Binge drinking, pill abuse intensify at colleges
SuzannePjam
Posts: 411
Ahhh... those were the days.
Binge drinking, pill abuse intensify at colleges
Report warns of dangers of ‘extreme’ substance abuse among students
Substance abuse on college campuses is nothing new, but it is taking a more extreme and dangerous form, with higher rates of frequent binge drinking and prescription drug abuse, and more negative consequences for students such as arrests and risky sexual behavior.
That’s the portrait painted by a new, comprehensive report tying together a range of recent research on college substance abuse, supplemented with some of its own new survey data.
The report by The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, argues substance abuse isn’t an inevitable rite of passage for young adults. Rather, it argues a particular culture of excessive consumption has flourished on college campuses, and calls on educators to take bolder stands against students and alumni to combat it.
“If they make this a priority they can do something about it,” said Joseph Califano, chairman and president of the center, who among other steps called on colleges and the NCAA to stop allowing alcohol advertising during high-profile events like the NCAA men’s basketball tournament.
Alarming findings
The report, being released Thursday, relies largely on research that has already appeared in various forms, but assembles it to emphasize findings particular to college students.
Among the highlights:
• The proportion of students who drink (about 68 percent) and binge drink (40 percent) has changed little since 1993. But there have been substantial increases in the number of students who binge drink frequently (take five drinks at a time, three or more times in two weeks), who drink 10 or more times a month, and who get drunk three or more times in a month.
• Though still used by far fewer students than alcohol, hundreds of thousands more students are abusing prescription drugs including Ritalin, Adderall and OxyContin than during the early 1990s. The proportion of students using marijuana daily has more than doubled to about 4 percent.
• Analyzing outside survey data, the Center calculated 23 percent of college students meet the medical criteria for substance abuse or dependence. That’s about triple the proportion in the general population.
Young adults in general have higher abuse rates, so a higher rate for college students is to be expected. But other research indicates that college students drink more than high-school peers who don’t go to college, said Henry Wechsler of the Harvard School of Public Health, who published similar findings in 2002.
‘Acceptance of extreme drinking’
Both researchers involved in the report and outside experts say they have seen troubling changes in how students drink in recent years.
“The percentage of kids who drink and binge drink is essentially the same between 1993 and 2005, but the intensity of the drinking has dramatically changed,” Califano said. “There’s an intensity to the consumption we see here that we don’t see in the general population.”
At the University of Kentucky, longtime administrator Victor Hazard says he too has noticed a change, with more students drinking simply to get drunk.
“To the extent there is such a thing as a social drinker, it was more of a meet-and-greet type of environment in the earlier years when I was here,” said Hazard, Kentucky’s associate vice president for student affairs and dean of students.
Now, he said, students are “drinking to become intoxicated as fast as they possibly can.”
Carol Falkowski, director of research communications for the Hazelden Foundation, an addiction treatment and research group, said too many students are getting the message that excessive drinking is OK.
“It’s getting more intense,” she said. “Drinking games that were happening in private parties or houses or bonfires 10 years ago are now happening in public venues. That to me reflects a sort of larger acceptance of extreme drinking.”
College administrators often say they know campus substance abuse is a problem but say there is little they can do.
But the report’s authors say it’s a question of commitment.
“Things do work, it’s just having the will and time and money to implement them,” said Roger Vaughan, a Columbia biostatistician involved in the report. “People need to step up and realize this is not a rite of passage, this is not something we should tolerate. If it keeps going, we’re going to destroy our best and brightest.”
Binge drinking, pill abuse intensify at colleges
Report warns of dangers of ‘extreme’ substance abuse among students
Substance abuse on college campuses is nothing new, but it is taking a more extreme and dangerous form, with higher rates of frequent binge drinking and prescription drug abuse, and more negative consequences for students such as arrests and risky sexual behavior.
That’s the portrait painted by a new, comprehensive report tying together a range of recent research on college substance abuse, supplemented with some of its own new survey data.
The report by The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, argues substance abuse isn’t an inevitable rite of passage for young adults. Rather, it argues a particular culture of excessive consumption has flourished on college campuses, and calls on educators to take bolder stands against students and alumni to combat it.
