Substance Abuse in College
The following article is one the demonstrates the potentially harmful attitude that many college students have towards substance abuse. The article references an online community with a group that celebrates college age women getting drunk and going too far. Members of the group post pictures of their escapades for all to see. The group has 172,000 members. I still find it amazing how many of our residents started drinking and using with the thought that it was a perfectly normal thing to do. I too, had the same thought when I started to abuse alcohol at 17. I didn't even think about the risks that I was taking.
Forty percent of college students binge drink, according to a report this year by the Center on Alcohol and Substance Abuse. The report lists many ramifications of college binge drinking, including injuries, sexual violence and vandalism. In addition, college students who reported having considered suicide were more likely to be active binge drinkers.
The Facebook group doesn't talk much about these problems. It has more than 172,000 members, and nearly 5,000 photos.
December 12th, 2007 at 1:46 am
My first semester at college was filled with weekends spent binge drinking. Every time I thought about what I was doing to myself was accompanied by a pledge to not drink so much next time. It took another four years, throughout which I would binge drink frequently, before I realized that I had no control over how much I drank once I started. I know now that this is a part of the disease of alcoholism, which I have. It was necessary to acknowledge this about myself before I was able to stop drinking, and I havn’t taken a drink in over four years.
December 12th, 2007 at 11:45 am
My experience was that a laissez-faire attitude about drinking and drug use began in high school and carried into college. At a private high school with high levels of stress (usually about college) available money and a hip, trendy drug-taking crowd it wasn’t that hard to get into. The people with serious drug problems usually distinguished themselves by college. Several friends were kicked out of college, or bouncing in and out of AA, NA or other 12 step groups by sophomore year. My disease (alcoholism) was certainly kicking my ass before college. By the time I made it to college I found the parties and scene to be ridiculous. It was however a good cover for my own insane drinking. Going out to a party once in awhile helped keep up the appearance that I had social life besides drinking in my apartment.
December 12th, 2007 at 6:54 pm
It’s scary to see kids that think it’s OK to use because their peers are using. Not every can handel the same things the way the rest of their friends can (not that anyone should be using illegal drugs) it’s just that some of these kids end up worse than their friends and wind up with serious addictions. Parents and close friends that don’t use need to get involved as much as possible. Most dont know how important their influence is though. This is why the A&E show intervention is so important. It demonstrates how difficult addiction can be and uses a highly qualified team of specialists to address the core issues. The show really does a great job of showing what it takes to get on the road to recovery for some of the most difficult addictions and how it affects everyone involved. Check out http://www.aetv.com/intervention for more on the show. I’m working to help promote the show because I think that
The issue of drug abuse and recovery is a topic American’s should be informed on. A new episode airs every Monday night at 9:00 PM
December 13th, 2007 at 3:31 pm
What I have found to be true in college is that many young people in this generation do not know how to communicate. They find that if they drink, and everyone else drinks they do not have to have an actual conversation. The famous line, “you drink? Oh well I drink to lets hang out” is the beginnning of many interactions. I think if young people learned how to interact with each other on a real level; talk about something other than their drinking and using escapades the problem wouldn’t be so prominent. Also the issue of stress management comes up. I will see my classmates cars at the bars frequently during finals week. So the idea that many college students binge drink is no surprise to me when there isn’t much emphasis on communication skills, stress management, and self help. I was lucky enough to enter my college career sober but getting people to find other ways aside from drinking and using to connect. I too have been sober over four years and find college to be a breading ground for addiction and alcoholism amongst young people.
December 17th, 2007 at 10:50 am
My drinking really picked up in college. It was the first time I lived by myself. There was no one there to tell me what to do. I was already drinking a lot prior to college. I felt like it was acceptable for me to drink a lot because there, for the first time, I found a few other people who drank like I did. I was not aware how my drinking would affect my future. I got kicked out of college and lost a lot of friends. Gatehouse provided me with the oppurtunity to get back into college classes, which is something that I would have never been able to do on my own.
