Binge drinking rising on campuses
Mike Pietrzak prepared for the Nevada-UNLV game on Sept. 29 by doing the same thing as many University of Nevada, Reno students – drinking and having fun with friends. Hours later Pietrzak fell down a flight of stairs, sustaining injuries that led to his death. While the campus and Greek community mourns his passing, Pietrzak’s tragedy is one example of how the college lifestyle can be fatal.
According to the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), about 1,400 student deaths nationally are linked to alcohol each year and about 500,000 students are unintentionally injured under the influence of alcohol.“This weekend, what are these kids going to do?”said Adam Wynganski, the Reno police detective who is handling Pietrzak’s case. “Yeah, they’ll feel bad for a couple of days, but the next weekend, they’ll be throwing beers back again and it’s sad. I wish we could get across to these kids.â€
Steven Hayes, psychology professor at UNR, said injuries resulting from alcohol often are because students are drunk and choose to be drunk.
Sally Morgan, UNR’s director of student judicial affairs, said that in the 19 years she’s worked at the university she’s noticed a rising trend in students wanting to get drunk.
“The problem isn’t that they’re drinking,”Morgan said. “Students drink in college and they always have. The problem is that they drink with the goal of getting drunk.â€
Morgan said “binge drinking,”where a person has five or more drinks in one sitting, has been on the rise for about 10 years.
In a report, “Wasting the Best and Brightest: Substance Abuse at America’s Colleges and Universities,”released in March, the National Center on Addiction stated the national rates of excessive drinking had increased:
- 22. 8 percent of students binge drink frequently
- 22.6 percent of students who drink on 10 or more occasions in the past month
- 29.4 percent of students who get drunk three or more times in the past month
- 48.2 percent of students who drink to get drunk
UNR’s 2004 CORE survey revealed the following numbers:
- About 20 percent of students said they drink three to five times within the last month
- More than 15 percent of students said they binge drank once over the last two weeks
- About 15 percent of students said they binge drank three to five times over the last two weeks
- 64.5 percent believe alcohol is a central part of students’ social lives
Garry Rubinstein, coordinator of the UNR substance abuse treatment program, said attitudes towards drinking are scary in today’s culture.
“People want to show off by showing how drunk they can get,”Rubinstein said. “I don’t remember another time when it was like this.â€
Gerald Marczynski, UNR’s vice president of student life services, said the numbers are a great concern to the university.
“Binge drinking is one of the riskiest behaviors that students can and do indulge in regularly,”Marczynski said.
Eric Dunnett, a 21-year-old international business major, said he believes some students do abuse it.
“I see girls that weigh 100 pounds take shot after shot until they black out,”Dunnett said.
Another study conducted by the University of Missouri-Columbia was inspired by the NIAAA’s report in 2002, said researcher Julia Martinez.
The study reported that when students get fake IDs they start drinking more and heavier.
“I think there’s a clear message about students and drinking in this study,”Martinez said, “The prevalence is evident and students should make choices considering what they know.â€
Steven Hayes, UNR psychology professor, said part of what leads to binge drinking among college students is the freedom students feel when they arrive on campus.
“In the early years, freshmen feel the limits they used to have taken off and that continues on throughout their sophomore, junior and senior years,”Hayes said.
Hayes said once the habit develops, students use alcohol and other substances to cope with problems in their lives.
Hayes said because this generation has grown up with a culture and media that encourages “quick fixes”and self-indulgence, students don’t see how their substance abuse habits are self-harming.
“Feeling good equals living good,”he said. “Binge drinking is the extreme form people use when they want to resolve the conundrums in their life.â€
Dunnett said students feel the need to relax.
“On the weekend, after classes, kids feel like they should black out,”Dunnett said.
Despite the trend in binge drinking, Morgan said she’s noticed a change in culture where it’s OK for people to not drink.
“Before, it used to be that if you didn’t drink, people would pressure you to,”Morgan said. “Many more students are accepting if people choose not to drink and live in a substance-free environment.â€
Morgan said she believed university programs like Choice Driven and AlcoholEdu, an online alcohol education course that 85 percent of incoming freshmen took over the summer, are helping deter drinking and turn towards more positive avenues.
Brian Duggan and Clint Demeritt contributed to this report.
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8 Responses to “Binge drinking rising on campuses”
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86.23 percent of statistics are made up. 100 percent of statistics are used for peruasive purposes. 24.6 percent of what group of studnts binge drink regulary? These numbers fall way short of what I would have guessed.
“Yeah, they’ll feel bad for a couple of days, but the next weekend, they’ll be throwing beers back again and it’s sad. I wish we could get across to these kids.” Officer Wynganski, getting across to students isn’t in your job description. I would concentrate on the protecting and serving and leave the ‘getting across’ to MTV.
Drinking in college is a rite of passage. If there is ever a time to be irresponsible, it is from age 18 to 24. Monday morning, people dont talk about the great study group meeting they had on Sunday afternoon. They talk about the ragers on Friday and Saturday night, the free drinks at their favorite bar, their 7-0 run on the beerpong table, the late night awful-awful after a night of clubbing, the ASUN Safe Ride voucher that didn’t work and the cab they ditched becase of it.
Brian Duggan contribted to this ‘eye opening’ article. Brian, as you will remember was the co-author of what was basically a weekly ‘Guess what we did when we blacked out this weekend’ article last year. If you want to shove this righteous crap in our faces remember that the last time I picked up a copy of the Sagebrush on campus, a huge calendar/flyer was in the middle basically proclaiming that you cold get drunk for cheap almost every night at the Little Wal.
