FREE ESSAY ON SOBERING STUDIES

SOBERING STUDIES

Sobering Studies
A new study found students who doubt their abilities to handle bad moods or bad
situations are more prone to drinking. This is just the latest in a number of alcohol
studies coming out in relation to college students. College students are always easy
targets for these surveys, since many students are finally away from their mother's nest
for the first time and feel free to go out more times than Friday and Saturday nights.
What is obvious is there are as many reasons or excuses to drink as there are drinks
themselves. People drink to relax, have fun, deal with stress, sleep, get away from
problems, cope, and alleviate stress, just to name a few. What students should be aware
of is if they are drinking for more than relaxation and fun, they could very well have a
problem. In essence if students are drinking to cope with the everyday problems of
academe, they have more problems than low grades or job market stress. On the other hand,
just because someone drinks more than one glass of wine for dinner doesn't make that
person a problem drinker. If everyone who drank at Penn State went to an alcohol
counselor, the lines would dwarf those apparent for this year's Penn State-Michigan
game.
What students (as well as everyone else who drinks) need to realize is that drinking is
not a solution to any kind of problem. Alcohol, like caffeine, nicotine and heroin, is a
drug. Beverage companies can paint them any color they want, but nothing is going to take
away that fact.
Like any drug, alcohol is potentially addictive. The best test is to figure out whether
you use the drug, or the drug is using you. As the summer is in its midst, more students
will be inclined to drink after the stress of finals and even graduation. Don't let the
summer become an excuse to drink more heavily than other times. 
Despite increasing publicity about the problems caused by student drinking, a new survey
suggests that the number of college-age drinkers has been steadily falling for the past
twenty years. Recent studies have found connections between drinking and the prevalence
of date rapes, hazing, and property damage on campuses. (Higher Education Research
Institute, The American Freshman: National Norms for Fall 1994, University of California,
Los Angeles; William Celis 3d, Tradition on the Wane: College Drinking, New York Times,
Feb. 5, 1995, p. 1). This study, by the Higher Education Research Institute at the
University of California at Los Angeles, suggests that problem drinking may be isolated
to a few students and that overall attitudes about alcohol are changing, at least among
college freshmen.
In 1994, the Institute surveyed 333,703 freshmen from 670 four-year colleges and
universities as part of their annual poll of first-year students. In 1994, the number of
first-year students who reported drinking beer occasionally or frequently in the past
year reached its lowest point ever -- 53.2% (compared to 54.4% in 1993 and 75.2% in
1981). The percentage of freshmen that said they had drunk wine or hard liquor also fell
to 52.5% from 66.7% in 1987 when the question was first asked as a part of the survey.
Students interviewed for The New York Times article about the survey attributed the
decrease in drinking to changing attitudes. According to one New York University student,
on college campuses there is just an increased awareness that drinking can become
something hazardous not only to your health, but your academic life, your studies, your
relationships.