Alcoholism Issue Within College Society

Do you remember graduating high school? Remember all(a) the questions you had to ask yourself. What argon you going to do no.? Do you want to work? Do you want to go to school again for another quad years? These questions be ultimately answered and some choose to find a job, and others common fig out that going to college is probably a good thing. Now you watch realized that you want to incur a taste of college life and youre back to where you started. Where do you get the money? Where do you want to go? What are you really going to get out of this?Finally you venture your decisions and you now find yourself away from home in a sunrise(prenominal) environ workforcet, animate the college life. College is a time where tough decisions are to be do and these choices lowlife change the direction of your life. It is a time where in virtually cases schoolchilds get a taste of the real world by organism away from home for the primary time with a stark naked compensate up f reedom to live as they please. College life is a spick-and-span catch and the pressures that come along with it constitute an effect on a students path to success.Unfortunately, inebriant is one of these pressures. Alcohol abexercising is a major problem that umteen novel men and women encounter passim their college acquaintance. Drinking on college campuses is a problem that affects e actuallyone. Lets first begin by understanding what boozing is and what it does to us. Alcoholism can be defined as an illness or a chronic pain that comes from constant intoxication.It obviously has serious physical and mental make on a person. According to Louis Joylon West, M. D. a professor and professorship of the Department of psychological medicine and Biobehavioral Sciences at the UCLA School of Medicine, the attri only whenes that define an dependence, in this case intoxicantic drink, include craving, perimeter and with stackal phenomena (West, 28). This is a problem that ou tlives among men and women of all eras. Alcohol addiction has no barriers to race, religion or sex eachone can have this addiction. Is alcoholism a unsoundness? The American Medical Association and the World health Organization officially acknowledged alcoholism as a disease in the 1950s.It is very apparent that alcohol abuse has major effect on major organs of the body. Ethyl alcohol, or ethanol, causes severe trauma to excretory organs including the colorful and kidneys. Yet the major organ bear upon the just about by outcomes of ethanol is the brain. Long-lasting effects of impairment of principle brain functions and dam season of brain tissue are results of constant imbibition. These outcomes eventually lead to other diseases of the body such as cirrhosis of the liver and mental disorders including depression and anxiety.However, addiction to alcohol has side effects not only to a persons body but effects to those who surround them. Stewart G. Wolf, a professor at the Temple University School of Medicine, states, It should be emphasized that alcoholism is more than a disease of an individual. It disrupts the equilibrium of the family bodily structure and, in one way or another, affects every family member. New equilibriums must(prenominal) be established when the alcoholic stops drinking, and there are adaption to be made throughout both the drinkers termination of recovery and after the establishment of long-term sobriety (28).College drinking among university and college campuses across the unite States is very prominent. According to studies conducted by the Harvard School of Public Health, arduous drinking by college students has gone up since the beginning of the 1990s to the present. The convey conducted in 1993 included a survey of 15,103 students to learn of student drinking habits. Results of the hit the books showed that 39 percent of surveyed students consumed alcohol until they felt drunk. The same guide was conducted in 19 97 among 14,521 students and showed that 52 percent drank to get drunk, an increase of 13 percent.However binge drinking, defined as consumption of five drinks in a row by men and at least four drinks in a row by women in the past deuce weeks, has gone down according to the study (American Medical News, 39). This landmark study of college drinking has changed the thoughts and ideas of college administrators. It has been proven that this is a major problem, and it is worsening among the young men and women who attend our colleges. College drinking has an effect on not only the drinkers, but on their friends and classmates as well. How are non-drinking students bear on by the presence of alcohol? many a(prenominal) are pressured to drink in order to fit in with a crowd. Many students feel that it is cool to be seen with a beverage in your hand at a fellowship or a function. The need for acceptance among their peers is a big deal to many first students and therefore many give in to these pressures. Yet there are many students that come to college to study and not to party. It has been proven that drinking on campus has consequences for those who choose not drink as well. According to the Brown University put forward of Addiction Theory and Application, students who drink cause problems that effect other students who do not drink.Non-drinking students, at schools where drinking was common, account having sleeping and study difficulties (68%) as well as having to console drunken students regularly (54%). Also, the study showed that students reported being degraded and harassed by students that were intoxicated (34%) and having been sexually make by drunken students (26%). Students attending other schools where excessive drinking took spatial relation reported similar results (5). How does the presence of alcohol affect first-year college students? Many students that are going to college for the first time are looking for new friends and buddies to hang out with.Fraternities and sororities at our colleges in the fall in States help freshmen students in finding a new home. This in turn introduces them to the social functions that exist within a college campus. The Greek society within our colleges and universities has for years been know to contribute in student drinking on campus. In the November 1, 1998 rendering of the operating theatreian, compiler Spencer Heinz reported that four out of five people associated with college fraternities or sororities were binge drinkers (A2). Fraternity and sorority life is considered a brotherhood and sisterhood.They encourage a family-like relationship between members and promote partying together. Unfortunately, many functions created by these fraternities and sororities do not prohibit the use of alcohol. Members are therefore allowed to drink at these parties, which exposes new students to alcohol. Many of these freshmen are not mature enough to know where to draw a line and when this occurs , problems begin. There are far too many subjects of how drinking among college fraternities and sororities have led to severe consequences.Heavy consumption of alcohol has been the cause of an increased number of assaults and unintentional injuries on campuses across the United States. Alcohol related deaths have gone up as well. A direct example is the case of Benjamin Wynne, an undergraduate student that tended to(p) Louisiana State University. Upon gaining acceptance into the fraternity, Alpha Sigma Epsilon, the fraternity had a party where alcoholic drinks were served. Wynne died the next morning with a blood alcohol take of . 