Alcohol Education on Campus

Security on Campus Inc.  has a number of foci, but have produced two videos:

The firm has produced two alcohol films: Wasted Youth and The Best Years of Your Life.

Education hasn't had the desired effect.  This fall marked the largest number of alcohol education programs the OU has ever had,  and Blake Hammontree, along with his entire pledge class, went through the alcohol education program.  Then he drank so much his blood alcohol level (0.42) was fatal.

At the University of Colorado, all incoming freshmen have to take an alcohol awareness course. Gordie Bailey not only took it, he passed it with a 96% score. Not long after that, he drank himself to death.

Educating about binge drinking eventually worked for Kellie Mitchell.

Blake Adam Hammontree's death does not change binge drinking behavior at OU--November 08, 2004

When freshman Blake Adam Hammontree died of alcohol poisoning on Sept. 30, his death shocked students and faculty across the OU community.  Four days later, hundreds of hushed and tearful students, including many who had never known Hammontree, attended the prayer vigil for him on the Phi Gamma Delta lawn.

Less than one month after Hammontree’s death, another alcohol-related incident at OU has left many, like Dustin Perkins, public relations senior, questioning if Hammontree’s death truly had any impact on the party culture at OU.  “I believe the vast majority of people’s hearts are the way they were before, regardless of rules and regulations,” said Perkins. “The horror of what happened kind of wore off.”

The fact that students are still indulging in dangerously large quantities of alcohol, drinking until they throw up or pass out or need to be taken to the hospital, is not surprising, said Allen Brown-Hart, assistant professor of sociology. The social norm of alcohol consumption is so deeply entrenched in American culture that it is difficult to change in such a short amount of time, he said.

Early Oct. 28, a Delta Upsilon pledge was taken to the hospital for alcohol poisoning after attending his big brother-little brother celebration..

Hammontree had also been celebrating at his big brother-little brother party at the Sigma Chi house the evening before he was found dead. His blood alcohol level was 0.42.

Party Nights Live On
OU President David L. Boren said he wishes Hammontree’s death would have totally altered campus culture, but it hasn’t.

“What’s disconcerting to me is how little impact it seems to have,” Boren said. “For a few days, I think it made people think about it. But unfortunately, for so many people, when they think about it, they say, ‘Oh, that could never happen to me, that kind of thing only happens to someone else.’”

The one positive thing about the Delta Upsilon incident is that the pledge got to the hospital, Boren said. As a consequence of the event, the Delta Upsilon fraternity has been put on social probation until May 2005, he said  OU shut down the Sigma Chi fraternity house, and the national chapter has suspended their charter indefinitely.

Is Alcohol Education Enough?
It is ironic that the problems with alcohol have arisen at OU this year, which marked the largest number of alcohol education programs the campus has ever had, Boren said.

Between 7,000 and 8,000 students went through alcohol education training in the first few weeks of school this semester, and about 4,000 students participated in Think If You Drink week in September, Boren said.  Think If You Drink is an alcohol awareness program that was created by OU Student Affairs.  “It tells me that education alone is not going to do it,” he said.

One of the most disappointing things, Boren said, is that Hammontree, along with his pledge class, had gone through alcohol education just days before his death. Cleveland County District Attorney Tim Kuykendall had also visited the house as a speaker shortly before Hammontree died, Boren said.

Although the Hammontree tragedy hasn’t made a significant impact on the party culture, it has caused some people to be more careful, said one fraternity member.  “It hasn’t stopped any party nights—it’s just made people more aware, more cautious,” said Taylor Barton, microbiology sophomore.

It will take time before social change will really happen, said Brown-Hart, because in order for change to take place, there has to be a whole shift in culture.

Until then, nothing, including new laws, will make people change their ways, he said. Just as civil rights legislation for blacks that was passed in the 1960s didn’t end prejudice and discrimination, new harsher alcohol laws would not deter young people from drinking, Brown-Hart said.

