Students continue to binge on alcohol despite real risks of
sickness and death
Name any class from Live Oak, Gilroy or San Benito high schools,
and you are assured there will be a story of a tragic death linked
to binge drinking. And it only gets worse in college.
Students continue to binge on alcohol despite real risks of sickness and death
Name any class from Live Oak, Gilroy or San Benito high schools, and you are assured there will be a story of a tragic death linked to binge drinking. And it only gets worse in college.
Binge drinking is becoming more of a problem for young adults as more start drinking at an earlier age each year.
Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) representatives say that alcohol use is America’s No. 1 youth drug problem, killing 6.5 times more youth than any other illicit drug combined, according to a MADD study conducted in 2001. It estimates that there are some 10 million current drinkers between the ages of 12 and 20, so the problem touches many families.
MADD – one of the largest anti-drinking associations in the world – blames binge drinking on irresponsible marketing and promotions such as “Drink Till You Drown” and “Nickel Long Neck Nights” specials that contribute to lower costs and easy availability of alcohol for price-sensitive college students. MADD reports that in some cases it’s cheaper to buy a six-pack of beer than it is to buy a six-pack of brand-name soda.
Stricter laws and enforcement are helping to deter binging, according to MADD, but the Harvard Study on binge drinking conducted in 2001, shows that high school binge drinking is a major predictor of binging in college.
Jim Caffiero, a counselor at San Benito High School and father of two grown boys says binge drinking is a common occurrence in San Benito County. He speaks to high school students all the time who have problems with drugs and alcohol.
“Binge drinking is absolutely a problem here. Kids say there’s nothing to do in Hollister so they do a lot of partying which means they do a lot of drinking,” Caffiero said.
One of the students Caffiero likely passes in the hallway each morning is “Sarah,” an 18-year-old brown-haired senior at San Benito High School.
Sarah (who asked not to use her real name) said that she isn’t checked for an ID when buying cigarettes or alcohol. She’s often the one buying the booze; other times she has friends who have graduated and no one asks where the alcohol came from.
She acknowledges drinking and partying are a regular occurrence. While she said she’s always aware of how much she has to drink, she’s also so eager to “feel the buzz” that before she knows it, she’s “gone.”
“You kinda have to keep count. I know my limits but that doesn’t mean I pay attention. Some people don’t,” Sarah said, flopping her books across a table at Starbucks in Hollister.
She says that she’s never seen any of her friends overdose on alcohol, but she has at least one friend that everybody needs to keep an eye on.
“One of my friends does prescription drugs and then he drinks, so he’s usually messed up before we even pick him up. We usually have to keep an eye on him. I’m also usually the one who passes out.”
Sarah said that her parents aren’t clueless; they know that she drinks to a point.
“My parents know that I drink, but not to the extent that I do. They know that it’s my senior year and that I’m gonna party, as long as I have a designated driver.”
She says that her parents don’t approve of her drinking and they have made it clear that it is not OK, but that they would rather have her be safe.
She said her parents really never discussed alcohol use and abuse with her, but she said that her dad is kind of a heavy drinker so that she saw that and was aware.
“The first time I got drunk, I got grounded, but the message that came across was be safe.”
Caffiero said that most parents he works with have no idea their kids even have issues with alcohol until they already have serious problems.
“Some parents know, but a lot of parents both work and don’t really have a pulse on what their son or daughter is doing. Many times when I’m dealing with a student, I ask that we conference with the parents because they’d otherwise have no idea what’s going on.”
Caffiero said that when his kids were growing up, he was always honest with them and talked openly with them about drugs and alcohol. He said and his wife invested the time to forge good relationships with their kids, particularly to allow them to feel comfortable opening up with them.
“Sometimes they would tell me more than I wanted to know, but they were always honest with me,” Caffiero said.
Last week Gilroy High School, in response to the upcoming prom and graduation festivities, had Rebekah Children’s Services put on their annual binge drinking presentation to educate high school seniors about the effects of alcohol.
During the presentation teens answered a pre-test, then watched the presentation and then took a post-test, to find out if the information actually sank in. Rosie Cid-Castro, prevention and education facilitation supervisor said that though it is too early to tell if this year’s program was effective, but she said last year’s data showed that the students understood more about the effects of drinking following the program. The answers they provided in the post-test showed they’d been paying attention, she said.
The program detailed different types of drinkers, problems associated with chronic drinking and the realities of decisions teens make when drunk. The presenters said that the Centers for Disease Control has estimated that 4,576 deaths were attributed to excessive alcohol.
The presenters asked the students how many of them considered themselves abstainers. There were about 30 students in the audience of roughly 80 kids who said they abstained. Less than 10 students raised their hands when asked who considered themselves moderate drinkers and one raised his hand when asked who considered themselves binge drinkers.
The speakers told the teens that the problem of binge drinking is growing faster among girls than boys, but didn’t explain why.
Gilroy teens are more likely to participate in binge drinking that 75 percent of teens in other parts of California, according to statistics from Rebekah Children’s Services. By junior year one-half of all Gilroy High School students report that they have used alcohol in the past month and more than half of those surveyed admit to having been sick from alcohol.
MADD research shows that students who receive drinking education are four times more knowledgeable than students who didn’t receive the education.
When people drink to excess. there is a greater tendency for blacking out to occur. When the body blacks out it has lost control of key reflexes. When a person is on his or her back and throws up, the vomit can be inhaled into the windpipe, blocking the airway, cutting off air supply. When intoxicated, people can’t roll themselves over to clear their airways, which can lead to cardiac arrest and death.
“Jay” is a 12th grader at Gilroy High School. He’s been drinking since he was about 15, though he says he now only drinks at parties on the weekends with his buddies. After the alcohol program at GHS, he said the information he was given was new and some of it wasn’t, but he said that he wouldn’t change what he’s doing because of it.
At Gavilan College, students seem to imbibe frequently.
“Mary” is a 22-year-old Gavilan student from Gilroy. Wearing her hair tied back and a fashionable nose piercing, Mary said when she and her friends hang out, alcohol is often present. When they were younger, they thought less about how much they drank and what they drank, she said.
“I would totally get wrecked,” she said. “Well, I still do, but less.”
She listened to her teachers talk about alcohol and drug prevention, but a lot of the time it just sounded “so fake.” She said she tries to be smart with alcohol and that she and her friends always have a driver and don’t leave a friend alone when they drink too much.
But the videos the schools used to educate students on the dangers of alcohol felt “exploitive,” she said.
