Wednesday, November 28, 2001

Drinking viewed as part of college life
By Lizzie Ehrle
Michigan Daily (U. Michigan)

ANN ARBOR, Mich. (U-WIRE) — Any student passing through four years of college inevitably will be faced with social settings centered around alcohol. For many, drinking beer and downing shots can become as much a part of their college experience as writing papers and taking exams.

Most students see alcohol as an inherent part of college life, no matter how much they chose to drink.

“I don’t think it’s a matter of choice,” said engineering senior Matt Biersack. “You’ll be surrounded by it regardless of whether you drink or not.”

“There is talk almost every weekend about what party everyone is going to, and how wasted someone is going to get,” said LSA junior Amy Ament.

Out of all University of Michigan undergraduate students, 45 percent engage in binge drinking, according to an Internet-based Student Life Survey administered by the University’s Substance Abuse Research Center in 1999. Binge drinking is defined as four or more drinks for females and five or more for males in one sitting — a measure that is widely used and nationally accepted.

“Be it to the bar, to someone’s house, or to your own house, I feel like alcohol is part of the culture of college. It is so ingrained in all of our social settings,” Biersack said.
The Harvard School of Public Health College Alcohol Study — an ongoing survey of more than 14,000 college students — reports that the national rate of binge drinkers (44 percent of students) has remained the same since 1993.

Binge drinking becomes a concern because it tends to signal that alcohol-related problems are ahead. Such secondary effects range from health or legal problems to missing class or doing poorly on a test.

According to the Student Life Survey, as binge drinking episodes increase for students, their grades decrease. Three out of four binge drinkers reported missing a class within the past year after drinking. Fifty percent of frequent binge drinkers reported driving after drinking within the past year. Also, 15 percent of undergraduate females who drink reported being sexually harassed after drinking.