University must address students’ alcohol use disorders

Drinking is more than a social norm on college campuses — many students consider it an integral aspect of their college experience. From Wednesday night to Saturday night, Fraternity Row and the University’s off-campus housing are teeming with parties, and alcoholic drinks are abundant. Popular Instagram pages like @imshmacked and @totalfratmove glorify belligerently drunk behavior and receive millions of likes and followers in return.

College kids have a lot of fun, and that’s not a problem. But the line between fun and danger — between social drinking and alcohol abuse — is blurry. In fact, it is so blurry that a significant number of college students suffer from an alcohol use disorder.

The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism reported that about 20 percent of college students, meet the criteria for an alcohol use disorder, according to a 2008 study. More importantly, it is quite difficult for a college student with an alcohol use disorder to stand out from their peers, and, in turn, the condition goes untreated and often worsens.

What distinguishes college students with an AUD from other alcoholics is that they are in a unique environment, one that consistently rewards heavy drinking, in the larger context of a society that is starting to understand binge-drinking behavior as a mental illness. They may dismiss their symptoms to comply with social norms or justify their dependence by arguing they are just doing what their friends are doing. A student suffering from an AUD may be influenced by college drinking culture to believe there is nothing wrong with their drinking habits.

AUD is characterized by compulsive alcohol use, loss of control over alcohol intake and a negative emotional state when not using alcohol. It almost always includes binge-drinking, which is defined as a pattern of consumption that brings blood alcohol levels to 0.08 grams per deciliter, the equivalent of about four drinks for women or five for men consumed in the span of two hours. To many college students, four or five drinks in two hours is just an average night out.

According to the NIAA’s national survey, almost 40 percent of college students have engaged in binge-drinking. AUD aside, one quarter of college students report academic consequences from drinking, from skipping classes and falling behind to receiving lower  grades. Binge drinkers were six times more likely than moderate drinkers to perform poorly on a test or project and five times more likely to skip class.

The evidence is overwhelming that college students are drinking in unsafe, unsustainable amounts, and the college environment does not deter this behavior; in fact, it enables excessive alcohol consumption. When students get to college, they have an overload of unstructured time coupled with widespread availability of alcohol. With Greek life’s large social presence on many campuses, hazing becomes a problem — it is essentially built around the concept of how much alcohol one can handle.

A scientific study conducted by the National Institute on Drug Abuse found that alcohol consumption is highest among students living in fraternities and sororities. Close to half of these residential members showed symptoms of an AUD by age 35. If college campuses are a breeding ground for alcoholism, Greek life is at its crux.

College students experience an extreme level of freedom and pressure to drink. It is not hard to imagine how all these factors can quickly add up to an unhealthy relationship with alcohol. USC is no exception; it has set the example for partying in previous years: Playboy Magazine named USC as one of the top five party schools in the nation for two consecutive years (2012 and 2013), and Niche listed it as second in its 2019 edition of “Top Party Schools in California.”

There is a frightening proportion of college students dependent on alcohol — right here at home and across the country. When they graduate and enter the working world, their alcohol problems will not disappear. They will be forced to confront their dependence; some will seek out treatment, and some will not. Some will get better, some never will.

There needs to be a greater emphasis on substance abuse prevention on college campuses, including USC. Although all incoming freshman are required to complete the AlcoholEdu course online, they do so before embarking on what is statistically the six weeks of heaviest drinking that they will experience in college. They answer the questions based on their pre-college selves and may not fully understand the risks that lie ahead. They may only recognize themselves in the AlcoholEdu scenarios after having lived through “Blackout Monday,” hazing or just the all-consuming pressures of trying to fit into college social life.

The University may not be responsible for its students’ decisions, but it does have a responsibility to keep students safe. The NIAA’s ongoing research on how to address the persistent and costly problem of student drinking shows that multilevel interventions are necessary to even crack the surface.

Individual-level interventions target students in higher-risk groups (such as first-year students, student athletes and members of Greek organizations) and use education programs, therapeutic approaches and behavioral interventions by health professionals. They are designed to change students’ knowledge, attitudes and behaviors related to alcohol so they take fewer risks when drinking.

Environmental-level strategies target the student body as a whole and are designed to alter the culture of student drinking — namely, by reducing the availability of alcohol. Addressing this problem necessitates a careful and multifaceted approach, combining both individual and environmental interventions. Currently, the University is not doing enough.

University Student Health services encourages those who believe they have a problem or who are struggling to reach out for help, but they fail to account for those who may not know that they have a problem. In some cases, a proactive approach at the right time may make the difference between a fun, harmless college experience and a lifetime of battling a debilitating dependence on alcohol.