Tag: binge drinking
What Makes A Heavy Drinker?

What Makes A Heavy Drinker?

There’s been a significant rise in “heavy drinking” among Americans, according to a new study out of the University of Washington.

But what do these researchers mean by “heavy drinking”? wine lovers must ask. For a woman, heavy drinking is defined as more than one glass of wine a day. For men, it’s more than two. Other definitions of heavy drinking use similar measures. But hmm.

I’m often a heavy drinker by these lights, but not by my lights. Many days, I’ll have two glasses of wine. Occasionally, I’ll have three. I don’t think that’s a big deal, and I don’t see myself in any kind of denial.

Is the Frenchwoman who takes a glass of rosé with lunch and a cabernet at dinner a “heavy drinker”? And if she should add an aperitif before dinner and a dash of cognac when the meal ends two hours later — that is, consume four alcoholic beverages in the course of 24 hours — does that make her a “binge drinker,” as many would define her?

Even doctors pointing to the cardiac benefits of moderate consumption urge people to not start drinking for health reasons. Well, why not, unless the person is addicted to alcohol?

Other healthy adults should be able to split a bottle of wine with a friend without being told they are headed to the gutter. Somewhere in our society’s gut lives the notion of alcohol as inherently evil.

When experts talk about the one-drink-a-day limit for a woman, they ignore vast differences in the sizes, ages and health conditions of the sisterhood’s members.

“I can’t drink anything,” my 90-year-old aunt Shirley told me during a recent dinner out, “but would you like another glass of white?”

Aunt Shirley has only 102 pounds on her but a ton of wisdom.

Even getting tipsy now and then should be the drinker’s own business, assuming that he or she doesn’t then drive. On that subject, campaigns against drunken driving have succeeded in sharply reducing alcohol-fueled fatalities on the road. Unfortunately, the modern-day temperance movement has gotten into its head that the way to push these numbers still lower is to make alcoholic beverages more expensive through higher taxes.

In truth, the dangerous drivers are typically alcoholics with repeated arrests and blood alcohol levels that are double the legal maximum or more. They are not real sensitive to the price of the substance.

Promoting higher prices as a response to campus binge drinking is also a non-solution. The problem of students’ downing rotgut until they pass out is not just of too much alcohol but of too little civilization.

Giancarlo Gariglio, editor-in-chief of Slow Wine magazine, touched on this in his criticisms of a European Union plan to discourage binge drinking with minimum prices and regulated alcoholic percentages. His big complaint was it lumped artisanal wines with industrial, pre-mixed alcohol beverages.

“Without culture,” he wrote, “we drink poorly and we don’t even enjoy ourselves, because we gulp down rubbish.”

Taxes on alcohol are, of course, regressive. The Beer Institute, an industry trade group, reports that beer drinkers pay $5.6 billion a year in hidden excise taxes alone — hidden because they are levied at the brewery.

Low- and middle-income Americans are beer’s chief consumers. The institute estimates that households earning less than $50,000 per year pay half of beer taxes.

The battle is on to define moderate drinking. If that means dishing out the same guidelines to a skinny Nancy Reagan at 93 and a large Melissa McCarthy at 44, then they’re not going to say much.

Follow Froma Harrop on Twitter @FromaHarrop. She can be reached at fharrop@gmail.com. To find out more about Froma Harrop and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Web page at www.creators.com. 

Photo: Robert S. Donovan via Flickr

Colleges Step Up Efforts To Warn Students Of Sex-Abuse, Alcohol ‘Red Zone’

Colleges Step Up Efforts To Warn Students Of Sex-Abuse, Alcohol ‘Red Zone’

By Kathleen Megan, The Hartford Courant

Halee Bazer, a freshman at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Conn., said she has heard about the wave of sexual assault lawsuits on college campuses and plans to be cautious about parties, never go anywhere alone, and call campus security for escorts if necessary.

“Yeah, I’m like very paranoid,” Bazer said as she organized her gear in her new dorm room. “But, like, campus security makes me feel better about it.”

With the heightened focus on sexual assault on college campuses in the past year, many freshmen and their parents — even at Quinnipiac, which has top ratings for safety — are thinking and talking about their concerns.

Some college and university officials say that freshmen are particularly at risk for unwanted sex or rape during the first couple of months of the school year — a period some call “the red zone.”

“I’ve heard some male students refer to this period as ‘hunting season,'” said Dana Bolger, the co-founder and co-director of Know Your IX, a group that assists college women filing sexual assault complaints under federal Title IX legal provisions. “Perpetrators know that students just beginning their college experience are at their most vulnerable; they haven’t developed a support network yet and are just trying to fit in, make friends, and find the library.”