588. The fraternity eventually was charged with purchasing alcohol for eighty-six minor drinkers and pleaded no contest.This is an unfortunate freak accident but who is to say that it depart not happen again? The fraternity that he wanted to take a part of caused his death. Yes, Benjamin Wynnes case was very extreme in its nature but heavy drinking is very much a part of the life that exists within fraternities and sororities. We cannot say that fraternities and sororities are the cause of all drinking-related problems on campus. The truth is that these organizations benefit a lot of students. Many colleges do not have fraternities and sororities but this does not make them different from any other school.They still have the same problems with alcohol and students are affected in the same ways. Take for instance Southwestern Oregon confederacy College, a college without fraternities and sororities. Many students at this college see alcohol at their parties and precisely like any other college, there are students cannot handle the problems that their drinking creates. Unfortunately, it can change their lives. A student at Southwestern Oregon Community College, who we allow for call Haley to protect her identity, is a prime example of this. How do we begin to solve this problem?There is obviously no one single person, no sing le cause that can be put to blame for this problem that exists at our colleges. Yet it must be realized that unfortunately, as wrong as it may be, alcohol plows a part of many students lives. Many American-College students go to parties where alcohol is present. But the bulk of these students are underage, illegal drinkers according to our laws. The point being that difficult to suppose students not to drink and hoping that they forget listen does not work very well.Richard P. Keeling, author of an article titled Drinking in College the Politics of research and Prevention, writes The very nature of the academy is to encourage exploration, discovery and the interrogatory of new ideas and experiences. Besides, many college and university students are of, or achieve, legal drinking age while they are enrolled. Higher education, therefore, cannot have a credible insurance policy the simple option available to secondary schools just say no. It is not enough for institutions of hi gher education to advocate (or teach) self-denial (51). Preventing alcohol abuse among students should be through education of the problems that come astir(predicate) from alcohol, not by just simply saying that drinking is wrong. grammatical construction that it is wrong to drink before reaching the legal age will not prevent our young adults from abusing alcohol. The only outcome of this is that we will have young adults abusing alcohol legally, as soon as they reach the age of twenty-one. Abstinence does not educate our college students of the dangers that are caused by the use of alcohol it only makes them ignorant to what can happen. culture can be in the form of health forums, increasing alcohol awareness on campus and the inception of prevention programs.These are all far superior alternatives to promoting abstinence from alcohol because it teaches students in a mature way. It provides them with knowledge and understanding instead of trying to tell them what to do. The f act is that there is no way to eliminate the use of alcohol thus our only prevention is to educate kids at our colleges and universities correctly and maturely. Programs must be installed in every school in the United States to lead our future in the right direction. We must teach our young person that alcohol is a very habit-forming, addictive drug that has severe aftermaths.Students must understand what the risks are and what measures can be used to inform others of this problem. Clifford R. Browell, Chairman of the Department of Health, Physical Education, and Recreation at the Teachers College of Columbia University states, Education close to alcohol deserves a prominent place in the school curriculum. Education is viewed as a process for the development of proper attitudes, habits, knowledges and skills that involve experiences of superlative value now, and to prepare youth for later happiness and success- to live most and serve best.Emphasis on academic achievement seems t o be trail far too ahead of subject matter designed to make human beings better able to cope with problems associated with wholesome personal and family living and responsible citizenry. (168) Our education systems have placed an emphasis on learning in a classroom. Yet learning how to add numbers and how to write papers are not the only things we must learn to become mature. The point is that there are other things we must learn in a classroom. This includes the understanding of how alcohol can effect our futures. Alcoholism affects those nigh them.It is important to understand that alcohol can take over a persons ability to function in a usual manner and that traditional habits can be broken with ease. Again it can be emphasized that there is not one student that is repellent to this problem, it affects everyone. We, as a society, do not want our future generations to experience these problems. Our prospective lawyers, doctors, engineers and scientists lie within the youth tha t attend our colleges and universities. It has been shown that there emphatically is a problem that lies within our systems of higher education and things must be done in order to stop this problem.Our future is within our young men and women and for many of them, their success starts with a proper education in order for them to achieve their goals and aspirations. As a society, we need to assist them in their path to prosperity and therefore recognizing the problems that can harm them. Alcohol will probably never disappear on our colleges and universities. Consequently, our primary concern should be to educate our students of the dangers that can affect them. Without this the problem will only get worse.