“If they make this a priority they can do something about it,” said Joseph Califano, chairman and president of the center, who among other steps called on colleges and the NCAA to stop allowing alcohol advertising during high-profile events like the NCAA men’s basketball tournament.
Alarming findings
The report, being released Thursday, relies largely on research that has already appeared in various forms, but assembles it to emphasize findings particular to college students.
Among the highlights:
• The proportion of students who drink (about 68 percent) and binge drink (40 percent) has changed little since 1993. But there have been substantial increases in the number of students who binge drink frequently (take five drinks at a time, three or more times in two weeks), who drink 10 or more times a month, and who get drunk three or more times in a month.
• Though still used by far fewer students than alcohol, hundreds of thousands more students are abusing prescription drugs including Ritalin, Adderall and OxyContin than during the early 1990s. The proportion of students using marijuana daily has more than doubled to about 4 percent.
• Analyzing outside survey data, the Center calculated 23 percent of college students meet the medical criteria for substance abuse or dependence. That’s about triple the proportion in the general population.
Young adults in general have higher abuse rates, so a higher rate for college students is to be expected. But other research indicates that college students drink more than high-school peers who don’t go to college, said Henry Wechsler of the Harvard School of Public Health, who published similar findings in 2002.
‘Acceptance of extreme drinking’
Both researchers involved in the report and outside experts say they have seen troubling changes in how students drink in recent years.
“The percentage of kids who drink and binge drink is essentially the same between 1993 and 2005, but the intensity of the drinking has dramatically changed,” Califano said. “There’s an intensity to the consumption we see here that we don’t see in the general population.”
At the University of Kentucky, longtime administrator Victor Hazard says he too has noticed a change, with more students drinking simply to get drunk.
“To the extent there is such a thing as a social drinker, it was more of a meet-and-greet type of environment in the earlier years when I was here,” said Hazard, Kentucky’s associate vice president for student affairs and dean of students.
Now, he said, students are “drinking to become intoxicated as fast as they possibly can.”
Carol Falkowski, director of research communications for the Hazelden Foundation, an addiction treatment and research group, said too many students are getting the message that excessive drinking is OK.
“It’s getting more intense,” she said. “Drinking games that were happening in private parties or houses or bonfires 10 years ago are now happening in public venues. That to me reflects a sort of larger acceptance of extreme drinking.”
College administrators often say they know campus substance abuse is a problem but say there is little they can do.
But the report’s authors say it’s a question of commitment.
“Things do work, it’s just having the will and time and money to implement them,” said Roger Vaughan, a Columbia biostatistician involved in the report. “People need to step up and realize this is not a rite of passage, this is not something we should tolerate. If it keeps going, we’re going to destroy our best and brightest.”
"Where there is sacrifice there is someone collecting the sacrificial offerings."-- Ayn Rand
"Some of my friends sit around every evening and they worry about the times ahead,
But everybody else is overwhelmed by indifference and the promise of an early bed..."-- Elvis Costello
"Some of my friends sit around every evening and they worry about the times ahead,
But everybody else is overwhelmed by indifference and the promise of an early bed..."-- Elvis Costello
Post edited by Unknown User on
0
Comments
-
booze and pills....hmmm, perhaps they should be made illegal....0
-
We've created a culture where the solution to every problem is to pop a pill, and we're shocked .... simply SHOCKED!!!! ... that kids are popping pills in unprecedented numbers.
Parents start stressing before the kid is even born about whether or not he'll get into the "right" preschool. Kids don't get to be kids ... they don't get to go outside and run around like maniacs, play games with their friends where they make up the rules and resolve any conflicts themselves. No more pickup baseball games, all their time is spent in structured activities supervised by adults. By junior high they're stressing about their grades, worried that they won't get into the "right" college, or won't qualify for enough scholarship money to go to college at all. It's not enough anymore for the high achievers to ace a full course load of AP classes ... they also must have a job and at least 4 extracurriculars at all times so their college applications will be impressive enough.
