering the drinking age provokes drinking. Some universities have rules about underage drinking and kick out any students who break those rules; therefore, having the
Research has supported the observation that young people in America consume alcohol regularly; this prevalence of use increases rapidly during adolescence, as well as a few years afterward (Wagenaar and Wolfson 37). This has come to be a problem among college students. It has been shown through extensive quantitative and qualitative research that those under twenty-one years of age are able to obtain alcohol, which allows them to binge drink. Binge drinking holds many problems for college students: alcohol poisoning, DUIs, traffic accidents, and even fatalities.
One of my youth pastors told the teens at church on a Wednesday night, “Don’t start a habit in your younger years that is going to control the way you live your adult years .” Whenever I heard this statement, I thought of teens binge drinking in college. College drinking has become a major issue for people under the age of twenty- one. Binge drinking becomes addicting, especially for people under the age of twenty-one. Understanding the problem and consequences of binge drinking will help to show that lowering the drinking age will not help the problem.
“Nearly half of all alcohol use reported by college students is among those who are underage, according to the Johns Hopkins Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth, and about forty percent of all college students binge drink” (Abba). Underage drinking inevitable. College
College life is filled with changes. It is filled with many new experiences. As college students, we are on our own, adults. As adults we are responsible for keeping up to date on information that affects us. One issue that affects college students nation wide is drinking. The current legal drinking age in the United States is twenty-one years of age. The Federal government raised the legal drinking age from 18 to 21 in 1984. Even with the current drinking age at twenty-one, many people under that age choose to drink anyway. In fact, a government survey from 1996 showed that 56% of high school seniors reported drinking in the last 30 days (Hanson). With so many underage drinkers, many people
Students gain expectations to drink alcohol from each other, as they depend on it, pressure each other and face a new environment and a new social setting. When in college, a student does not have anyone looking after them and so they get free time and they do not know how to use it. They end up filling up their extra time, with going out to frat houses, bars, and or other house parties to drink. Students go from being in high school, where they have to be home by curfew and drinking is still sometimes and issues, to not having a curfew and not having someone wait until they get home that night to make sure they aren’t drinking.
There are many definitions associated with alcohol and alcohol abuse in general that need to be clarified. Most college students think of alcohol as that cheap high they get to obtain on the weekends at social events called parties. Knowing what alcohol really is and what exactly it can do to your body in excessive amounts over time and in any one sitting is one of the main problems with why college students abuse alcohol. The social norm of binge or excessive drinking in college is prevailing over the social fact of what alcohol really is and what it can do to a person’s health! The actual definition of alcohol is a “liquid distilled product of fermented fruits, grains, and vegetables used as a solvent, antiseptic and sedative” (Drinking: A students Guide,
The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism states that “about four out of five college students drink alcohol.” College students drink illegally because of the Fraternity and Sorority parties. College Freshman are more likely to abuse the alcohol consumption because they know it is illegal and think they can get away with drinking at those type of parties. There have been a studies conducted by Duke University about college drinking that explains, “Despite the drinking age of 21, about 74% of drinking violations at Duke in 1999 were committed by freshman.” If the drinking age was lowered to eighteen, that percentage could be cut in half. Freshman would get to college with experience of drinking and knowledge from their parents. The teen would be given a safe drinking talk just as a parent would give a safe sex talk. However, since the drinking age is currently twenty-one, parents feel that they do not need to give their teen a drinking talk and that is how uncontrolled drinking starts.