College Binge Drinking Epidemic

College bacchanal Drinking Epidemic Throughout the categorys, drawing inebriant in inordinate amounts has flex somewhat synonymous with the college experience. It has become an expected occurrence for college- hoary students to drink and ships company regularly, and everywheretime has change into an accepted social norm of college life. ingrained drinkable has been a consistent social occupation that has substanti al angiotensin-converting enzymey big(a) on college campuses all well-nigh the joined States for the past few decades. In fact, sate drunkenness is consistently voted as the most serious bother on campuses by collegiate presidents (College Binge Drinking Facts).Thus, most campuses attain recognize gormandize deglutition as a serious conundrum, hitherto this epidemic continues on, and many seem to turn a blind shopping centre toward it. According to Learn-About-Alcoholism. com, 90% of the alcoholic beverage consumed by teens is consumed in the form of pig out crapulence. Binge imbibition is a widespread phenomenon on most college campuses, including the University of mummy Amherst, and has harmful and dangerous consequences as well as significant impacts on the goal higher education. First, it is important to establish a definition for the depot bacchanalia drinkable. The National Institute for Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAA) defines saturnalia alcoholism as a pattern of drinking alcohol that brings stock certificate alcohol concentration (BAC) to 0. 08 gram-percent or above. For a typical adult, this pattern corresponds to down v or much drinks (male), or four or more drinks (female), in or so cardinal hours (What Colleges Need to Know Now). In essence, fill drinking is the drinking of alcoholic beverages with the primary intention of be glide path firmly intoxicated by alcohol over a short flow rate of time.In a nationwide survey, nearly half of all college students (42%) report choke up drinking during t he last two weeks. It is obvious that farce drinking is a severe problem on college campuses as almost half of all students engage in this risky activity that leads to unhealthy and shun outcomes. In this situation, the objective social issue is gourmandize drinking on college campuses around the democracy, including UMass Amherst. The subjective social problems ar all of the various repercussions that binge drinking can result in (Lundquist Lecture January 25).Most college students do non debate these serious risks when they participate in heavy drinking. These consequences include intentional and unwilling injuries, alcohol poisoning, somatogenetic and sexual abuses, unprotected sex and sexually transmissible diseases, relationship problems, alcohol addiction, and poor grades. Long-term use of alcohol risks colorful damage, pancreatitis, certain cancers, literal shrinkage of the brain, neurological damage, high blood pressure, stroke, and some other cardiovascular dise ases (Witmer).It is clear there atomic number 18 countless negative effectuate both physically and mentally, and long-term and short-term caused by excessive alcohol consumption. There are numerous convocations of hoi polloi who sentiment binge drinking on campuses as problematic. School administrators and the faculty of colleges are concerned with this problem because it tarnishes the reputation of the school, inflicts damage to school situation, and injures or even kills students. Parents of these college students similarly view drinking as problematic, as it is likely they are paying for their children to watch school, and their teens are partying their college social classs away.Students who do not binge drink on campus just witness the effects of it on their friends and friends are concerned with this problem, and are also greatly affected by the air of students who binge drink. Among students who do not binge drink on a given night, 71% guide had sleep or study disrupted, 11% had been pushed, hit, or assaulted by the binge drinker, 57% had to spend the majority of their sleep time affectionateness for the intoxicated student, 23% had experient an unwanted sexual encounter, and 16% had property damage (College Binge Drinking Facts).On the other hand, students who are engaging in binge drinking do not view this as a social problem as they are oblivious to the risky outcomes and dire statistics. I believe excessive drinking has been defined as a social problem on the UMass Amherst campus because programs and campaigns have been formal to help decoct the amount of binge drinking among students. For example, BASICS (Alcohol Screening and Intervention for College Students) is a program for students found in violation of the UMass liquor code. The program includes two 50-minute counseling sessions with a drug and alcohol prevention specialist.About 1,000 students a year go through the program, mostly students who have violated the campus alc ohol rules, but students may also attend on their own free will. Furthermore, freshmen at UMass are engaged to take a 75-minute online course about alcohol consumption (Drake). UMass also offers many other activities on campus to give redundant opportunities for students to participate in rather than illegal drinking. The lifecycle of binge drinking has been established through the NIAAs definition of binge drinking which defines the problem.The public has transformed