“President Boren can ban alcohol in a 30-mile radius of Norman, and people are still going to party and drink because that is what the culture values and sees as important,” he said.

“Dancing with Death”

It is common for people to act in ways that they know are harmful to them, such as smoking or eating unhealthy foods, Brown-Hart said.  “I’m sure that Blake [Hammontree] knew that what he was doing was probably not the brightest thing in the world, but he continued to do it,” he said. “It’s not that simple for people to make those kinds of rational choices in a time when they have lots of other cultural influences coming down on them. We have free will...but we don’t make our choices in a vacuum.”

As long as college kids think binge drinking is the most fun thing to do, there will be a problem, said Catherine Bath, executive director of Security on Campus, Inc., a non-profit organization dedicated to safe campuses for college and university students.

“People need to wake up and realize that anytime you drink, you are dancing with death,” she said.

Alcohol kills six times more people than all other illegal drugs combined, Bath said.

Bath said she has experienced first-hand the horror of alcohol.  Her son, a 20-year-old Duke University junior, died five years ago from alcohol-related causes.  Bath said she also saw how little her son’s death impacted people. Soon after her son died, she said her son’s best friend was getting drunk on a weekly basis.

Questioning the Culture

Another problem with the current culture is the way children, especially men, are socialized and raised, Brown-Hart said.  “We socialize our male children to grow up and to be risk-takers, to express their masculinity in terms of daring things: skydiving, fast cars, lots of girlfriends and lots of drinking,” Brown-Hart said. “That’s a big cultural pressure on people.”

Society defines a “real man” as one who can handle his liquor, he said. “In [Hammontree’s] case, the liquor handled him, and it’s unfortunate,” Brown-Hart said.

Alcohol abuse is a problem deeply entrenched in culture, Bath said.  “I say the whole social climate needs to change, not only on the college campuses, but in our whole country,” Bath said.

Although the overall college drinking culture hasn’t been influenced by Hammontree’s death, it does serve as a wake-up call to some, Bath said.  “There are people that are questioning the culture ... and we need to question the culture,” she said. “We need to question why students need to party in this fashion.”

Boren said he realizes that the alcohol problem OU faces is part of a bigger societal problem, and OU will never be able to fully eliminate it. However, he hopes to curb it and has considered a number of ways to do that with his alcohol advisory committee.

Some of the things Boren is considering include making OU a dry campus, setting up an anonymous hotline to report hazing and implementing the “three strikes and you’re out” policy, which would hold students accountable for alcohol violations both on and off campus. Boren will announce his actions the first week of December.

“The whole culture has to change,” Boren said. “And until it changes, no one college, no one town, no one school can solve the problem. But what I think we can do is have a significant impact on the abusive use of alcohol.”

(previous posts: Alcohol overdose: timelines, and what to do with a potential victim; start of series: Lists of Kids Dying on Campus from  Alcohol Poisoning, 2004; what you can do to change the underage drinking climate in your community; Patrick McCann's death in a drug dealing house; two sources of help: T-Dub.org, T DuB is an organization that deals with getting the message out about alcohol poisoning to teens and young adults.    B.R.A.D. is: Be Responsible About Drinking, Inc)

(Ineffective alcohol education: 1988 study; college sanctions ineffective)

 

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In all cases, my deepest condolences to family and friends.

Underage Alcohol Deaths 2004
Underage Alcohol Deaths 2005
Underage Alcohol Deaths 2006

Signs of Alcohol Poisoning

Alcohol depresses nerves that control involuntary actions such as breathing, the heartbeat and the gag reflex that prevents choking. A fatal dose of alcohol will eventually stop these functions. After the victim stops drinking, the heart keeps beating, and the alcohol in the stomach continues to enter the bloodstream and circulate through the system. The victim may experience the following:

• Mental confusion, stupor, coma, unable to rouse the person
• No response to pinching the skin
• Vomiting while sleeping or unresponsive
• Seizures
• Slowed breathing  (fewer than 8 breaths per minute)
• Irregular breathing (10 seconds or more between breaths)
• Hypothermia (low body temperature), bluish skin color, paleness

Alcohol Poisoning Requires Immediate Medical Attention

Alcohol Poisoning Cannot Be Reversed By:

• Drinking black coffee
• Taking a cold bath or shower
• Walking it off

The victim must have immediate medical attention.
Call 911, stay with the victim to prevent him choking on vomit, and tell emergency personnel how much alcohol the victim drank.

