Purging Bingeing

Students will always drink, but colleges can try to control the consequences.

Ed Carson from the December 1995 issue

Erin and Jason don't think they drink excessively. "When I think of bingeing, I think of people drinking until they puke," says Erin, a 20-year-old sophomore at the University of Oregon, adding that she usually stops at six drinks when she goes out on the weekend.

"I think drinking to get really drunk is stupid," says Jason, a 21-year-old junior. So what is a reasonable amount? "I usually have seven or eight beers," he says as he takes a gulp from his sixth glass.

But the public health establishment says both Erin and Jason are binge drinkers, defined as anyone who has had at least five drinks (sometimes four drinks for women) in one sitting during the previous two weeks. College drinking has attracted a lot of attention recently with the release of several studies reporting that some two-fifths of college students are binge drinkers. The studies say virtually all binge drinkers admit suffering some negative consequences, ranging from hangovers to sexual assaults. And they don't hurt just themselves. In a 1994 study by the Harvard School of Public Health, 82 percent of non­binge drinkers living in dorms, fraternities, or sororities said they had experienced "secondhand binge effects." As Selena, an 18-year-old Oregon freshman, puts it, "You always know when they come back from the bars at 4 a.m. screaming their heads off."

So last year, when the Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University (CASA) claimed the percentage of college women drinking to get drunk had more than tripled during the previous 15 years, the news media were quick to hype the finding that drinking on cam pus had reached "epidemic proportions." But as Kathy McNamara-Meis revealed in the Winter 1995 Forbes MediaCritic, CASA's conclusions were based on a misleading comparison of results from a 1977 survey of all college women and a 1992 survey of freshman women. Since freshmen drink more than any other class, such a comparison would suggest an increase in drunkenness even if nothing had changed. In fact, says David Hanson, a professor of sociology at the State University of New York at Potsdam who has studied alcohol use on campus for more than 20 years, "the evidence shows that the actual trend is as flat as your little sister's chest."

As this episode suggests, the problems associated with college drinking are overstated and misunderstood. Since college students have limited responsibilities, they can usually drink heavily without serious repercussions. Drunken college students do sometimes get into trouble, of course. But this is not a drinking problem; it is a drinking behavior problem.

For neoprohibitionists, alcohol itself is the problem. In their eyes, college students are chil drenchildren who can vote and serve in the military, but still childrenwho must be shielded from the pernicious effects of drinking. According to the federal Office for Substance Abuse Prevention, "for kids under 21, there is no difference between alcohol or other drug use and abuse." Yet most college students under 21 don't think they are doing anything wrong by drinking. "I'm not hurting anyone," says Derek, a 20-year-old sophomore. "I'm just having a good time." Many college admin istrators say the 21-year purchase age just makes drinking more attractive.

"The 21 law makes alcohol a forbidden fruit and encourages underage students to drink," says Carl Wartenburg, dean of admissions at Swarthmore College. A 1994 survey by the CORE Institute at Southern Illinois University found that students under 21 drink more, and more often, than older students.

Underage students at the University of Oregon have little trouble obtaining alcohol. Most dorms have a no-use policy, but resident assistants just try to crack down on partying and encourage students to drink off campus. Fake IDs are everywhere. If they don't have IDs, students usually can find a party off campus or get someone older to buy for them.

Students may drink to let off steam, or drink to get drunk, or boast about how much they can drink without puking. But college drinking, by and large, remains social drinking. UO students could buy a half-rack of Henry Weinhard's Ale and drink at home. But instead they pay a lot more to drink at Rennie's or Max's because they want to be around other people.

Drinking isn't only something to doit's something everyone can do together. It's how many freshmen begin meeting people. "You don't know anybody, and then somebody hands you a beer and pretty soon you're hanging out with a bunch of guys," says Eric, a 19-year-old sophomore, remembering his first days in college. Freshmen drink hard early on: A 1995 Harvard study of college freshmen found that 70 percent binge drink in their first semester. But after students find their social circle (and worship once or twice at the Temple of the Porcelain God), many decide to drink infrequently or not at all.

But others choose to drink throughout college. "When people ask me why college students drink," says Hanson, the sociologist, "I say, 'Why not?'" People in the "real world" have too little time and too many responsibilities to drink heavily night after night. They have to get up early five days a week, work all day, then go home to their families. Co-workers and family members count on them to live up to their obligations. College students are usually responsible only for themselves. All they have to do is go to a few classes and study when it's convenient. Michael Haines, coordinator of Health Enhancement Services at Northern Illinois University, notes that campus life is set up for binge behavior of all kinds. Students stay up one night cramming for a test, sleep in until noon the next day, then drink all night.

Research finds that college students who drink heavily have lower grades than those who drink moderately or not at all. But these students night generally aren't chemistry majors whose grades and classes will be critical for graduate school and future careers. They tend to be business or social science majors who will probably end up in jobs that have little to do with their academic studies. "The truth is that most students can go out drinking several nights a week and get by," says Wartenburg, the Swarthmore dean.

College students get into trouble not because they drink to get drunk but because they get drunk to be irresponsible. "I was drunk" is a get-out-of-jail-free card for college students who act like idiots, get into fights, climb into construction equipment, or behave in other unacceptable or embarrassing ways. It works because friends know that drinking makes people lose control and they may want to use alcohol as an excuse for their own behavior, especially sexual behavior. According to the Harvard study, 41 percent of frequent binge drinkers engage in unplanned sexual activity, as opposed to only 4 percent for non­binge drinkers.

But unplanned does not mean unwanted. Students drink because they want to feel uninhibited. Men are less hesitant to approach women because they know that if their advances are rejected, they can laugh it off later, saying they were drunk. Women, who still face a double standard when it comes to sleeping around, can blame one-night stands on alcohol.

So men and women have a strong incentive to attribute sexual behavior to drinking, which can be dangerous. Men may be inappropriately aggressive, and willing women may later claim they did not consent. The popularity of the alcohol excuse also helps explain the higher rates of unplanned and unprotected sex while drinking, because halting "uncontrollable" sex to be responsible would destroy the illusion of chemical compulsion.

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