it into a public issue with organizations such as SADD and Alcoholics Anonymous. The lifecycle of the binge drinking problem continues with a debate over the cause of it, and finally finishes with coming up with a solution to reduce the amount of binge drinking on campuses (Lundquist Lecture January 25). UMass Amherst has a history of binge drinking and doddery parties, thus earning itself the nicknames Zoomass, The Zoo, and Zoomass Slamherst. Although UMass has many outstanding attributes to the school, its drinkin g reputation and party scene still seems to stand out from the rest of what the school has to offer.In 2005, the Princeton Review awarded UMass Amherst one of the Best Northeastern Colleges, as well as one of the 81 nationwide Colleges with a Conscience for its exceptional community-service learning programs. The Princeton Review also named UMass Amherst the number nine party school in the nation, and obviously this be gained more press and attention than the other recognitions (Drake). Most college students do not consider the harmful consequences, both short term and long term, when vent out for a night of binge drinking.The three leading causes of remnant for 15 to 24 year olds are car accidents, homicides, and suicides, and alcohol is a leading factor in all three. Specifically, 1,700 college students between the ages of 18 and 24 die each year from alcohol-related unintentional injuries, including motor vehicle crashes. annually, an estimated 30,000 college students requir e medical treatment subsequently overdosing on alcohol. Also, 599,000 college students aged 18 to 24 sustain unintentional injuries each year from use of alcohol.Alcohol is also a catalyst for sexual behaviors, both unprotected and unwanted. More than 97,000 students between the ages of 18 and 24 are victims of alcohol-related sexual assault or date rape. Additionally, 400,000 students aged 18 to 24 had unprotected sex and more than 100,000 students of this age group report having been too intoxicated to know if they consented to having sex (A Snapshot of yearly High-Risk College Drinking Consequences). Alcohol use in college campuses also have a severe negative effect on the academic carrying into action of students who partake in binge drinking.About 25% of college students report academic penalties as a result of drinking such as missing class, dropping behind, doing poorly on exams or papers, and receiving lower grades overall (A Snapshot of Annual High-Risk College Drinking C onsequences). In fact, frequent binge drinkers are sap times more likely than non-binge drinkers to miss classes, fall behind in schoolwork, engage in vandalism, be injured or hurt, engage in unplanned sexual activity, not use protection when having sex, farm in trouble with campus police, or drive a car after drinking (Binge Drinking on College Campuses).Some of the top reasons college students give for exposing themselves to binge drinking are drinking to have a good time, drinking to get drunk, and drinking to celebrate. Other rationales are peer pressure, stress from academic and familial issues, and the cultivation of alcohol consumption on campuses. Students that are more likely to be binge drinkers are white, involved in athletics, age twenty-three or younger, and are residents of a fraternity or a sorority. It is also report that the preponderance of binge drinking among men is two times the prevalence among women, and is more common by older teens than younger teens.Stat istics show that 35% of adults with alcohol dependency developed symptoms by age 19, which is the age of a college student. The proportion of current drinkers that binge is highest in the 18 to 20 year old group (51%) (Quick Stats Binge Drinking). When considering different sociological vistas on college binge drinking, there are three different outlooks on how it originates among students. The pathological perspective on binge drinking states that drinking is the result of innately venomous individuals. The abnormality is genetic, so therefore there is no remedy for binge drinking.The disorganization perspective on binge drinking believes that drinking arises when individuals become disoriented by rapid social and societal change or are socialized to behave badly. These drinkers have not yet follow the mainstream norms of society. Lastly, the critical perspective on binge drinking takes the viewpoint that contrast leads some groups to binge drink out of economic necessity. They drink to piling with their problems concerning financial instability and other various struggles and hardships of life. (Lundquist Lecture January 25).Statistics across the country prove that binge drinking on college campuses continues to be a ripening problem. Linda Degutis, associate professor of emergency medicine at Yale Medical School, believes college drinking has indeed worsened since she began a career in emergency medicines in the early seventies. She states, I dont remember seeing people coming in with the alcohol overdoses the way we do now (Seaman 113). Additionally, in the fall of 2003 there was an apparent spike in the alcohol-related hospitalizations across the United States.The first two weekends of George Washington Universitys first semester saw a doubling of hospitalizations. At Harvard, the number of Undergraduates carried into University Health Services ER on Massachusetts Avenue nearly doubled during October