Hope Leyva Binge Drinking on College Campuses

                                         Binge Drinking on College Campuses

            Am I stressed? Am I under the impression to be cool like my peers? Will I not be the awesome person my roommate thinks I am if I don’t attend this party? These are some questions college students ask themselves before they make their decision to binge drink. Binge drinking is starting to become a big problem on college campuses but do the students or families or staff members realize this type of behavior is bad. The drinking starts to begin when student feel high levels of stress, or the need to be the “cool kid”. Students feel as if they can’t take the pain of the stress unless they have some type of alcohol in their system to help them better function or they won’t have the social life they intend to have. The students don’t realize how bad this can be from taking one drink to loving the feeling of stress free to drinking multiples of drinks and how it may or may not affect their lives today but can take a bad turn later on in the future.  Every day we ae seeing more and more cases of binge drinking and how young people’s lives are taken away.

History  

            Binge drinking is when a person drinks more than five drinks in a short period of time. In some cases, it predicts that binge drinking in students sometimes can start in high school and carry its way to college. Binge drinking is starting to increase over time and we don’t even realize what kind of harm or problems come along with binge drinking.  The drinking has been around for a long time now, but the binge drinking in college campuses starting occurring in the 1990’s. In 1993, surveys and questionaries’ were being completed by college students at universities and results come out to be that overall 44% of the students binged (Weschleretal). In many other articles, it sums up the same time frame as 1993 and has the same conception. Once there were drunk driving and rape cases that started to develop, the higher people tried to prevent these events. In 2001, the cases got more serious and the families of binge drinking and staff members started having interventions. (1).

             Binge Drinking is more likely to occur when a student is feeling either stress or trying to keep up with he’s/her peers. Some of the three biggest stressors is including academic, interpersonal, and developmental (e.g., making decisions about the future, taking responsibility

for time allocation, balancing priorities) (Pedersen). When the student might feel the most stress is when the student is failing behind in certain classes or has a big project or exam due and they wait until last minute to complete. The levels of stress start developing for the student because they are starting to over think about what their parents might say or their teachers. Students also start thinking what happens to me if I don’t pass these courses, and making them feel as like what’s the point of college anyways. Among college students, drinking to cope is a fairly common behavioral response, emerging as both a short-term reaction to situational stress and a long-term coping style that remains a strong predictor of heavy alcohol use even when other influences on drinking are controlled for (1). In that statement, it provides some evidence that students tend to cope with binge drinking to get a better feeling about their self.  

Another problem with binge drinking is students feel the need to “keep up” or “live the college lifestyle”. Many freshman students that attend college their first year don’t really go to college for the  academics but to feel the vibe of the “college life”. Some universities give off an image of social life and not really focus on the real college life of the studying and how serious the work load really is being a college student. The image could send off different signals to someone so new to college as like advertising or commercials that show a group of students hanging at the coffee shop down the road chatting it up or how it’s important to have a social life outside of the academics. Colleges advertise what the town has to offer such as the scenery or social events that are going on while you’re not in class. The thing they are not advertising a lot is the hard part of college. Colleges are not advertising the work load that is expected from professors or the participation of being in class every day.  For example, universities don’t put Betty studying and going over flashcards in her dorm room or Peter on the computer majority of the day after class. This is the real lives of college students and what college really brings to the table and how much of an extra mile you might have to take to get that diploma. Some students may think it’s fairly easy but don’t know the real outcome and that problem could put the stress levels high and that’s when the binge drinking begins.

            Binge drinking increases at college parties on campuses. Where do these parties come from? These kinds of all year-round parties mostly come from fraternities and sororities.  To even begin or be a part of a sonorities your most likely task is to throw a party, where the binge drinking begins. In the  article” Correlates of College Student binge drinking”, it states that a former Harvard student  gave questionaries’ to 140  college campuses and most of  the students that binge drink were fraternity or sorority (Weschleretal). Fraternities and sororities are one of the biggest problems with binge drinking because every party that they throw are senior students that pressure the younger ones or the new ones into taking over excessive drinks or shots to prove that they can “hang” with the older ones. What these college students don’t realize is that these habits can lead to dangerous consequences as to affecting their college academic or drunk driving, alcohol poisoning.