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Hmm, let me guess, 911 was a conspiracy by George Bush to start a war in Iraq as well, correct? Or maybe we didn’t land on the moon, it was all shot in a Hollywood studio.
Your conspiracy theories are ridiculous. To say the Editor-in-Chief is not a reporter to be listened to or trusted is plain ignorant. He may have done those articles you mentioned, but its all a matter of assignments.
As to your argument FOR BINGE DRINKING? That’s literally the stupidest shit I’ve ever heard. It’s purely opinion based, has no backing, and makes no sense. Even your explanation for statistics is fucking ridiculous. If statistics were this unreliable, why would there be students majoring in fields, ranging anywhere from political science to math, that will be figuring out such statistics as an occupation after college?
This argument is so ridiculous, in fact, you must be from TKE. (And yes, that is the ultimate diss.)
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“The problem is that they drink with the goal of getting drunk,”Morgan Said.
Wow, I can’t believe people actually drink with the intention of getting drunk – the world just isn’t a safe place anymore.
I would like to comment about the above two comments. I think part of the problem is the reporting of the article. It is decently written, has a logical flow, but it is plagued by the same flaw that most college paper published articles are – there is no rebuttal. The reporting is one-sided.
So a kid dies and it is a travesty, but what about all the kids that don’t? What about everyone of those “Boozehounds,” out there that have fun drinking? Why didn’t I get to hear from them? It would help to hear about this because when a story is lopsided it pushes the already murky idea of objectivity out the window.
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So the paper assigned Duggan to get wasted every weekend and publish his adventures in his column ‘Boozehounds’? Seeing as how you are unfamiliar with this particular series, it really was a column of about two guys getting shithoused and seemingly winding up at the Little Nugget at 4 AM every weekend. Do I have a problem with him getting shithoused? No. I have a problem with the fact that as editor Duggan supports and contributes to a one sided anti drinking article when not a year ago he glorified blacking out in his column.
As the Editor, isn’t he the one assigning people to write about various topics? You would think that he of all people wouldn’t be one to take a stand against drinking by making it the front page article and then contributing to it. I don’t give a rats ass whether or not he is a good reporter. He is a hypocrite.
My argument is absolutely for drinking. Why would I need to back up my stance in favor of drinking? Do you want me to back it up? The Eighteenth Amendment. That worked really well.
Finally, you are kidding yourself if you don’t think that stats are infallible.
The ultimate diss? Good one. Passing out in TKE’s basement would give you something to talk about on Monday morning besides how well you sang the soprano lead in church choir the day before.
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Mmk, alcoholic asshole. If you want to use the eighteenth amendment as your defense, I guess I could easily go back to the 19th century, you know, back when universities were purely for education. But then again, you somehow think TKE is a good time, so you’ll probably fail to understand college as being a source of knowledge rather than as party central. TKE is the biggest joke on campus, as far as Fraternities go. Also, as far as brian being a hypocrite…that’s idiotic. That’s like saying your beliefs one year have to remain constant for the rest of your life. On top of that, being the editor-in-chief and being a writer for A&E or Perspectives are completely different. Writing for A&E or Perspectives many times reflects the opinion of the writer solely, while being the editor-in-chief means you represent the newspaper as a whole and must be fair to all issues present.
In conclusion, you are ignorant.
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I agree.
Will Tuman should just stop while he’s ahead.
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First and foremost, I am no longer a student at UNR, although I was back in the early ’80s. We, from your past still marvel about the absolute, pathetic slide UNR has taken.
UNR, back in our day competed for number one party school in the nation, Chico State generally won, but they did not compete legally. We did not either, but we at least tried, primarily because of the facist’s located on Evans Ave trying to put us all together in a cage.
We had our sorrow’s just as you do now, ATO, White Pine Hall and others had fatalities back then. That’s horrible to go through. It is part of life though, you just have to go on.
What we all notice now, is just how pathetic the party scene is at UNR. Occasionally some of us will be around during the last weekends in August or the First weeks of septemeber. The campus is quite, the little wal, is sparse, and Lincoln, my old home, smells not of beer, bourbon and retching, but of old age. UNR today is a sad sad place.
Now before any of you go and try to defend, please note, drinking on the weekends was considered involuntary, everyone did, unless they were too sick to go out, hurt something skiing or were recently back from a mission. The weekend included Thursday and Sunday, Monday and Wednesday’s were optional for party’s but every dorm and and frat had some minor event. Tuesday’s were a touch slow, comprable to a friday night at UNR now. I am sure there are still rumors around, trust me they are true. To add a bit of flavour to how things have changed; he young republicans back then, backed by the republican national committee hosted one of the larger tail gates, and was responsibility for moving hip flasks through the gates.
As to the above mentioned stats, we too had people who put up those statistics, but we ignored them, the only thing we cared about was maintaining our national ranking in the party. Deans Hand and Rita Man(hater), yes those were there given names, tried to dissuade us, but we, the students prevailed. The sagebrush editor back then was part and parcel to this effort, and through his writings to our collagues allowed me, the circulation manager to assist the Student union in our quest, by papering the university with each new party notice. That is how the sagebrush was used in the past.
From what I can tell the annual spring Luau is no longer an event, all of the old bars are gone, and the cowboys all appear to have moved from out of the drunken closet. As the cars put it so well “where did all the good times go…………
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