It’s a Friday night in a rented house near the campus of East Tennessee State University, and three women are dancing in the kitchen to a reggae tune. As they dance, laughter and conversation fill the room, and alcohol – in the form of wine, beer and rum – flows into cups and mugs, a welcome guest at the impromptu party.
“Our life is just so structured,” said Cicely Brooks, an ETSU student and one of the partygoers. “Drinking helps you open up. I think it’s a way to get out of the chaos of being strait-laced.”
Senior Andrew Zinn agreed. “It takes away boundaries,” he said. “It’s not the only way to do it, but it’s an easy way.”
Brooks and Zinn are among the ranks of college students who believe that, when used with some caution and thought, social drinking is an enhancement to college life instead of a problem.
More and more, universities are starting to wise up to this. Instead of preaching abstinence to an audience who’s tired of hearing it, colleges across the nation are reaching out to students in a different way – through confidential tests and surveys designed to make students think about the way they use alcohol.
At ETSU, for instance, the Counseling Center offers an interactive web survey called the Electronic Check-Up To Go, or e-CHUG, as part of its Alcohol and Other Drug Program, which was designed to help “people make healthy lifestyles choices about alcohol and drug use.”
The e-CHUG is an online assessment that lets students enter information about their drinking habits and gives them feedback about it.
By answering a series of questions, students receive a score based on a number of variables and see how they’re drinking habits stack up to national and local college norms.
By taking the survey, students can find out whether or not they may have a problem, and if they want to seek counseling online or in person. All this, from the privacy of their own room.
Students’ scores are recorded in the computer, but the assessment is completely private. The self-guided test takes about six or seven minutes to complete and requires no face-to-face contact with a counselor or administrator. And while counseling is available, it’s not a requirement of the e-CHUG.
Researchers are recognizing that drinking in college students has become more of a rite of passage ingrained in the social structure of student life, rather than a simple diversion.
Jessica Brown, an ETSU graduate, agreed. “It’s a part of growing up. You have so many more responsibilities that you need to let loose and wind down,” Brown said. “It’s just a release, an escape.”
Because of this, universities are taking a more measured approach to the problem of student drinking.
The Vaden Center at Stanford University offers a web site devoted to spelling out the difference between social drinking and something worse. The site also offers tips on managing alcohol intake.
The site defines social drinking as “the consumption of alcohol without reaching the point of being drunk. It is drinking in a safe, legal and responsible manner, allowing you to socialize. Three or less measured drinks is considered to be within the social drinking range.”
While college officials work to find ways to change the norm on campuses, the pressures of getting an education in the background of intense social exploration will likely ensure that the party goes on.
“I think [drinking] is mostly a good thing,” Zinn said. “It lets you abandon proper.

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