Parents must face sober facts on binge drinking

October 31, 2009

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Susan Pigg
LIVING REPORTER

Parent warned not to enable

I thought I was being smarter than my parents in being open with my kids about booze.

We even converted our garage into a pool hall when our children were 17, 15 and 11 – a safe house, of sorts – figuring that, in time, the inevitable experimenting would best be done in our backyard rather than in a ravine or on some beach.

But what is the line between being a parent and being permissive, especially if your child isn't quite legal drinking age?

"You can't enable it at all by saying you're going to buy it," says David Wolfe, a London-based psychologist with CAMH, Toronto's Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, and the father of two university-aged children.

"You have to be a parent. They need to hear where your line is and, if they're going to cross it, at least they know they're crossing it." You also have to consider the liability issue, he says.

Fear of drug use may keep parents up at night but it's alcohol they should be worried about, Wolfe says. "It's the No. 1 abused drug and it's definitely much more accelerated than it used to be. It's all about getting plastered now. Beer is often just the opener."

The pressure is even more intense when kids move away to go to school for the first time, Wolfe says.

"School is considered a safe enclave and kids feel they can do whatever they want and there won't be consequences. They're...trying to make new friends and their new surroundings offer little resistance to overindulgence and irresponsibility."

Rather than telling your kids what to do, let them know what you expect of them, Wolfe says. Let them know how proud you are and how you're always around if they need advice. Stress that "if you're doing something irresponsible, that's putting other people at risk, as well."

Remind them there are consequences that, in some cases, can last a lifetime, and that schools have counsellors who can help if they feel things are getting out of control.

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My husband and I are still punch drunk from all the prep work it took last month to get our 18-year-old son ready for his first year – and Frosh Week – at Queen's University.

It wasn't so much the new laptop and mini-fridge gracing his back-to-school shopping list that caused us concern. It was the two cases of beer. And the fact he'd set himself a quota: He was aiming to celebrate his first week away from home by drinking eight beer a day.

We thought it was just big talk from a budding engineer. But it turns out that two cases in a week is nothing these days.

Binge drinking is so far past the tippling point on Canadian campuses, it's proving to be tough to turn off the taps, despite the fact many universities are imposing fines of up to $100 for underage or rowdy drinking, mandatory counselling around the health risks and, in rare cases, expulsion for repeated bad behaviour.

And it's well on its way to being an equal-opportunity pursuit.

"The girls are catching up to the guys," says David Wolfe, a London-based psychologist with CAMH, Toronto's Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, who has applied for a research grant to look at the reasons why.

Wolfe saw the phenomenon just last month when his daughter, a University of Toronto student, told him that friends wanted her to down 20 shots of liquor for her 20th birthday. He and his wife nixed the idea.

"There's a lot of status and glory in being able to handle a drink as well as the boys and not be that sloppy girl who just cries and throws up everywhere," says a McGill University arts student who spent so much time playing beer pong and downing Old English malt during her first and second years, her mother is now paying her $100 a month not to drink.

Carleton University's varsity women's soccer team was suspended from two games last month after a player became so drunk at a team party that she had to be rushed to hospital. Thunder Bay's Lakehead University last month set strict new limits on how much booze drinking-age residents can have in their rooms, resulting in a significant reduction in problem drinking, says Shannon Foster, residence life coordinator.

The most famous crackdown was Queen's University's decision to cancel its annual homecoming festivities for this year and next, although last month's unofficial street party still attracted more than 3,000 people, cost $336,000 to police and resulted in 116 arrests and 312 tickets.

"Young people have gotten the message about (the hazards of) drinking and driving but they still think it's okay to drink and walk – and they think that means they can drink more," says Wolfe.

The problem is much bigger south of the border where an estimated 1,500 college students a year die in alcohol-related incidents. A controversial group called the Amethyst Initiative, made up of about 100 U.S. college presidents, is pushing to have the drinking age reduced to 18, arguing that the current drinking age of 21 is encouraging binge drinking among students.

The big fear is liability – that students will die from alcohol poisoning, choking on their own vomit or alcohol-induced fighting. For women is the added risk of sexual assaults, date rape and pregnancy.

Studies done by CAMH have shown that while heavy drug use has been declining on Canadian campuses, 32 per cent of university undergrads drink at levels considered hazardous or harmful. (Binge drinking refers to having more than five drinks for men and four or more for women in one sitting.)

Of those students surveyed for the 2004 Canadian Campus Survey, 10 per cent experienced assaults and 14 per cent had unplanned sex. Almost 10 per cent reported alcohol-related sexual harassment.

Some students say they try, at all costs, to take care of overly drunk friends. Any trip to an emergency ward will result in an almost automatic fine from the university which then appears on the students' online billing records for parents to potentially see.

"Everyone I know has one night that they care not to remember – at least one night," says Jonathan Scott, a second-year U of T arts and sciences student who spent last Sunday morning – until 4:30 a.m. – keeping an eye on a first-year resident who was dangerously drunk. "Someone had to be with him and I didn't think it should be seven drunk girls.

"For the most part it's discouraged to make a nuisance of yourself but, if you do, there's always someone around to help you out."

Educating college students about the dangers of booze is little deterrent to binge drinking, U.S. researchers have found. What works best, they say, is educating bar owners and liquor outlets about the risks of over-serving or not demanding proof of age.

University officials find themselves in a difficult situation, trying to protect underage students on their own for the first time – of the 3,912 students in residence at Queen's, for instance, six are just 16 and more than 200 are 17 – yet recognize that others are cutting loose for the first time.

More universities and student associations are organizing "dry" events in an effort to both cut binge drinking and include students who don't drink for religious or health reasons.

The University of Alberta has two-hour peer education sessions called How to Party (And Live to Tell About It). And Lakehead's Foster holds a session for newcomers that is both lighthearted and deadly serious. At it he recounts how a Lakehead student left an off-campus bar two years ago, ended up on the highway and was run over by a transport truck.

"It's trying to find a balance: You can't be the parent and tell university students what to do but you can talk about safety and security and try to teach them to be responsible adults," says Liz Leal-Conrad, director of residence life at Queen's.

"By coming down really hard on them, you run the risk of driving it underground. The idea of them playing drinking games behind closed doors and then not having someone to help them out if something goes wrong....

"I don't think any of us want to run that risk."

Toronto Star