These Children Died of Alcohol Overdose, So Their Parents Started Foundations:

Taylor Webster's memorial foundation.  Taylor died of alcohol  poisoning at age 19-- Now his family and friends are working  to get the message out, telling their stories and providing  information on alcohol poisoning and the signs and symtoms  of alcohol poisoning in hopes that lives will be saved.

Bradley McCue's memorial foundation.  On November 5, 1998  Bradley turned 21. . He celebrated  his birthday in a way that has become increasingly popular, drinking "his  age in shots". That amount of alcohol was lethal and he died  that night of alcohol poisoning.

Samantha Spady's memorial foundation. A 19-year old student at Colorado State University, Spady died of alcohol poisoning on September 5, 2004, "an unintentional tragedy."  The Spadys say the SAM [Student Alcohol Management] Spady Foundation will develop peer-to-peer counseling and other services meant to reduce the risk of alcohol abuse.

Gordie Bailey's memorial foundation Mission: to provide today’s youth with the skills to navigate the dangers of alcohol, and through education and promotion of self worth prevent alcohol poisoning, binge drinking and hazing. 

Kimberly Ostien's memorial foundation: "With binge drinking on the rise, we feel it necessary to get the message out on the danger of alcohol, especially excessive alcohol consumed in a short period of time.  Students are educated on drugs and alcohol but they will continue to experiment no matter what.  We want to educate on what to do when a friend falls down or passes out from drinking.  Often we want to put that person to bed to sleep it off and that is when the trouble can begin."  The card lists the information, above.

Comments

[Ennis]

There is an argument that telling kids about binge drinking simply reinforces their sense that everybody else is binge drinking. Instead, if they talk about binge drinking as a minority behavior, rather than talking about it as an epidemic, numbers seem to go down. There were some articles about this you can google. The point is that education can sometimes reinforce the same behavior it is trying to undermine, like the marijuana films ...

[dj]

The approach Ennis writes about is called "Norm-based". Despite what people SAY about norm-based approaches, I think the jury is still out waiting for GOOD data. Unproven approaches get used because

A) There is nothing proven to work, and
B) College administrators have to do SOMETHING or people blame them when a legal adult goes and chokes on his/her own puke.

What is clear is that many college students COME to college with prior exposure to alcohol. It is also clear that most college students are not BUYING their alcohol from the college. What I am getting at here is that we are dealing with a problem that reaches all aspects of society (family [how is alcohol use modeled at home?], business [who makes, advertises and sells the product?], peers, schools, etc.) and to write about "college drinking" implies that the problem is ONLY with the colleges and therefore it should be solvable with changes AT colleges. Without changes from the other major contributors there is NOTHING a college administration is going to do which will stop college students from drinking themselves to death.

DJ

[Ennis]

Ah -- but we also know that kids who go to college drink more than their comparable peers who don't go to college. That is, we believe that kids believe that there is something about college which means they should drink over and above simply being young and stupid.

I have alot of problems with various norms based approaches despite acknowledging the importance of social norms -- I just think that they are too clumsy and often backfire. Other programs that don't work well -- chastity only sex ed, DARE (drug program).

Approaches that work better -- painting a habit as lame. This was done with smoking through a number of ad campaigns that had some solid support behind them. The same could be done with binge drinking -- they're a small minority who believe that they're cool but ... there isn't much cool about puking the the garbage every night ...

[Liz]

FYI--DJ is a college professor AND and EMT--he's in the blogroll as College Professor by Day. I believe Ennis is also a college professor.

Ennis, where's the data that college kids drink more? It is citation junction around here.