I dread the fall semester. That’s because every fall, college students die needlessly due to their poor decisions involving alcohol.
As the director of Duke’s Student Wellness Center, I know that even the brightest college students can make bad decisions.
Ben (not his real name) is a first-year student who recently pre-gamed in his dorm room before going out for the evening. Pre-gaming is the practice of drinking with a small group of friends before going to a bar or party. Many students think pre-gaming helps them be less socially awkward at the main event.
Ben left his dorm room sufficiently buzzed after consuming three homemade mixed drinks. He mismeasured his drinks into a Solo cup and drank the equivalent of six shots in an hour. When he reached his destination, the full force of the shots began to hit his blood. He drank some of the free beer at the party and honestly cannot remember how much he consumed — it was free so who was counting?
After Ben had settled into a solid drunkenness, his buddies headed to a local watering hole. Ben followed along. By the time he made it to the front door, he was vomiting and incoherent. EMS was called, Ben was assessed and he was transported to the hospital to be treated for alcohol poisoning. Ben’s blood-alcohol level was .260. Students have died at .300.
During the fall semester, many first-year students get introduced to heavy drinking. With fall break, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s in close succession, there are many opportunities to get together with friends for parties — and for bad decisions to be made.
Historically, higher education’s approach is to teach students how to make safe choices. We teach them how to mix their drinks properly and plan for the night. We discuss the potential consequences of poor decisions.
But students do not drink with the intention of acting reckless. Ben drank so he could feel comfortable in a room full of relative strangers. He thought he would be better able to speak to people and begin to make more friends. What he missed was that the friends he would have been making would know only the drunk Ben, not the quality person he is.
Upon sobering up, Ben felt foolish. He pledges to never drink this way again. But now he feels even more isolated because his friends saw him carted off in an ambulance.
Ben has learned his lesson, and I breathe a sigh of relief, but many do not come to this conclusion. I listen to students who struggle with being lonely and isolated and feeling as if they are on the outskirts of campus life, but when they drink they are loud, accepted, included, known and popular. The attributes of drinking outweigh the possible negative consequences,
Those of us who comprise the adults in the lives of college students — including parents — need to assess why students are coming to college in fear of facing their fears. Students have learned through environment, culture or experience that it is easier to avoid fear through drinking than it is to face fear and grow.
Author Dorothy Bernard wrote, “Courage is fear that has said its prayers.” She does not say that courage is the absence of fear — quite the contrary. Courage is taking positive action despite the fact that fear is present.
As we see students returning to family for the holidays, we should take this time to speak to them about their fears and how to address them. As adults we have overcome many fears but may not have spoken about these experiences to our children. Students benefit from seeing that adults didn’t always make good choices in college. By showing our human side, students can identify with us and know where to turn in the future.
The epidemic of high-risk drinking across our nation is due in part to our lack of listening to what students fear.
College is a time for students to be heard.
Thomas Szigethy is associate dean and director of Duke University’s Student Wellness Center.
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