The Improve Dartmouth chalkboard cube requests input on how “to end high-risk drinking.” At first, I couldn’t immediately think of an answer because I was unsure of what exactly high-risk drinking entailed. Is it “blacking out”? Is it the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention definition of binge drinking, which results in a BAC of .08 or higher? Apparently, there is some point at which otherwise normal drinking becomes risky. Yet when we focus on “high-risk drinking,” we never question our love affair with alcohol. The “high risk” is built into our basic attitudes about drinking. The student who drinks a few beers one night could conceivably take it too far the next and end up in the hospital — and we don’t find that particularly alarming.
Perhaps the term “high-risk drinking” escapes easy definition because we repeatedly fail to acknowledge the dangers of alcohol. Somebody suggested on the cube that Dartmouth “boot and rally” to end high-risk drinking. Many would view this as an amusing, if crude, response. But it points to a broader tendency among students to trivialize the consequences of drinking. At Dartmouth, I have rarely encountered somebody express shock or grave concern over drunkenness, blackouts or even a trip to Dick’s House. More often than not, these become funny tales to reminisce about at a later date. Among those who drink, this is the prevailing attitude, held by both the high-risk drinkers and those who drink “acceptable” amounts.
The statistics on drinking expose America’s destructive relationship with alcohol. According to the CDC, one in six U.S. adults binge drinks about once a week. Those under 21 consume 90 percent of their alcohol by binge drinking. Binge drinking is not confined to college campuses, as 70 percent of binge episodes involve those 26 or older. Many Americans evidently like to get drunk, and most are not alcoholics. They do not exist in some separate world of high-risk drinking. Rather, they develop drinking habits alongside moderate and light drinkers. At a place like Dartmouth, this means that everybody who does not try to stop dangerous drinking is complicit in the prevalence of high-risk drinking, regardless of their own sobriety. Interventions, of course, happen infrequently. American college students think inebriation is too much fun to stop.
Some say lowering the drinking age will remedy the current drinking culture. In the long term, this could yield a slight reduction in college binge drinking, but it would certainly not come close to ending high-risk drinking on college campuses. Nations like Canada and the U.K., where the legal drinking age is either 18 or 19, still suffer disturbing rates of binge drinking. A 1999 study found that 41 percent of American students versus 35 percent of Canadian students who live on campus had engaged in heavy alcohol use in the past month. A World Health Organization report found that over one quarter of all Britons had engaged in heavy alcohol use in the past month. A lower drinking age in the United States would not guarantee a significant drop in risky drinking.
Ultimately, the College — or the American government, for that matter — cannot hope to eliminate high-risk drinking when students equate intoxication with fun. We do so against the good sense that we should expect of ourselves. Alcohol exacts enormous costs on its users. Many students literally pay in the form of fraternity and sorority dues that secure access to copious amounts of alcohol. We also bear untold social costs. At best, intoxication can strain friendships, academic success and overall happiness. At worst, it creates an environment of social dysfunction that normalizes harassment of other students, sexual and physical violence and harm to our own bodies. A Dartmouth without drunkenness would see a lower incidence of the “extreme behavior” that College President Phil Hanlon decries.
Unfortunately for our well-being, that Dartmouth is but a delusion. If we followed the CDC’s levels of appropriate drinking, nobody would play more than two games of pong in one night. Until we stop seeing that as an absurd and laughable suggestion, the goal of ending high-risk drinking will remain out of reach.
