| Drinking
RNS, Binge drinking, August 2004
2:44
http://www.med.umich.edu/opm/newspage/2004/hmbinge.htm Beyond hangovers:
Heavy drinking by college students poses many serious dangers, U-M expert warns
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Lead — As American college students gear up to head back to campus later this month, they'll look forward to all the usual college traditions: football games, late-night discussions, and pizza with new friends after classes. But there is another tradition that could change the student's life. Here is Molly McGovern with more.
TRT 2:44
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Almost half of all college students share a tradition that could wreck their futures: heavy alcohol drinking that puts them at risk for everything from bad grades and date rape to fights, serious injuries and even death.
At a time when kegs of beer and shots of tequila have become almost as much a part of college life as textbooks and dorms, a prominent University of Michigan substance abuse researcher warns students and parents alike to heed the latest research, and take steps to prevent the negative consequences that heavy drinking can have.
Dr. Robert Zucker, (Ph.D.), head of the U-M Health System's Addiction Research Center explains
“People commonly think of drinking in college and, in particular heavy drinking, as a rite of passage implying that well, one is entitled to do it; it's common, in fact perhaps everyone does it. And it's a set of experiences that if one has not had them, then one will be missing out on something. Well the data that we have about this increasingly paints a picture that there are things that happen that one will remember thereafter, but most of them are negative and that's exactly the issue that is in some sense a national issue. It's certainly an issue for anyone who has children in that age range, and it's certainly an issue also for the people themselves who are going through this experience.”
Among full-time college students, Zucker says, about 45 percent binge on alcohol occasionally or often, compared with 25 percent of the general public.
“Parents always ask the question, ‘what can I do?' or ‘how would I even know that I should do anything?' And I have a straightforward answer to that. You need to talk, and you need to look. And if ou see things that are troubling to you, it's all the more reason to look. But you have to engage in a dialogue about what the level of activity is and to what extent does that involve alcohol use or other drug use and to get some kind of a feel for the degree to which it seems okay or the degree of which it looks like it's moving into a binge pattern, which I would call under any circumstances, a pattern to be concerned with.”
Zucker knows that teens and college-age young people have an unshakable conviction that nothing bad can happen to them -- that bad things only happen to other people. But he says that parents can help their college-aged children understand that the risks of heavy drinking are real.
Molly McGovern, U-M Health system News |
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