A U.S. Justice Department report says that the “first few days of the freshmen year are the riskiest, limiting the value of any rape prevention programs that begin after that.” A 2007 Campus Sexual Assault study similarly found that “women who are victimized during their college career are most likely to be victimized early on in their college tenure.”

A 2008 study published in the Journal of American College Health also found “substantial” evidence of the existence of a red zone during the first few months of freshmen year, when reports of unwanted sex or rape are higher. Other times of the school year, such as a homecoming weekend or fraternity and sorority rush may also be high-risk, but the study cautioned institutions not to give students the false impression that a campus is safe the rest of the year.

College officials have long known that the first few months of school can be a time of testing limits, of too much drinking and partying. For decades they have taken steps to educate freshmen about the risks of such behavior, provided orientation programs aimed at connecting students to productive activities and familiarizing them with the services on campus.

Those services have intensified and expanded, with many universities presenting online videos and quizzes on alcohol, sexual assault, and safety over the summer, and then reinforcing those messages with presentations, interactive performances, and more videos when students arrive on campus.

“Every college is on high alert for the first year,” said Eileen Stone, the University of Connecticut’s assistant director of wellness and prevention. “We know that this is a risky time, so we try to help the students navigate their way.”

Kerry Patton, director of counseling services at Quinnipiac, said: “I think the goal is to get them involved in different healthy experiences. Students who are involved in things tend to make better decisions.”

Younger students may be hesitant to speak up or object to behavior that makes them uncomfortable if they think everyone is doing it and that it’s normal, said Laura Lockwood, director of the Women & Gender Resource Action Center at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn.. The stereotypes that “everyone drinks at college and rape is inevitable … have to be dismantled, as well as the rape myth that girls deserve it if they are drunk or dressed scantily — that sort of ‘blame the victims’ culture.”

Fred Alford, dean of students at Trinity College, said students’ misuse of alcohol has been a serious concern in the 30 years he’s worked with college students, and that the focus on preventing sexual assault has intensified in recent years.

That’s partly because federal guidelines were released in 2011 to clarify and strengthen the obligations colleges and universities have to prevent and respond to campus sexual assault.

“The bright light that the federal government has put on it has created a better network of information,” Alford said, heightening sensitivity and reinforcing “the sense that colleges better pay attention.”

Most colleges and universities now present extensive orientation programs early during freshmen year to educate students — male and female — about alcohol, sexual assault, safety concerns, and repercussions for criminal activity, and many have expanded training refreshers in the later years.

“You have to plant the seeds, and then you have to nurture the seeds all through the year,” Trinity’s Lockwood said.

Bolger of Know Your IX also emphasized the importance of spreading prevention and bystander education throughout a student’s four years.

The programs focus on personal safety behaviors, such as having a buddy and not letting your drink out of your sight. They also offer guidance on how a bystander can intervene and the need to step in and help defuse a situation that looks threatening.

Time also is spent on defining “consent.” A new brochure given to UConn students emphasizes that the absence of a “no” does not necessarily mean a “yes,” and that a person who is incapacitated by alcohol or drugs is unable to give consent.

While heading to college is all about independence, research shows that students whose parents stay in touch are more likely to avoid problems, particularly excessive drinking, according to Stone at UConn.

She said research shows that when “parents reiterate their values and expectations … students tended to do better.”

“Students may not listen to it wholeheartedly and take it to the letter-of-the-word type of thing,” but they are listening, Stone said.

It’s important for parents to pick their moment and not to overdo it, she said.. She also recommended that parents find out about services and activities available on campus so they can occasionally make informed suggestions to their child if a need or interest comes up.

At Quinnipiac, as freshmen moved in, it was clear that parents had sent their kids strong messages about safety.

Noelle Johnson, a freshmen from Groton, Mass., rattled off some of what she had been told: “Be smart if you’re going to drink. Hang out with good people. Don’t walk home alone. Do something if you see someone not in their right state of mind. Step up and defuse the situation. … Just be smart, don’t go nuts.”

Her mother, Sarah Johnson, said, “I know Noelle knows the right things to do, but I felt like I had to say them out loud and have a conversation about them anyway, just about how to be safe and you know, things to watch out for. Things she knows already, but it had to be said.

“Of course, we’re not encouraging drinking. She has a flashlight. We told her to always have a buddy to walk with, to be aware of her surroundings, especially at night, and I’m guessing there are people you can call on campus if you need to go somewhere.”

Halee Bazer got much the same message from her mother, Andrea Marshall, who warned her daughter to watch her drinks and food and to stay with friends.

“I don’t know if she listens,” Marshall said, but added: “She’s got the flashlight and the whistle and the whole thing. There’s a certain trust factor. She’s a smart kid and she’s good about this stuff. You’ve got to give them the tools and hope that they use them.”

Photo: vkp_patel via Flickr

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