Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, January 2, 1992 TAG: 9201020016
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: WILLIAM CELIS III
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Long
BINGE DRINKING UP ON COLLEGE CAMPUSES
Drinking among college students has declined over the past decade, studies show, as society has grown less tolerant of alcohol. But that decline masks a trend that is proving both stubborn and lethal: the persistence of abusive or "binge" drinking."More students are drinking abusively," said Tom Goodale, vice president for student affairs at Virginia Tech. "I've never seen it like I've seen it in the last 10 years, with the last five years worse than the first five."
The number of college students who said they drank declined to 80 percent last year from 89 percent in 1981, according to a survey by the University of Florida. But another survey for the federal government by the University of Michigan suggests that abusive drinking among college students has held steady. The survey also found that such abusive drinking has declined among 19- to 22-year-olds who are not in college.
At Virginia Tech and Boston College, from Rutgers to Stanford, administrators are grappling with the problem. And at some campuses, there clearly has been an increase in abusive drinking, which is defined by the National Institute of Drug Abuse and other specialists as consuming five or more drinks at one sitting.
At Oklahoma State University, the student health center treats an average of 10 cases of severe alcohol poisoning a semester, up from six a decade ago. At Gritman Medical Center in Moscow, Idaho, which serves the University of Idaho, minor to severe cases of alcohol poisoning among students have risen to an average of eight a week, double the number a decade ago.
Generations of college students have drunk to excess, reveling in their newfound freedom from parental reins. But college deans, alcohol rehabilitation specialists and students themselves say many of the factors that lead to abusive drinking have intensified in recent years.
"The 21 drinking age law is the most unenforced law in the country," said Arthur Sandeen, vice president of student affairs at the University of Florida."Frankly, it's a nightmare."
Students themselves suggest that attempts to curtail alcohol consumption are futile because they will find ways to bypass rules and laws.
"If they make the rules harder, then kids will try harder to break them," said Lara Deming, a 19-year-old Virginia Tech sophomore, who added that despite her age she could find alcohol whenever she wanted it.
Students and administrators also say students are under more peer and academic pressure than in the past.
"They have a lot more to deal with than I did," said Candyce Reynolds, 34, a counselor at Portland State University in Oregon who attended college in the 1970s.
"I think younger people are disenfranchised. They face many more difficulties, including exposure to alcohol, risky sexual behavior and a staggering economy."
Warnings fail
Isaac and Alease Parsons of Appomattox County had warned their son Wayne, a 19-year-old sophomore at Virginia Tech, about the perils of alcohol. Wayne, the youngest of three brothers and two sisters, even had been lectured by an older brother.
But when Wayne went to a party with about 30 other people at a friend's apartment one night at the end of September, he gulped a large quantity of beer, then in 15 minutes drank an oversized tumbler of about 32 ounces of tequila, friends told the police.
About an hour later, he collapsed. An emergency medical crew was called but could not revive him. He died in the hospital the next morning. The cause of death was alcohol poisoning.
For all the Parsonses knew, their son had heeded their advice on drinking. That is why they are still finding it so hard to come to terms with the death of their son.
"Why would he do something like this?" Parsons asked, sobbing. "He had a good ability and mind about things. I was constantly telling him not to let outsiders influence him. Was he coaxed?"
Unlike the Parsonses, Mike and Sandra Brodwater of Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, knew that their son, Alan, drank and sometimes drank excessively. But they thought they had helped him get over it.
Alan, Mike Brodwater said, was trying to improve his 3.0 grade point average to 3.4 or 3.5 and used alcohol to ease the stress. But after several conversations with his son about the dangers of drinking, Brodwater said, "I really felt that the worst was over."
So when Alan, the second of four boys and a junior majoring in accounting at the University of Idaho, died early in the morning of Nov. 1 after a bout of drinking, his parents were shocked.
"I felt absolute disbelief," Brodwater said.
Different strategies
A scattershot effort has been made in recent years by parents, universities, fraternities and students to corral a problem that Goodale of Virginia Tech says "is the one problem colleges haven't been able to get their arms around."
No single approach has emerged from those efforts, but a growing number of universities have ended the serving of alcohol on campus.
Other institutions have taken a more aggressive stand. In New Jersey, Rutgers University in 1988 established special housing at two of its five campuses for students recovering from alcohol and drug dependency.
Driving some of the effort by colleges and universities is the 1989 Drug Free School and Campuses Act, requiring institutions to make alcohol education programs and services like counseling available to students and employees.
For all these efforts, college administrators and alcohol counselors say alcohol abuse will persist on campus as long as it persists in society. "No matter how much money is put behind this, the problem doesn't seem to go away," said Kelly Heryla, a chemical dependency specialist at Indiana University of Pennsylvania.