Alcohol Consumption

Abstract

Objective

To determine the need for alcohol consumption among college students particularly college freshman and focus on how the college-related environment shapes students’ drinking behavior. To examine the impact of alcohol consumption and discover how students are living, where they are living, what activities they participate in, academic stress, sleeping schedule and how much peer pressure their friends have on them.

Methods

I conducted a systematic literature review using bibliographic databases Pubmed, Google Gov., and Medline to find studies and journals focused on factors that contributed to the consumption of alcohol among college students.

Results

Only some citations resulting from the search criteria met the inclusion criteria while the rest involved binge drinking among high school students that wasn’t related to my focus on college students. Conclusion

With the dangerously inclining number of students participating in drinking and binge drinking, this calls for a serious implement prevention to take place. The number of students who consume alcohol continue to increases and raises a red flag to professors and parents. With the help of college counselors and help from mentors we can drop the rates of students becoming alcoholics one step at a time.

Mesh Words: Alcohol drinking; College students; Stress Variables; Environmental factors; Binge drinking; Alcohol use. Background

During, the years of student’s college life they will come across many opportunities to drink because of the changes in their living environment or arrangements, the college workload, change of friends, and the lingering effects of alcohol (1). With the concerning factor of students becoming addicted to alcohol and their consumption of alcohol continuing to increase, the public health administration is worried about students all across the world (2). 65 percent of students who are eighteen through twenty-two years old drink alcohol monthly (1). College students who are eighteen through twenty-two are said to be the ones who drink the most alcohol in the United States with these students who reported drinking five or more drinks at a consistent rate monthly from 2002 to 2010 (1). College students who drink are more suseptable to consume alcohol when in college then non college students who have shown a significant decline in binge drinking from 2002 to 2010 (1).

With one of the factors being peer pressure, the college environment is not like anything similar to the high school environment with prevalent alcohol use and different beliefs about alcohol (2). With that said schools across the world have reputations for being either a party school or not a party school and many students will lean toward a party school for college (6). Peer pressure and peer drinking is a worry because friends can have a big impact on students to drink with students wanting to make new friends which may lead them to facilitate peer interactions (2). Peer drinking is one of the top concerns because this is how students will become an alcoholic and binge drink (2). It is shown that peer drinking with friends who are ages 19-25 years old lead to binge drinking in young adults (2). Also, among college students there are already experienced drinkers or so called heavy drinkers who drink with inexperienced drinkers and lead them into a trajectory of alcohol use (2).

Another factor pertaining to the consumption of alcohol is stress which is one one of the popular contributing factors because college is stressful on students especially college freshman (3). Findings suggest that acute stress does increase the consumption of alcohol with students thinking alcohol will put them in a relaxed state (3). Some college students believe that alcohol use will benefit them in changing their emotion from a negative feeling to a positive feeling (4). Many students just entering college don’t know the whole other world they are about to walk into and are not taught to watch out for these dangers. Students like to learn from what other students are doing and this is what gets them into trouble.

Alcohol consumption among college students affects students in so many ways which are missing classes, poor academic performance, unable to concentrate, depression, and even sexual assault (5). Students who missed class were 2.6 times more likely to consume alcohol than those who didn’t miss class (5). It is said that students with an A average will drink around 3 drinks a week, students with a B average drink 5 drinks, C average students drink about 6 drinks, and then the most devastating is a D average student who will drink about 10 drinks a week (6).

With this said college students and especially freshman are at high risk for binge drinking which means excessive or heavily drinking (7). Binge drinking could be anywhere from 5 drinks and up (7). Also, binge drinking refers to the term alcoholism in a serious stage of a persons drinking behavior (7). Each month during the college semesters, binge drinking for guys which is 5 drinks or more and 4 drinks or more for girls from 2002 to 2013 were higher among college students then students who didn’t go to school (8). Freshman college students binge drink because its their way to cope with creating new friends and building their life away from home to recreate their social identity or social life (8). Method

Study Analysis. The analysis of studies from different articles reviewing the affects of alcohol consumption among college students. Looking over all the studies focusing on how much college students drink.

Keyword Search. Put in keywords like my MESH words into one search and found journal articles that matched my topic.

Results

Studies show that college students exposed to new environmental factors and changes are prone to the risk of heavy, frequent, and abusive drinking. Conclusion

From all the different studies and articles that were found, students tend to drink alcohol when they are around their friends, because they are stressed, around a new environment, and from peer pressure. However, additional study’s do need to be done to determine if alcohol for beginners or experts affects students in school more or less. There needs to be interventions and awareness around school campuses about the issue of drinking and the affects it can cause. We have looked at the factors of why college students drink and how many of the student’s drink and have saw that alcohol does limits the student’s knowledge and is a concern across the world. References

1. White, A., & Hingson, R. (2013). Excessive Alcohol Consumption and Related Consequences Among College Students. Alcohol Research: Current Reviews, 35 (2), 201-218.

2. Demartini, K. S., Prince, M. A., & Carey, K. B. (2013). Identification of trajectories of social network composition and the relationship to alcohol consumption and norms. Drug & Alcohol Dependence, 132 (1/2), 309-315. Doi:10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2013.02.020

3. Magrys, S. A., & Olmstead, M. C. (2015). Acute stress increases voluntary consumption of alcohol in undergraduates. Alcohol And Alcoholism, 50 (2), 213-218. Doi:10.1093?alcalc?agu101

4. Koyama, C., & Belli, G. (2011). Alcohol use, acculturative stress, and drinking motivation among international community college students. Journal Of Mulicultural Counseling And Development, 39 (4), 229-240. Doi:10.1002?j.261- 1912.2011.tb00637.x

5. Tembo, C., Burns, S., & Kalembo, F. (2017). The association between levels of alcohol consumption and mental health problems and academic performance among young university students. Plos ONE, 12(6), 1-13. Doi:1010.1371?journal.pone.0178142

6. Sullivan, M., & Risler, E. (2002). Understanding College Alcohol Abuse and Academic Performance: Selecting Appropriate Intervention Strategies. Journal Of College Counseling, 5(2), 114.

7. Wechsler, H., & Nelson, T. F. (2001). Binge drinking and the American college students: What’s five drinks?. Psychology Of Addictive Behaviors, 15 (4), 287-291. Doi:10.1037?0893-164X.15.4.287

8. Merrill, J. E., & Carey, K. B. (2016). Drinking Over the Lifespan: Focus on College Ages. Alcohol Research: Current Reviews, 38(1), 103-114