Binge Drinking at College Campuses

Binge drinking has become a huge dilemma at college campuses. It can cause serious injuries and even lead many college students to die from it. Binge drinking is known as the number one health hazard for American college students. When defining binge drinking it can be tricky to explain because it has a gender-specific definition. For men, it’s having five or more drinks in a row.

As for a women, binge drinking is defined as having four or more drinks in a row. Binge drinking in college is the feeling when after graduating high school and moving out on our own, we as college students want to experience freedom and independence. Having the freedom gives us a chance to do whatever we want without having our parents around telling us to know right from wrong. Now we get to make those choices on our own. We finally get the alone time we always wanted, which makes it easier to do unreasonable things because we don’t have anyone nagging at us anymore. Pregaming is the process of getting drunk prior to going out socializing, which is typically done by college students, with hard liquor and cheap beer consumed while in small groups. There are many problems that binge drinking causes students to have such as emotional and physical abuse as well as deaths. Having the school administrators notify parents of students’ alcohol violations would be effective because college students are more likely to listen to their parents then someone they don’t know like the administrators telling them binge drinking is wrong. Binge drinking is a big issue in society and it shouldn’t be brushed off because college students have to indoor the social pressure, fraternity culture, and blackouts.

It has been shown that social pressure has always existed in society, and probably will always do so. Social pressure is the direct influence on people by peers, or the effect on an individual who gets encouraged to follow their peers by changing their attitudes, values or behaviors to conform to those of the influencing group or individual. First year college students are more likely to be pressure into binge drinking because they are new and just want to fit in and meet new people. I personally think it’s easier for first year students because we’re away from family, friends and we don’t really know anyone. We just want to be the person who is wanted. Some students tend to use alcohol as a tool to avoid there personally issues. Whening using alcohol to depress feeling make it worse for the person drinking because alcohol is a depressant, which slows downs our nervous system. Meaning that it impairs our coordination which explains why there is a lot of physical consequence that can occur when drunk. Hazing is the imposition of humiliating tasks as part of a program of rigorous physical training and initiation. Hazing is used on the first year students who are joining a fraternity house.

The frantiety culture is one of the main result from binge drinking issues that both genders suffer from. Frantiety’s can be described as a social club or group made up of men, but it can also be referred to as a group of people who work in the same industry or have similar careers. Frintiety’s are a big problem because they play a big role in why students binge drink. When it comes to binge drinking a person’s coordination is bad. They tend to lose their balance, trip over things, and have cuts or bruises. Binge drinking can lead to death because of alcohol poisoning. Alcohol poisoning can be described to be a serious and sometimes deadly consequence of drinking large amounts of alcohol in a short time. Meaning that a person’s body to “shut down” and stop them from breathing. In a documentary I seen in class called Hazing, it talked about a frat boy name Lynn Gordon Bailey Jr. also known as Gordie who died because of binge drinking. The night of his death, Gordie and twenty-six other pledges, dresses in nicely fro “bid night” and were encouraged to drink four handles of whiskey and six bottles of wine. When they had went back to the fraternity house, gordie was very intoxicated so his roommates placed him on the coach to “sleep it off”. Later that night as a fertility ritual the roommates wrote on his body with permanent markers. Ten hours later he was found died face down on the floor. It’s a tragedy to see how an 18 older boy who had his whole life ahead of him died his first month of college. If his fraternity brothers would have called when he had blacked out then such action could have been prevented.

As college students are being affected by binge drinking as a result of suffering from blacking out. Blackouts are very serious because they can result in deaths. Blackouts have a very emotional and physical consequences. Some examples of emotional consequence can be the risk of somoene being rape, unsafe sex that can lead to unwanted pregnancy. Examples of physical consequences can be violence, self injuries, trouble with the law, and worse death. I think that blackouts are a ritual for students for when they go out and party. They go out with the intent of getting so drunk that they blackout because to them it’s what everyone around then is doing. College is just like high school where we just want to fit in and be apart of. The only difference is that college comes with more risk and responsibilities that we aren’t fully ready for. We also believe that if we do good and get through hard week of classes that we deserve an award such as partying. When in reality, we drink because we think it’s the norm and the only way to be apart of. We rather drink our pain and responsibilities away then face them. If there would be some type of rule about how the school administrators notify parents of students’ alcohol violations would be effective. I believe that the students are more worried about what there patresn will say then authorities will do.

A hand full of college students binge drink because they want to fit in and meet in people. On the other hand some do it because they are trying to fill a void that it is hard to talk about out loud to others. Some college students that are on there own for the very first time can also feel alone due to be away from there family and friends. They feel scared and alone because they aren’t somewhere that is comfortable to them. The problem of binge drinking on college campuses is that is causes a lot of problem such as, sexual assaults, physical abuse, emotional abuse, fights, self injury, and deaths. The main effects that it has is the long term physical damage such as liver or kidney issues as well as being emotional damage. I feel like a solution would be having the school administrators notify parents of students’ alcohol violations would be effective. I think that if parents were to know what their child was doing then mostly that parent would have a serious talk them about how it’s very dangerous it can be. I also feel like that if my mother knew I was binge drinking to the point where she has to be notified about my action then I would be very ashamed of my action and wouldn’t drink to the point where im acting like a fool again. As a parent I think that the keeping them in the loop of their child makes them feel safe in knowing that they know whats happening. It’s sad to see how binge drinking is a big issue in society. Which is why it shouldn’t be brushed off because its causing college students have to indoor the social pressure, fraternity culture, and blackouts.

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