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With the start of a new school year around the corner, living in a community that is home to three higher-education institutions means that the town will soon be buzzing with students both new and old.
Freshmen will be living on their own for the first time, making major decisions without the input of mom and dad.
One of the more difficult and tempting choices that will fall upon these students is the opportunity to partake in social activities that include alcohol. Whether it be at a house party or if they get themselves into an establishment that serves alcohol, the opportunity will present itself.
Universities and colleges across the nation are taking steps to prevent senseless deaths and injuries due to binge drinking. Most recently, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor took the opportunity to speak to high school students at a national youth leadership program about the chemical effects of alcohol. His lecture did not scare them away from alcohol or forbid it — his goal was to inform them that you can drink alcohol, without overdoing it.
UW-Madison faculty associate Kevin Strang has a doctorate in human physiology and has been studying the effects of alcohol on the human body. Strang’s research has led him to develop the popular campus lecture that shows how students can use science to maximize alcohol’s pleasurable aspects while minimizing its harmful ones.
Strang’s lecture “Just Say Know” has been given to a wide variety of audiences, including middle schoolers, health teachers, university chemistry courses and even attorneys.
According to the July 6 edition of the Wisconsin State Journal’s article “How to Get a Buzz Without Binging,” Strang’s approach is to encourage students to admit that alcohol is a drug. The approach isn’t negative but acknowledges that, like other drugs, alcohol has an effect we desire — a mood upswing — and side effects we want to avoid, such as vomiting and loss of coordination and memory.
Strang advises students that alcohol consumption should be well-paced, maybe spreading two drinks over the course of a party. Strang’s research shows that chemically you will get just as much of an effect from those two drinks as you will by binge drinking.
After reading about this lecture, which takes a different approach to alcohol education, I had mixed emotions. As a one-time college student who was told to say no, I felt that his approach offers respect that young adults need: Allowing them to make the decision but offering a way to make it a better one.
As a parent, my first reaction was shock that there would be such a lecture given. Then I realized by at least acknowledging and educating the students about alcohol use and consumption, we may be able to prevent the unnecessary deaths caused by binge drinking that have marred our community and many others across the country.
Moderation is a difficult thing to teach as a parent. “You can have one” is often met with displeasure on children’s end. And often if we don’t allow children something at all, when they get an opportunity to try it, it can be in excess.
Strang’s approach may not be for everyone — after all, it is a parent’s role to educate children. However, Strang feels that by offering the actual facts about the effects of alcohol instead of scaring young adults, there may be more of an impact when students are faced with the opportunity to drink.
While we’d like to shelter our children forever, life just doesn’t work that way. So as July becomes August and the new students start arriving in our community, let’s hope when mom and dad pull away from the dorms, the young adults they leave behind have been educated to make the right, well-informed choices as they venture out in the world for the first time on their own.
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