Check out this video on drinking at college. It’s a bunch of guys talking about drinking. I thought it was cool, because they were all interviewed separately. I kind of thought the guy at 4:53 was honest, but also completely not in control of himself. I think he summed himself up best at 7:21.
This is a totally weak post.
When I saw this ad for the first time, I thought… well at first I thought, “That’s pretty disgusting, the on-screen vomit scene…”.
But then, I wondered how it was received by the folks the ad was made for.
More specifically, I thought that people who prefer to drink in moderation or prefer to not drink at all would feel kinda vindicated, as though they would agree with the ad.
But, I’m more interested in a different crowd…
If you were a person who occasionally or maybe more than occasionally gets this drunk by the end of the night, would this ad make you want to stop doing it ever? If you are one of those people who does sometimes drink this much, what do you think of the ad? Does it get your attention? Could you relate to her? What does it make you think or feel?
Just curious…
It’s true that many people feel warmer once they’ve had a little nip to take the edge off the nippy cold weather. But have you ever wondered why? What is it in alcohol that makes us feel a little less affected by the freezing breeze that comes with this season?
You might think that because alcohol makes us less sensitive to other discomforts, like social awkwardness or dancing inhibition, maybe it also makes us feel less sensitive to actual physical discomforts too. Well, not really.
Alcohol actually inhibits the body’s natural healthy responses, like maintaining the temperature of the core of the body. In normal circumstances, when we are in cold weather, the body draws blood supply from our appendages and less “crucial” parts of the body in order to keep the temperature of the body’s core at a healthy level.
When people drink, the more alcohol that is introduced, the more the body loses this natural ability to regulate the core. Blood is left to circulate in the appendages and skin, giving you a sense of feeling warmer, but to the detriment of the internal organs. As the blood hangs out in the appendages and in the skin surrounded by cold temperatures, heat is lost at a much faster rate. It is possible for a person, in this case, to have an extreme dip in core body temperature without even knowing it.
According to the University of Iowa’s Health website, “…since coma is one of the most common symptoms in [young drinkers] intoxicated by alcohol, [they] run a greater risk by consuming alcohol in colder weather. The decreased core body temperature brought about by intoxication could lead to fatal hypothermia in the case of an alcohol-induced coma in freezing temperatures.”
The chilling lesson here? If you’re drinking in the cold, keep yourself well covered with many layers. Better yet, take the party indoors around a cozy fire or heater and you won’t have to worry.
The term personal responsibility gets thrown around a lot when talking about drinking and the debate over what the legal drinking age should be. These topics were brought up in an article I read in the New York Times this weekend. The story was about a college student in Indiana who died by drinking too much at a fraternity party. The fraternity where the death occurred was shut down by the university. Students interviewed were upset by the death, but were also upset that their social network was disbanded in this time of tragedy. One of the students interviewed brought up personal responsibility. I myself am a proponent of personal responsibility, but I wondered whether it’s appropriate to play the personal responsibility card when you’ve actively sought to create an environment that encourages people to act irresponsibly. Again, I completely understand where this student was coming from, but I think that you get into a very sticky ethical and legal arguement when you try to blame the individual exclusively. I wonder if I feel this way partly because I’m female. I think that girls tend to take more responsibility for making sure their girlfriends are safe at a party – do you agree?
With the holidays approaching, many students will be heading home to spend the holidays with family and friends. I read an article on Forbes.com today (makes me sound rich right?) about the Most Dangerous Holidays for Drivers. The article used data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and found that Thanksgiving is the holiday with the most driving fatalities. There were many factors that made a holiday more dangerous including: heavy traffic, drinking, stressed drivers, and the day of the week that the holiday falls on.
For all of those who love a Top 10, here is a link to a slideshow of the Top 9 Most Dangerous Holidays for Drivers. (I feel like if you’re going to go to the effort of putting together the Top 9, you might as well go all the way and do the Top 10. I think I just got shorted by Forbes.)
I found some pretty cool videos on vimeo recently posted by Check My Campus 25. I’m not quite sure what or who they are, but they’ve posted videos of interviews with college kids from all over the country on different aspects of their college life: housing, classes, partying, etc. In one of the videos, the guy basically says that there’s not much else to do if you don’t drink in college:
Party scene – drinking and non-alcohol events from Check My Campus 25 on Vimeo.
I’ve heard this a lot and I hear where people are coming from. If the main events on campus have to do with drinking and you choose not to drink, then you are essentially being left out of the major social activities. Some colleges, though, are encouraging (or setting up) social events for college students who choose not to drink as an alternative to the traditional party scene. Check out this blog post about a program at University of Michigan – the comments are also pretty interesting.
So I came across this blog entry while perusing to see what others are saying on the topic of college students and drinking. The author, Natalie Moser, looks at the idea of drinking as a form of stress management by undregrads who are constantly under the influence of pressure from deadlines, negotiating group projects, job demands, sleep deprivation, learning to manage living independently and much more.
Do you think stress is THE main reason or at least one of the main reasons undergrads choose to drink? If so, do you agree with Natalie from her blog entry, that college kids should focus on healthier ways to deal?
She looked to the American Academy of family Physicians for suggestions and found things like managing sleep, caffeine intake, exercising regularly and talking about what’s going on with friends and supportive people.
Does college culture support these healthier ways of dealing with stress? What do you do to keep yourself sane?
I recently spoke to a student who just turned 22. When I asked her how it felt to be 22, she said it felt old. When a younger student asked her about going out and drinking at 22, the older student replied and said, “Once you turn 21, you don’t even want to go out anymore. It’s like, you’re over it.”
What do you think? Is 21 the age at which forbidden fruits sours (and fails to ferment) the grapes? Is drinking just super hyped up before you’re 21, and then once you turn, it’s like a magic wand waves over you, making you uninterested in drinking anymore?
I actually found that I drank more once I turned 21, but the wand still waved over me a few years later. What was your experience?
* my regrets to anyone 42 or older that is offended by this. but c’mon, this site is about undergrads. 42 sounds old.
When you go out to a party or a tailgate, is your intention to drink? Most college students, I think, would say yes. But are you just looking to drink everything in site? Are you satisfied with cheap keg beer, as long as there’s lots of it?
Or would you rather tone it down and enjoy nicer brew, perhaps even cocktails, but not as many, since they seem to do the trick? Maybe you would like to drink something that matches your home team’s colors? Or does it depend on something totally different, like who is buying?
With the big Michigan/Ohio State football game this weekend, I was just trying to get a feel for what people’s intentions are.
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