Coed Life at Binge University | The Fix

10/26/12 10:15 AM

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Coed Life at Binge University

From state schools to the Ivy League, drinking to get bombed has long been the most popular activity on the quad. Is the problem with our kids or our colleges?
This is a glorious season on Americas gorgeous college campuses. Happy parents dropping their children off at college in September and arriving for elaborately orchestrated visits in October can feel that their children are participating in the great American ritual of higher education. In New Englands answer to the golden age of Athens under Pericles, students will scale philosophical heights, sit at the feet of the wise, and immeasurably stretch their intellects. Many will also be involved with a subject never listed in course catalogues or discussed at parents weekendbinge drinking. What campuses call Greek Life is less like Periclean Athens photo via and more like Homers Land of the Lotus Eatersit feels so By Susan Cheever good while you are doing it, but like Odysseus, you may have a lot of 09/25/12 trouble getting home. These wrongs of passage are far from harmless | Share social bonding. Almost 2,000 college students a year die from binge drinking, defined as four to five drinks in a short time. Many more end up in overcrowded local Emergency Rooms as victims of alcohol Binging Students Feel poisoning, assault, suicide attempts, STDs and automobile accidents. "Richer and Whiter" Hangovers are epidemic. The CDC says binge drinking contributes to 800,000 alcohol-related deaths in the United States each year and Shaq Attacks Campus Binge Drinking costs the economy almost $225 billion.
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The annual national survey of alcohol and Four Loko, America's Most What campuses call Greek Life is drug use by the federal Hated Beer governments SAMHSA less like Periclean Athens and (Substance Abuse and The Secret Alcohol more like Homers Land of the Epidemic Among America's Mental Health Services Lotus Eaters. Women Administration), which was released last week, I Was a Sober College Student shows that of full-time college students in 2011, 60.8% self-defined as current drinkers, 39.1% as binge drinkers, and 13.6% as heavy drinkers. Despite its Ivy League and Seven Sisters pedigree, the nations Northeastthe home of some of the most desirable college experiencesis also a capital of binge drinking, according to the CDC. Even kids who didnt drink much at home seem to take to Tequila like ducks to water when they get to campus. College drinking isnt news. Harvard used to have its own brewery to provide for incoming students. When I was in college, few people worried about drinking; we were all too busy worrying about sex and the revelation that you did not have to be married to have it. I dont remember having
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Coed Life at Binge University | The Fix

10/26/12 10:15 AM

alcoholic blackouts during those heady years, but I do remember that I often just could not figure out where I had parked my car. More recently at Princeton, my daughterwho rarely drinksbecame a kind of designated walker among her acquaintances when they get legless during the course of a night. One of my first calls from my son at collegeLoyola, New Orleanscame the day after he had blacked out and been unable to get back into his dorm. He thought the college would report it, and he wanted to warn me. (They didnt. In the end, he was fined $50.) I had been to enough Al-Anon meetings to be very, very calm on the phone: after we hung up, I was somewhat less serene. A recent study by Colgate College psychologists of 1,600 students at a selective, residential liberal arts Northeastern college showed that a great deal of binge drinking is done as a desire to fit in with the cool kids. Binge drinking is a symbolic proxy for high status in college, said one of the study authors, Carolyn Hsu. According to the study, high status students (wealthy, male, white, heterosexual, frat brothers) were more likely to binge drink than their low status (less wealthy, female, non-white, gay and nonfrat) classmatesand, no surprise, they were having a better time in college too. In an effort to fit in, low-status students binge-drinkalthough some told the researchers that they didnt enjoy it. Whats disturbing to me about the Colgate study, A great deal of binge drinking is though, isnt the statsits the secrets. The college done as a desire for statusto fit where the study was done is not named. Clearly, one of in with the cool kids. the conditions of the study was that the college would not agree to be identified as the place where all this binge drinking was going on. In recovery circles we call this kind of secrecy denial. The first step in solving a problem is acknowledging the problem. Its hard to see how the problems of college drinking can be addressed by responsible adults who seem to be a little out of it themselves when it comes to dealing with the facts. Some colleges do address the problem, and a group of some 135 college presidents proposed an unusual (to say the least) solution in the 2008 Amethyst Initiative: lower the drinking age. The logic? If drinking is no longer illicit, it will be less attractive (and safer). Many colleges, however, just try to avoid it. As long as some college administrators insist on operating in their own personal blackout, there is little that can be done to change things. Binge drinking is a problem; binge drinking covered up by shame and fear is a much, much larger one. Susan Cheever, a regular columnist for The Fix, is the author of many books, including the memoirs Home Before Dark and Note Found in a Bottle, and the biography My Name Is Bill: Bill WilsonHis Life and the Creation of Alcoholics Anonymous. TAGS: binge binge drinking college drinking frat Greek organization the Amethyst Initiative Features Susan Cheever

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What role did starting college or graduating from high school play in your addiction?
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Are people in recovery more or less likely than average to favor decriminalizing drugs?
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Does calling compulsions like sex or shopping "addictions"

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Coed Life at Binge University | The Fix

10/26/12 10:15 AM

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cheapen the term?

Last reply 1 day 21 hours

greenearthman
I'm 64, have raised 4 kids, and did my share of binge drinking and drugging, when I was younger. Every time I see an article like this, it's eye roll time. All we can do is try to keep them safe as best we can. This kind of activity has been going on at the university level since the middle ages-when higher education began-and that is not likely to change any time soon. Kids seek new experiences, especially those that they perceive as adult(alcohol laws may, ironically, be contributing to the problem), and they think they are bulletproof. If we can keep them safe, they should get over it. I do not believe we can stop it
3 weeks ago 1 Like Like Reply

What's your biggest trigger, and how do you avoid it?

Last reply 1 day 10 hours SUGGEST A TOPIC

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Nadevshka
I agree completely with you. I work at a small, rather elite private liberal arts college that follows the Amethyst Initiative. Parties are kept on campus for the most part and monitored by RAs. There is much less of the falling in the street last call type of drinking from what I can see. I say this as a 12 stepping sober woman,too
2 weeks ago in reply to greenearthman Like Reply

Trp1
duh, maybe Colgate?
1 week ago Like Reply

Guest
Back when I was in college, the drinking age was 18, so we could go have a drink in an environment that didn't encourage us to go for all the booze we could get at the time, and it wasn't such a big deal. That didn't mean that lots of students didn't occasionally binge, but there was a lot less heavy drinking even though there was a lot more light drinking. Also, I've found the "4-5 drinks" definition of binge drinking to be pretty inadequate. 4-5 drinks in an hour or two is definitely a binge. 4-5 drinks spread out over a 5-hour party is one drink an hour, which an average man can metabolize without getting drunk, though it may be a bit much for a small woman.
1 week ago Like Reply

Rob AndStuff
yeah believe me as a student from a little ivy LAC in the northeast, the main problem with binge drinking on campus is sexual assault. the guys get drunk enough to do it and the girls get drunk enough to let them or to pass out and get raped. why was this not addressed in this article.
2 weeks ago Like Reply

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