             College students don’t understand when they binge drink who it might affect;they are thinking oh yeah, I’m feeling cool now or my stress relieve is gone. Students don’t realize the precautious of their actions from binge drinking until it’s too late. For an example, if the student binge drinks all night long and has a big test in the morning, do you think that student will wake up refreshed and ready for the test? No. That could lead to serious problems in universities because some colleges don’t let students finish out if they show lack of wellness or poor effort in class. Any college student  that is going to college and has plans for himself shouldn’t waste his whole future on a night of fun. Small but interesting effects link binging with having a b average or lower in grades (Weschleretal). What students fail to realize as well is that binge drinking affects the lives of the students at the school as well, if you’re out parting every night and drinking way more then you should, you’re not really getting the work done that is needed to complete on time. Binge drinking also comes along with poor wellness and health, which could still have an effect on participation in college courses. Students that were asked “how important is it for you to participate in the following activities in college?” answered “very important “or “important” regards to parties (Weschlertal). This is an epidemic that needs to be changed or solved.

            Another big issue that binge drinking effects is that  students might not think so much about how it effects the community. We don’t hear much about the stories that lay along the college campuses but when a school loses a student over something alcohol relative that effects the families, the friends and students, the town and the community as one. Losing someone could be hard on anyone and losing someone that you knew had him whole life ahead of them is sad when the family and friends and community and town could have prevented it. 

Examples

            Some students who go out and binge drink sometimes drink at the most popular college spots or vacations and for spring break. Some of the college cities and towns love throwing parties for spring break week.  It’s a week of fun and a week of no school and college students take opportunity of that and believe it’s the time to party hard. Some students don’t know that they could lose people they care about that week as well.

            Twenty-year-old Kyle Lamb a college student was found dead and unresponsive in Panama City Beach, Florida, of alcohol poisoning. Lamb and his friends were camping at a popular site for spring breakers in that area. “They went out to the beach, and lamb wasn’t in the shape where he could go out” said Whitman. Whitman is one of Kyle’s friends that attended spring break with him and he said in the interview “I came back to check on him a few times and taking care of him before we went out”. When Lamb’s friends returned to the campsite around 8:30 p.m., Lamb wasn’t breathing and they called 9-1-1. The paramedics performed CPR, but Lamb died at the hospital around 1:00 a.m. The close-knit community is in shock.” We’re just really going to miss this kid,” Brunk said. Brunk is one of the coaches at Lamb’s school. “He’s such a big part of our school family and our family here in Potterville (Kantner). It can be difficult to read this article about this young intelligent college student who had his whole life ahead of him still and his life is gone.

            In 2011 my classmate Castillo was a young and brave high school student. She was the high light of high school; she was in every program or social event that was there. She had a lot of friends and a lot of support. She was a senior and the top of her class. One night she decided to go out with some of her friends and at 3:00 A.M. she crashed her vehicle and it rolled off the highway and caught on fire. The next morning, we all got the devastating news that one of our classmates had passed away. The next morning at school it wasn’t the same; everyone was walking the halls with tears in their eyes and walking very slow. Not a single person wanted to be at school that day. The next few weeks wasn’t so much better with the school putting on memorials and attending the funeral and giving our respects to the family as a class. I still can remember the day I walked up and hugged Castillo’s mom; it was like the whole world crumbled in my arms that day. I will never forget that day because no mother should have to feel that feeling of losing a child so young. More weeks passed on, and our classroom just wasn’t the same with her pretty smile or goofy personality. Later on, the police cases came back and the accident occurred because of alcohol use.  No one knows what it means or feels like to lose a friend over something that could have been prevented. Maybe if Castillo didn’t drink as much or got a ride home with someone sober, she could still be here now.