December 21st, 2007 at 10:03 am
I can write and write and write, about my crazyness during my quick try and college. Like most college kids I too used these crazy online sites to promote the crazyness of my life. Pictures of myself were posted drunk, stoned, angry, strung out, and pretending to have fun. In my humble opinion this had nothing to do with the site, the college, or any of my friends (which were few). what this had to do with was the position I had chosen to place myself towards my years in high school and then college. My drinking did not begin to sky rocket in college, but rather continued to sky rocket. College forced me into a bottom. I hit this bottom, came to Gatehouse and began to do what I needed to do to get my life back. Hooray for me. But simply because I was able to self-diagnose myself doesn’t mean everyone I ever partied and posed for photos with will follow my lead. I can comment all day about how sad it is for people to post photos declare their weekend warstories, but I was no better, so I won’t. Is it sad, yes, does it matter, no. I hated my years spent in college, I was miserable. I was lost, and going nowhere. I now don’t know where I’m going, but I’m happy for the first time in my life. Perhaps these people in the pictures are like me, perhaps not. Its up to them to decide. But until then, post on, do as you will but just don’t do it around me, and maybe I’ll see some of em’ in the rooms. But until then, heres to life….
December 28th, 2007 at 5:06 pm
I hit my bottom in College. I was the guy that walked around campus and people would whisper as I walked by. I could hear them say things like “…that’s the guy that was at the bar the other night…”. Then it got too the point where my friends in the dormitory I was living in were confronting me about my drinking! How outrageous I thought. Here they were smoking pot all the time and drinking too! But the reality was that most of those young people were not drinking like I was and doing the things I was doing under the influence.Perhaps someone would have posted a picture of me to show me how horrid I was when drunk!
I tend to agree with the comments in the article that these young people really aren’t thinking too much about what all of this means. However, reality does have a way of raising it’s ugly head, as the young woman points out toward the end of the article.
January 4th, 2008 at 1:33 pm
The Washington Post reported in March 2007 that the alcohol industry spent more than $52 million to advertise its products during televised college sports in a recent year. The mixed message concernign alcohol use communicated by colleges and universities seriously undermines the credibility of any programs urging sobriety on campus.
January 8th, 2008 at 4:00 pm
I started drinking and using drugs at an early age. So by the time I went to college I thought that was the thing everyone does. My drinking and drug use started to peak. I didn’t feel I was wrong to be doing this because the mentality of most my peirs was the same.
January 18th, 2008 at 1:24 pm
College was a quick experience to me because I took advantage of the whole situation. I used it as an excuse to drink and do drugs with my friends. I had the excuse that everyone is doing it. However, my friends didn’t seem to do it as much as I did. Soon my grades dropped and I had no control over my drug use. I stayed in my apartment alone and was misurable. This was the time of my life that was suppose to be the greatest however it was the absolute worst. At this time i realized that I truly was a drug addict and that I couldn’t drink or use like my friends. College is a great place however it can also be a very scary experience because drinking is so acceptable.
January 18th, 2008 at 2:53 pm
I hit one of my many bottoms in my first semester of freshman year of college. I went to a school in southern indiana. Three housrs after my dad droped me off i got arrested for smoking marijuana and drinking alcohol in my dorm room. This was one of my major botoms. My dad ended up bailing me out of jail. I ended up just leaving school just 2 weeks later. Dirnking and doing drugs got more importamnt than everything else. Today i am greatful that i got to experience this mainly because know i know what i dont want to go back to. This shows how powerful thew disease of alcoholism is and that it it a disease that tells you that you dont have one.
January 20th, 2008 at 6:48 pm
College didnt really work out for me. After dropping out of two different colleges four times, I felt like the problem was the school, not me. However, all I did after and during school was drink and use drugs. I was living off my parents dollar, intil they told me that the game was over.