Gee whiz, I wonder why these kids are stressed out :rolleyes:"Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity." ~ MLK, 19630 -
Gee, I only drank and popped pills because it was fun. Running was for dealing with stress. Now I feel bad, I don't even know how to deal with stress in a 21st century kind of way.hippiemom wrote:We've created a culture where the solution to every problem is to pop a pill, and we're shocked .... simply SHOCKED!!!! ... that kids are popping pills in unprecedented numbers.
Parents start stressing before the kid is even born about whether or not he'll get into the "right" preschool. Kids don't get to be kids ... they don't get to go outside and run around like maniacs, play games with their friends where they make up the rules and resolve any conflicts themselves. No more pickup baseball games, all their time is spent in structured activities supervised by adults. By junior high they're stressing about their grades, worried that they won't get into the "right" college, or won't qualify for enough scholarship money to go to college at all. It's not enough anymore for the high achievers to ace a full course load of AP classes ... they also must have a job and at least 4 extracurriculars at all times so their college applications will be impressive enough.
Gee whiz, I wonder why these kids are stressed out :rolleyes:“One good thing about music,
when it hits you, you feel to pain.
So brutalize me with music.”
~ Bob Marley0 -
I drank and popped pills and inhaled powdery substances for just about every reason you can imagine. Sure, sometimes it was just for fun or out of boredom, but it was definitely a stress reliever too. When things got rough, the only solution I knew was to take a vacation from life, and substance abuse was perfect for that.surferdude wrote:Gee, I only drank and popped pills because it was fun. Running was for dealing with stress. Now I feel bad, I don't even know how to deal with stress in a 21st century kind of way."Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity." ~ MLK, 19630 -
ice is bad news
let the kids learn this
chemical fuck all0 -
Not to mention a very psychologically unhealthy way of dealing with stress :P For fun and out of boredom are much better reasons!hippiemom wrote:I drank and popped pills and inhaled powdery substances for just about every reason you can imagine. Sure, sometimes it was just for fun or out of boredom, but it was definitely a stress reliever too. When things got rough, the only solution I knew was to take a vacation from life, and substance abuse was perfect for that.0 -
Yes, I know ... I've learned a lot since those daysPJPOWER wrote:Not to mention a very psychologically unhealthy way of dealing with stress :P For fun and out of boredom are much better reasons!
"Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity." ~ MLK, 19630 -
I think that's full of shit in some ways. There's no way I would have made it past my teen years relatively in tact without being seriously wasted most of the times. It was my way to deal with a reality I had no control over. Hated where I lived and being wasted was a not too bad way to out it behind me as much as possible. It wasn't until my later teen years that I developed skills that let me accept the help people were offering.PJPOWER wrote:Not to mention a very psychologically unhealthy way of dealing with stress :P For fun and out of boredom are much better reasons!
When you're 13 and you feel your choices are stay wasted or be a street kid, well the bottle becomes a very good friend.“One good thing about music,
when it hits you, you feel to pain.
So brutalize me with music.”
~ Bob Marley0 -
With my job I get to work directly with those who have seriously abused drugs as teens I think there is a lot of truth to it. When kids drink regularly (we're not talking just once in a while) to resolve stress, more times than not they do not learn some of the skills required for dealing with stress as they get older........which often leads to alcoholism/drug abuse. The more you depend on the drug/alcohol to deal with stress, the less you learn how to deal with it in other healthy ways.surferdude wrote:I think that's full of shit in some ways. There's no way I would have made it past my teen years relatively in tact without being seriously wasted most of the times. It was my way to deal with a reality I had no control over. Hated where I lived and being wasted was a not too bad way to out it behind me as much as possible. It wasn't until my later teen years that I developed skills that let me accept the help people were offering.
When you're 13 and you feel your choices are stay wasted or be a street kid, well the bottle becomes a very good friend.0 -
13 was not an age for me to learn to handle that kind of stress. The booze and everything helped until I was mature enough to address some of the issues.PJPOWER wrote:With my job I get to work directly with those who have seriously abused drugs as teens I think there is a lot of truth to it. When kids drink regularly (we're not talking just once in a while) to resolve stress, more times than not they do not learn some of the skills required for dealing with stress as they get older........which often leads to alcoholism/drug abuse. The more you depend on the drug/alcohol to deal with stress, the less you learn how to deal with it in other healthy ways.“One good thing about music,
when it hits you, you feel to pain.
