College alcohol myths exposed

By Laura Christian
Western Herald

Most Western Michigan University students make healthy decisions when it comes to drinking alcohol and, contrary to belief, not everyone is drinking, said Dave Jones, coordinator for alcohol education at WMU.

“Most people who choose to drink do so responsibly,” Jones said. “But what happens is there’s this myth out there about what all these college students  are doing and what it means to be a college student.”

This myth often involves excessive use of alcohol.

“The reality is that, that’s not how most college students are; that’s not how most college students use alcohol,” Jones said.

“What happens is that myth, that perception of, ‘oh, I’m going to college and this is what college means, this is what college life means,’ creates what I call a ‘phantom peer pressure,’ this notion that if I’m going to fit in at college, these are the things I have to do to be a real college student,” Jones said.

Exaggerated versions of college are seen in movies such as “Old School” and “Animal House,” Jones said.

“Then our friends come back and tell us about their experiences at college – what do our friends talk about? They talk about the unusual things that they see, they talk about the extreme behaviors,” Jones said, “but they don’t talk about the everyday general [things] when they tell stories because why do we tell stories?  To be funny, to be entertaining.”

These kinds of stories are told and often times some first-year students who have not developed their college identities get involved in the phantom peer pressure thinking this is what college is about, Jones said.

“Now, do college students drink? Yes. Do college students sometimes drink too much? Yes. Is that the majority of what happens? No,” Jones said.

There are a lot of things people can do coming into college to help make the decision that’s right for them when it comes to drinking, Jones said.

“One thing I told freshmen in their orientation is to be a conscious contributor of college education,” Jones said.

“No matter what year you are, everything you do in college relates to the next decision or opportunity you have.  So, right now, people have to be conscious about the path that they’re going to take,” Jones said. “I’m not saying don’t ever drink or do those things, but if you choose to do those things, know why you’re doing them. Know what you’ll get out of it and think about where that is going to take you and is that going to take you to a place you want to go.”

The choices that students make, no matter how big or small, have an impact on the person’s future, but ultimately students are adults and can make those kinds of decisions. If a person does choose to drink, it is important to know moderation, know your limits and talk to your friends about those limits and the signs of alcohol poisoning, Jones said.

“If someone passes out and they are non-responsive, if they can’t have a coherent conversation or at least understand and respond to what you’re saying, if they can’t hold down water, if their hands and skin become clammy – that can lead to alcohol poisoning,” Jones said.

Something that many students do not realize is that even after you stop drinking, your blood alcohol level continues to rise, Jones said.

“You hear about these student deaths at college with alcohol and people always say that ‘he was fine when we left him’ or ‘ she was ok, we were just letting her sleep it off, she was breathing and she was fine,’   but they don’t realize this person just drank however many drinks and just took these shots and the alcohol is still going through their system,” Jones said.

“So while you’ve left that person passed out to, quote-unquote ‘sleep it off’, their blood alcohol content is rising. So they don’t die in that moment [and] they don’t have those major complications in that moment – it’s one or two hours after that.”

Not only are there the major side effects of alcohol, there are secondary effects that are often times what matters most to students and seem more realistic.

Things like getting to class on time, being able to study and having healthy relationships are important to students and one night of heavy drinking can impair a person’s ability to remember and recall information for 72 hours, Jones said.

“There are those primary effects, the scare ones, but there’s also a lot of secondary effects, like creating a living situation for you and roommates that are messy and unstable,” Jones said.

“There are relationship effects. You’re out drinking and you say something to your partner that you wouldn’t normally have said.  A lot of those things are secondary effects, how many people have wet the bed because they were too drunk to get up.  Some people laugh it off but it’s grown people peeing on themselves. That’s not really funny,” Jones said.

One myth is that people can become sober after drinking, but actually the only way to sober up after drinking is time, Jones said.

To find out more information on alcohol and resources visit http://www.wmich.edu/shc/hpae/alcohol/ or call 269-387-3263.

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Posted by kleonard on Sep 6 2010. Filed under Breaking, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

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