Solutions

            Binge Drinking is being taking so lightly in college campuses that college students don’t realize that binge drinking can lead to serious problems for the future. For a better college experience and outcome, binge drinking needs to stop, and students who have a drinking problem need to get helped. Understanding the motivations for binge drinking can be argued as being

the first of several steps towards changing the culture of binge drinking(Coleman,Cater). Some things campuses should try out for binge drinkers is maybe a school group that has activities for the students on the weekends that doesn’t involve partying or drinking. During the time being with the group, maybe the students can have group talks and during those talks that can express what actually motivates them to binge drink, and once those issues are out they can minimize the issues. In the article “Changing Culture of Young People’s binge drinking: from motivation to practical solutions,” it gives information for how students can achieve help and get started on a healthier college life style. Colleges across Caperphilly were getting questionaries’ with three to five questions to see which students have similarities in binge drinking.  In total, the 40 young people were recruited from nine different sites and locations across Caerphilly County, all young people participating were of White ethnicity, reflecting the 99.1% White ethnic composition of the study area and all were regular (on average weekly) binge drinkers (Office for National Statistics, 2001) (Coleman, Cater). Binge drinking is increasing all over the U.S. at different campuses, and by students taking these questionnaires are making them realize that binge drinking is becoming a problem in their lives.

Some other solutions are to help students get part time not heavy job load, to decrease the changes of binge drinking. Taking out those extra hours on the weekends could maybe minimize the possible of binge drinking. The methods above have shown that 25% of students are affected by binge drinking and trying to change their drinking ways for healthy life’s and a better future for college.

Camus and Absurdity

Albert Camus had a little rebellion in himself.  In 1949, Camus wrote the novel The Rebel, and in that novel he expresses how he differences revolt and revolution. During this time, Camus would probably best believe that binge drinking was student’s ways to express themselves and didn’t seem it harmful in Camus’s eyes. He would have thought binge drinking as a challenge someone would get over and could get over; he always thought of the bigger picture. Camus would have not thought that binge drinking was an epidemic in time because he rebelled against certain things, and he would most likely rebelled against this topic and would think it’s not a big deal. Camus said about the book The Rebel that he saw “revolt as a peaceful evolution process of leadership but not violence.”( Camus,Albert) Camus would rebel and go ahead with binge drinking and believe the outcome comes from the person who decided to binge drink. He would hope not for the worst but that individual is upon himself.

Conclusion

            Binge drinking is an epidemic that is a big problem for college students. College students go to college to get a better future for themselves and to get a diploma to get a good paying job. Is taking that one drink or few drinks worth it all? Was it worth your time? Or, was it worth your career or life? Binge drinking shouldn’t be the reason you’re not allowed back at a college campus Don’t let one night of binge drinking take that away from you.

 

Work Cited

“A Text Message Program as a Booster to in-Person Brief Interventions for Mandated College Students to Prevent Weekend Binge Drinking.” Taylor & Francis, www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/07448481.2016.1185107

Camus, Albert. The Rebel. Penguin Books, 2013

Coleman, Lester, and Suzanne Cater. “Changing the Culture of Young People's Binge Drinking: From Motivations to Practical Solutions.” Drugs: Education, Prevention and Policy, vol. 14, no. 4, 2007, pp. 305–317., doi:10.1080/09687630601070878.

Kantner, Shannon. “LCC Student Dies On Spring Break Vacation.” Headlines, www.wilx.com/home/headlines/LCC-Student-Dies-On-Spring-Break-Vacation--196212771.html. Accessed 26 July 2017.Work Cited

Pedersen , Daphne E. “Which stressors increase the odds of college binge drinking?” College student journal , vol. 51, no. 1, 2017, pp. 129–141.

“The Rebel Quotes by Albert Camus.” By Albert Camus, www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/486408-l-homme-r-volt.

Wechsler, Henry, et al. “Trends in College Binge Drinking During a Period of Increased Prevention Efforts: Findings from 4 Harvard School of Public Health College Alcohol Study Surveys: 1993–2001.” Journal of American College Health, vol. 50, no. 5, 2002, pp. 203–217., doi:10.1080/07448480209595713.

.Wechsler, H., et al. “Correlates of college student binge drinking .” American Public Health Assocaition , vol. 85, no. 7, 1995.

Wechsler, Henry, et al. “What Colleges Are Doing About Student Binge Drinking A Survey of College Administrators.” Journal of American College Health, vol. 48, no. 5, 2000, pp. 219–226., doi:10.1080/07448480009599308.