So brutalize me with music.”
~ Bob Marley0 -
Booze "and everything" puts its fair amount of stress on the brain of a 13 year old as well.........It may have worked as an escape for you at the time, but in no way was it a healthy alternative. If you're saying that there were no healthy alternatives for you at that age so you used Booze, then you have my sympathy :(surferdude wrote:13 was not an age for me to learn to handle that kind of stress. The booze and everything helped until I was mature enough to address some of the issues.0 -
I realize that it's not ideal, but I understand what surferdude is saying, and that was my experience as well. When you're a kid and the people around you aren't helping, or their misguided attempts at help are only making things worse, you do what you gotta do to get through.PJPOWER wrote:Booze "and everything" puts its fair amount of stress on the brain of a 13 year old as well.........It may have worked as an escape for you at the time, but in no way was it a healthy alternative. If you're saying that there were no healthy alternatives for you at that age so you used Booze, then you have my sympathy :("Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity." ~ MLK, 19630 -
I felt my only two choices were be wasted or be a street kid. Seemed a lot easier to sober up than get off the streets. I loved myself enough to stick in school.PJPOWER wrote:Booze "and everything" puts its fair amount of stress on the brain of a 13 year old as well.........It may have worked as an escape for you at the time, but in no way was it a healthy alternative. If you're saying that there were no healthy alternatives for you at that age so you used Booze, then you have my sympathy :(
Given what I thought my only two options were I think I chose the right one.
p.s. Thanks for the offer of sympathy, but I don't need it. I came out the otherside relatively unscathed. Love my family, friends, life, hell I even like my job. I appreciate all the love and devotion that people had in dealing with and helping me and know the only way to pay them back is to do the same for others.“One good thing about music,
when it hits you, you feel to pain.
So brutalize me with music.”
~ Bob Marley0 -
does anyone have any valium?if you wanna be a friend of mine
cross the river to the eastside0 -
I have couple dozen codeine tablets you can have. Try those with a couple martinis. I always found that combination worked as good as valium.VictoryGin wrote:does anyone have any valium?“One good thing about music,
when it hits you, you feel to pain.
So brutalize me with music.”
~ Bob Marley0 -
surferdude wrote:I have couple dozen codeine tablets you can have. Try those with a couple martinis. I always found that combination worked as good as valium.
T3s? I do have a few of those. Oddly enough, I'm always afraid of mixing, but perhaps I'll give it a try, thank you!if you wanna be a friend of mine
cross the river to the eastside0 -
That's one of the few drugs I don't have.VictoryGin wrote:does anyone have any valium?
How about an ativan? Percs? Dilaudid?"Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity." ~ MLK, 19630 -
Wow, I think Ed and the boys would be really proud at the way we are all here for each other.hippiemom wrote:That's one of the few drugs I don't have.
How about an ativan? Percs? Dilaudid?“One good thing about music,
when it hits you, you feel to pain.
So brutalize me with music.”
~ Bob Marley0 -
Feel the love!surferdude wrote:Wow, I think Ed and the boys would be really proud at the way we are all here for each other."Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity." ~ MLK, 19630
Categories
- All Categories
- 148.9K Pearl Jam's Music and Activism
- 110.1K The Porch
- 275 Vitalogy
- 35.1K Given To Fly (live)
- 3.5K Words and Music...Communication
- 39.2K Flea Market
- 39.2K Lost Dogs
- 58.7K Not Pearl Jam's Music
- 10.6K Musicians and Gearheads
- 29.1K Other Music
- 17.8K Poetry, Prose, Music & Art
- 1.1K The Art Wall
- 56.8K Non-Pearl Jam Discussion
- 22.2K A Moving Train
- 31.7K All Encompassing Trip
- 2.9K Technical Stuff and Help