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As far as who is driving the bus, drinking is a major issue with college
students. For example, how many more fraternities will continue with the
practice of alcohol induced hazing? How many more coeds will be date
raped or gang raped? Even if this is not the majority of the students on
any given campus, I would like to think not, drinking binge or not,
results in the death by 'overdose', abuse, accidents that main or kill,
murder, sexual abuse, and the destroying of the lives one way or the
other of many college and even high schol students in USA and
most of the rest of the world.
On Mon, 27 Mar 2000 chapman@LASALLE.EDU wrote:
> Who's Driving the Bus?
> by Robert J. Chapman, Ph.D.
>
> Have you ever found yourself suddenly aware that you have no recollection
> of the last few minutes/miles after having driven on an Interstate for an
> extended period? I'm not asking if you are an alcoholic who has emerged
> from a blackout while driving. Rather, who among us cannot admit to
> entering that "zone" induced by the rhythmic "bump thump, bump-thump" of
> tires crossing pavement segments or the constant hum of the tires on the
> tarmac or metronome like beat of wiper blades on a rain streaked wind
> screen?
>
> While cruising down the Interstate, the "auto pilot" switched on and in
> full control, a driver can literally travel miles with absolutely no
> awareness of the journey...signs are ignored, exits missed, scenery passes
> unnoticed. It's only when called upon to negotiate a particularly
> challenging situation or encountering an unexpected road hazard that we are
> catapulted back to the present, often with a start that rivals a 100 joules
> from the ER doc's paddles. Complete with a white knuckle death grip on the
> steering wheel and a flood of adrenaline that renders muscles beyond
> rational control, the driver is momentarily little more than a passenger
> hurtling through space. Well folks, I write to suggest that higher ed's
> AOD professionals may well have entered that "zone" as
> we cruse on the information super highway. If so, we best prepare for the
> wake-up call that will jolt us back to the present.
>
> If you haven't noticed, there is a battle being waged for control of
> prevention strategies regarding alcohol and other drugs on America's
> college and university campuses. On one side are those who have hunkered
> down with a pessimistic view of collegiate drinking practices that focus
> exclusively on "binge drinkers" and "teetotalers." Rather than report the
> data that highlight the majority of students who are moderate in the
> alcohol consumption - these are mostly the media - they opt for the sexier
> headline, "44% of students binge drink." On the other side are those who
> view collegians as incapable of making responsible choices on their own.
> This camp argues that a solution to the problem of collegiate bingeing must
> be legislated. A splinter group of this bunch insists on using old
> approaches to affect change in collegiate drinking - values clarification
> and "awareness campaigns" - hoping that this time, they will somehow be
> effective in shaping student behavior.
>
> As professionals, it is not uncommon to be focused on the media. Let's face
> it, many of us are "news junkies." We consume a steady diet of e-reports
> and listserv discussions about "collegiate drinking." We consume the 10
> o'clock news, 60 Minutes, and the Daily News. We hear the "bump-thump,
> bump-thump" that "binge drinking" is the ubiquitous description of 5+/4+
> drinks in one outing. We hear the incessant drone of alcohol awareness
> theme weeks and we enter "the zone" without ever realizing we're there.
> Some of us use the terms - coined by those who study student behaviors but
> never seem to have time to listen to what individual students actually say
> about the resulting lexicon - without question. We accept the money
> proffered by politicians and follow their belief that the quick fix of
> informing students to "just say no" is somehow the answer to the nation's
> drug problem. We echo the importance of increasing one's understanding of
> the risks associated with addiction and believe that this time around,
> awareness campaigns alone will result in a reduction in adolescent
> experimentation and/or incidents of regular AOD use.
>
> There is a one approach to prevention that has been available to us for
> better than a decade. This approach has been tested on numerous campuses
> across the country, all with the same positive results. It represents
> something we can do that will affect the frequency of AOD use and the
> quantity consumed on any given occasion. This promising approach to
> prevention has the rather bland moniker of "social norms" campaigns, and
> this name, in and of itself, may be a significant part of the problem the
> model has had in capturing the attention of the media and community at
> large.
>
> Many of us in higher ed have come to appreciate social norms campaigns as a
> relatively simple, inexpensive, and highly effective way to impact the
> campus drinking culture. This was clearly indicated in the recent
> zoomerang.com e-survey I recently conducted on this approach to prevention.
> Yet our apparent tolerance if not acceptance of the sexier concept of
> collegiate "binge drinking" has all but conceded newspaper headlines and
> radio/TV sound bites to those who may study student drinking but have never
> worked with the individuals who are responsible for the behavior.
>
> Now I admit, it is only some of us who use these terms, many don't. But too
> few of us are actively engaged in protesting the persistent use of archaic
> prevention strategies or the employment of misleading and deceptive
> terminology. If there is one place where the pursuit of truth and the
> veracity of the written word should be scrupulously accurate, that is
> higher education. As regards the use of the term "binge drinking," if it is
> discovered that the media have perverted the term's intended meaning, that
> term should be abandoned. If the population to which the term was intended
> to apply has so vociferously rejected it as to make the term a reason to
> reject the findings about collegiate drinking, the term needs to be
> changed. And if we fail to demand this and insist that the good news also
> found in the results of collegiate drinking research should be clearly
> reported, then perhaps we have entered "the zone" as we travel down the
> information superhighway...bump thump...bump thump...bump thump...
>
> Robert J. Chapman, Ph.D.
> Coordinator, AOD Programs
> Associate Faculty, Clinical/Counseling Psychology
> La Salle University Counseling Center
> 1900 W. Olney Ave.
> Philadelphia, PA 19141-1199
> Phone: 215-951-1355 Fax: 215-951-1451
>
> mailto:chapman@lasalle.edu
> home page http://www.lasalle.edu/~chapman/home.htm
>
>
>
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