and November from the previous year. (114) The mo vie, eddy the nursing bottle An Example of Social Problems at UMass was a homework assignment for Sociology 103 students to watch. This documentary highlights the growing epidemic of drinking on college campuses, and how the media and advertisements also fuel binge drinking.Clips from the popular comedy films American Pie and Roadtrip are featured in Spin the Bottle showing how movies can influence and encourage teen drinking. College students who view these films get the idea that drinking in college is a rite of enactment and that it is a social norm of college life. Spin the Bottle also discussed the status of alcohol advertising and how it appeals to the female market by featuring attractive, feminine women in their ads. This wholly supports and persuades female college students to keep up with the males in drinking at college parties without seeming too masculine.Spin the Bottle uses the sociological imagination to connect to large societal issues, such as how industries are only looking to pee-pee a profit even if their product has negative effects on people and how the environment of college life affects how an individual makes his or her decisions. In particular, UMass Amherst has experienced out of control parties and riots, all stemming from binge drinking. In 2003, an uprising ensued after a Red Sox playoff game, in which 1,000 UMass students over glowering cars, set fires, broke into a dining hall, and threw bottles at police.This called for a supposed greater control over binge drinking and partying. However, three years later in October, townsfolk police reported to have arrested approximately 200 students since the start school, a third more than the year before (Schweitzer). In May of 2003, a pre-graduation party which consisted of over 1,500 UMass Amherst students turned into an uncontrollable riot. The so-called Hobart Hoedown, held on Hobart Lane, resulted in students throwing broken pieces of rock and beer bottles at passing cars an d police officers.The Amherst Fire part extinguished a number of fires, one of which burned down a PVTA bus stop. In all, forty-five arrests were made and there were fifteen reported injuries among Amherst cops as well as police overtime at the toll of $20,000 (Lyman). More recently, in February 2008, a wild off-campus house party turned into a dangerous, drunken fight. Athletes allegedly attacked other people attending the party with baseball bats, lacrosse sticks, and bottles.In addition around this time, two students were facing attempted slaughter charges in late-night conflicts in a UMass dormitory, which included an alleged rape and racially charged double stabbing. As expected, it is believed that binge drinking was the cause of these hazardous attacks and incidents (Schworm). Even this past weekend, ironically labeled Blackout Weekend, at UMass Amherst, twelve students were hospitalized and treated for serious alcohol intoxication at the Turn It Up dance party at the Mul lins Center. Three other students who did not charter medical attention but were drunk were placed in cautionary custody by police (DeForge).Clearly, there is an abundance of issues and various occurrences stemming from binge drinking at UMass Amherst, and even with increased policing and enforcing of rules, these events continue to happen. UMass Amherst has made commodious efforts in trying to curtail the amount of drinking and partying that goes on in and around campus. In 2006, the university purchased Frat Row, an infamous string of Greek houses on North Pleasant Street, for $2. 5 million and demolished them (Schweitzer). UMass has implemented the so-called Social Norms Campaign and has the BASICS program to fight binge drinking on campus.At UMass-Amherst, 68% of men and 58% of women report drinking five or more drinks in a row at to the lowest degree once in the past two weeks, according to the latest surveys. two of these figures are well above the national average howev er they do represent progress from years past. Since 2003, overall binge drinking has dropped 26%, and frequent heavy drinking is down 38% (Schworm). Thus, it is clear UMass has recognized binge drinking as a social problem on campus and is working on ways of trying to reduce it, although it still mud a significant issue.Ultimately, binge drinking is an extensive social problem that exists on college campuses across America and startling statistics back up the vast numbers of students that are affected by drinking. Serious health problems, physical and sexual abuse, injuries, and poor grades are all penalties resulting from partaking in the risky behavior of binge drinking. There are various influences and reasons that encourage students to drink heavily, including peer pressure, academic and relationship stress, believing it is an accepted culture of college, and drinking to get drunk.UMass in particular has experienced violence, property damage, and student injuries and deaths as a result of binge drinking. The university has recognized the problem and is being proactive about trying to reduce the amount of binge drinking on campus. Clearly, binge drinking is problem of epidemic proportions that is greatly affecting colleges in negative ways, and without actions and solutions to curb dangerous student behavior the issue will only continue to deteriorate campuses and the students themselves.