The Pros And Cons Of Alcohol

As many teenagers enter college, they begin to experiment with many things. Although not all students participate in underage drinking, it is evident that a vast majority do. Drinking is not the problem. The main problem occurs when students resort to binge drinking. In the

Drinking on college campuses has become a huge problem. For example, in the 10th century only old people used to drink, but now students drink more than their parents. Students see their parents drinking, so they may think that drinking has no effect on health that anyone can drink so why can’t the students drink? Therefore, college students have been drinking alcohol since the 14th century. Barrett Seaman’s article “How Bingeing Became the New College Sport,” appearing in TIME magazine on August 29, 2005, explains how binge drinking is affecting college students. It also suggests that lowering the drinking age might help solve the problem of binge drinking. This article has much information on how and where students get drunk.

In Henry Wechsler’s, “Getting Serious about Eradicating Binge Drinking”, he discusses the issue of binge drinking. Binge drinking is an extensive problem on college campuses. The majority of colleges merely focus on the student, rather than what encourages students to drink. Fraternities, sororities, and athletics are huge sources of the students on campus who drink. There are many approaches colleges can take to decrease the problem, and many colleges are already getting a head start. It is also important to not ignore how often colleges indirectly encourage students to drink (20).

“From the moment freshmen set foot on campus, they are steeped in a culture that encourages them to drink, and drink heavily. At many schools, social life is still synonymous with alcohol-lubricated gatherings” (Cohen). Binge drinking is a huge aspect of the culture of college life; many college students binge drink to become socially accepted in a particular group. Binge drinking is not only

“80 percent of teen-agers have tried alcohol, and that alcohol was a contributing factor in the top three causes of death among teens: accidents, homicide and suicide” (Underage, CNN.com pg 3). Students may use drinking as a form of socializing, but is it really as good as it seems? The tradition of drinking has developed into a kind of “culture” fixed in every level of the college student environment. Customs handed down through generations of college drinkers reinforce students' expectation that alcohol is a necessary ingredient for social success. These perceptions of drinking are the going to ruin the lives of the students because it will lead to the development alcoholism. College students who drink a lot, while in a college

techprogram/paper_40822.htm)." Some other effects that can happen from drinking is that students get in trouble with police, vandalism, get injured, or even worse, death. Over 1,400 students are killed annually because of their alcohol use, according to researchers at the Boston University School of Public Health. This survey also claims that over 600,000 students a year are assaulted by other students who have been drinking. Additionally, over 70,000 are the victims of sex assaults or date rapes in similar circumstances. These are very disturbing figures. Thirty-one percent of college students met criteria for a diagnosis of alcohol abuse and 6 percent for a diagnosis of alcohol dependence in the past 12 months, according to questionnaire-based self-reports about their drinking. Drinking heavily seems to bring out more difficulties in a person's life and can only continue the same way as an adult. One starts to rely on alcohol to solve problems and may continue throughout their life because their body becomes dependent on alcohol to make them feel good again.

Presidents of college campuses around the nation face issues of underage drinking and binge drinking on a regular basis and realizes that it is a danger and a problem. “Alcohol consumption is the third leading cause of death in the U.S., a major contributing factor to unintentional injuries, the leading cause of death for youths and young adults, and accounts for an estimated 75,000 or more deaths in the United States annually” (Wechsler 2010). Binge drinking can be loosely defined as consuming five or more drinks at one sitting for men and four drinks for women. Binge drinking amongst college students is a social activity that allows students to let loose and “fit in”.

The consumption of alcohol as a habitual behavior has long been associated with the American collegiate experience, despite the many known negative consequences a student who partakes in drinking can encounter. Because of the danger drunken students pose to a college’s reputation and the safety of its surrounding areas, much research has been done concerning the collegiate party and drinking scenes. This research mostly studied the demographics of the student body, so strategies developed to curtail the illegal or overconsumption of alcohol could be targeted towards the specific groups that demonstrated the highest likelihood of participating in these acts. When the strategies were implemented, however, there was little decline in the number of college students who chose to party and drink (Vander Ven 2011). This failure did not point toward a flaw in the research data, but instead a lack of research into the benefits a collegiate drinker receives that are rewarding to the point he or she cannot resist. This is the topic of Getting Wasted: Why College Students Drink Too Much and Party So Hard by Thomas Vander Ven.

