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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: John Carragher who wrote (131153)	8/10/2005 7:47:02 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793846

i have experienced a lot of horror stories about kids who went away to college and came back drunks, broken, jobless I have never bought those tales as something that happened to the kids because of external forces. I figure that they were headed for trouble before they got there. It's like the old story about getting into trouble because of "bad companions." I figure the kid was a "bad companion," looking for others like him or her self. "Birds of a feather....."

To: John Carragher who wrote (131153)	8/10/2005 8:04:06 AM
From: haqihana	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 793846

John C, I think that the fraternities, and sororities, are responsible for introducing young students to alcohol, and the party, party, life style. The freshmen are under a great deal of peer pressure to follow the herd, and are ridiculed if they do not participate in the booze guzzling. For a number of these newbies, once they start drinking, they can't stop, and just go farther down the sewer.

To: John Carragher who wrote (131153)	8/10/2005 8:21:27 AM
From: JohnM	Respond to of 793846

I could share a thousand stories about kids going off to college and being AA members down the road. Too bad colleges do not accept more responsibility in keeping alcohol off campus dorms , parties, etc. A very complicated topic, John. Most campuses I know about tend to accept too much responsibility. On the plus side, there were endless orientation sessions about the dangers of drinking too much, how to look for signs of alcoholism in roommates, dormmates, whatever; who to report the problems to; and so on. There were endless issues surrounding the right/responsibilty of universities to police campus parties for underage drinking. But it certainly wasn't because campus authorities were looking the other way. The big problem was whether the campus administrators should look on themselves as enforcement officers or counselors. After all drinking by minors was/is against the law. To the degree campus administrators took on the enforcement role, to that degree they endangered their ability to counsel students, and, strangely enough, increased vulnerability to libel suits. There were no easy answers. But not taking responsibility was certainly not one of the problems. for a lot of kids it is not having alcohol at home but being away from mom and dad for the first time. Not having time management, free to do as they please. I assume those parents that let kids do dope a little at home better prepares them for college life. I raised two kids and was aware of the growth issues of a great many 18 year olds. Drinking alcohol because of mom and dad's absence wasn't one. Almost all the kids grew up in areas where under age drinking was simply part of the culture. Like it or not. And all of them had come to some sort of accommodation with it. Some learned how to handle it and some didn't. As for the dope comment, that's a cheap shot. I see no relationship to have a few drinks at home prior to going off to college and having your first drinks at college. If you have some statistics i would be interested. it is a random problem and most likely related to genes or continued abuse of alcohol or drugs to a point your nervous system begins to crave for it. There can be numerous reasons for kids to drink heavy in college, acceptance, shy, pressure, freedom, sex, addiction, depression. Harvard has an ongoing study of campus drinking that's reasonably good. I haven't looked at it in many years, at least five, but it was sufficiently well done to merit serious criticisms in the sociological methodology literature. I assume it's online somewhere.