Boozing 101

Every college in the region

is facing the question:

What to do about alcohol abuse?

Diego Varela, who just graduated from Northern Kentucky University, learned the hard way about the dangers of students drinking alcohol...

..."I would say about 75 percent of students drink and about 25 percent drink too much," said Varela, who as a dormitory resident assistant for four years had to enforce NKU's prohibition against drinking in its residence halls.
A recent study finds that student drinking - a perennial campus problem - is getting worse, and officials of area colleges are stepping up efforts to curtail it.

Northern Kentucky University is hiring an alcohol and drug counselor; Xavier University is encouraging parents to talk to their college-age children about drinking, and Miami University is implementing nearly 40 recommendations made by an Alcohol Task Force.

Thomas More College displays a wrecked car to illustrate the dangers of driving drunk; the University of Cincinnati organizes non-alcoholic weekend activities, and Cincinnati State Technical and Community College distributes lots of literature about the problems alcohol can cause.

Countering those messages, however, is the stereotype that college and drinking go together as a normal rite of passage.

"Students know about the movie 'Animal House,' and that's what they think they're supposed to do at college," lamented Lori Lambert, director of residence life at Xavier University.

The study, by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, found that 3.8 million full-time college students - 49 percent - binge drink and/or abuse prescription and illegal drugs and that 1.8 million full-time college students - 22.9 percent - meet the medical criteria for substance abuse and dependence. That's more than twice the percentage of the general population.

The survey saw no significant change from a dozen years ago in the percentage of students who drink, but it discovered that the intensity of excessive drinking has jumped sharply. Between 1993 and 2001, the proportion of students who frequently binge drink increased 16 percent, those who drink on 10 or more occasions in a month went up 25 percent, those who got drunk at least three times a month increased 26 percent and those who drink to get drunk was up 21 percent, the study found.

Among the consequences of alcohol abuse on college campuses were 1,717 deaths from alcohol-related injuries in 2001, up 6 percent from 1998, and a 38 percent increase from 1993 to 2001 in the proportion of students injured as a result of their own drinking.

The report said there was a 21 percent increase from 2001 to 2005 in the average number of alcohol-related arrests per campus and noted that in 2005 alcohol-related arrests constituted 83 percent of campus arrests. In 2001, 97,000 students were victims of alcohol-related rapes or other sexual attacks and 696,000 students were assaulted by a student who had been binge drinking.

This from the Cincinnati Post. Photo illustration by RYAN OSTRANDER/The Post