Every year, approximately 6,000 to 22,000 students die on college and University campuses (qtd. in CintroÌn X), and thousands of these deaths can be attributed to alcohol over-consumption (A Sober Assessment of High-Risk Drinking on College Campuses). If there are not appropriate steps taken to address the situation, minors will continue to lose their lives as a result. As individuals enter college, it is likely that they will be exposed to alcohol, whether they meet the legal drinking age or do not. Many of these college students, specifically freshmen, are experiencing freedom for the first time in their lives and it can be relatively easy for them to get carried away, resulting in irresponsible decision making which often involves alcoholic

Since the early 1990s, substance-free housing has become an increasingly popular option for campuses across the nation. Substance-free housing has been implemented in universities and colleges in hopes of reducing rates of binge drinking among college students. Binge drinking can be defined as, “men drinking five or more alcoholic drinks in one sitting and for women four or more alcoholic drinks in one sitting.” (Feldman 271). Even though many know college binge drinking is a problem in our country, many are shocked when they hear that, “more than 75% of college students have consumed at least one alcoholic drink in the last 30 days. More than 40% say they’ve had 5 or more drinks with in the past 2 weeks, and some 16% drink 16 or more drinks per week. Nearly half of all male college students who drink are binge drinkers, and forty-one percent of female college students are binge drinkers” (Feldman 270). Statistics prove that college binge drinking is a problem to not only the students drinking but the ones that are staying sober, since “two-thirds of light drinkers reported having their sleep or studies disturbed by drunken students. Around a third had been insulted or humiliated, and 25% of women said a drunken classmate had made unwanted sexual advances” (Wechsler et al. 199). College binge drinking has many consequences associated with it such as poor academic performance, injury, assault, sexual abuse, property damage and drunk driving (Willenbring 238). The problem of

Alcohol is one of the most commonly used drugs in the United States today. Sixty-three percent of Americans over the age of 18 said they have consumed alcohol at least once in the past year, (National, 2001). A survey, conducted by the Core Institute, of 55,026 college students, ranging from freshmen to seniors to non-seeking degree students, from across the United States showed that 84.1% of students consumed alcohol at least once a year and that 72.1% of students

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.

Heavy drinking among college students has been a problem and studies have indicated this for several years (Turrisi, Mallett, Mastroleo, & Larimer, 2006). This topic continues to be a crucial subject of study. Hingson, Heeren, Zakocs, Kopstein, and Wechsler (2002) suggest that approximately 1,400 college students between 18 and 24 passed away in 1998 from alcohol related injuries. Hingson et al. found 112,000 arrests among college students aged 18 to 24 in 1999 for alcohol related crimes. Hingson et al. also reported 630,000 assaults of students between the ages of 18 and 24, 400,000 students had unprotected sex due to drinking, and there were 70,000 victims of sexual assault. Hingson et al.’s study used records held by the Center for

That when you go off to college it's time to not only get a degree, but also a time to drink and socialize at parties. In the end, alcohol is glamorized and often enough abused. Ultimately alcohol becomes so much of a social norm that students do not realize how and when alcohol is abusive. Therefore the problem is how to inform students in a socially acceptable manner of how and when alcohol becomes abusive to their own well being. This reports seeks to explore all aspects of alcohol abuse related to college students through definitions and statistical problems of alcohol abuse in hopes of ultimately providing solutions to increasing the wellness at Georgia Southern University.

This literature review will consider causal factors contributing to the heavy alcohol consumption of tertiary students and the negative consequences of binge drinking. Why do young adults engage in binge drinking? Why does the rate of alcohol consumption go higher when young people go to university? This literature review highlights that tertiary students drink more compared to their non-student peers because of the social and physical environment (e.g. sporting events, shared flats or house).