Each year 1,400 students die from alcohol related causes. Thousands more are injured, assaulted or drive under the influence of alcohol. Excessive drinking by some students has prompted colleges nationwide to institute programs that tackle alcohol issues at multiple levels.
Of particular concern are students who binge-drink — drinking five or more drinks in one sitting for men, four or more for women. Alcohol and its related behaviors impact the individual’s physical and mental health, but it also has “second-hand effects” that touch on the rest of campus and the community at large.
“The academic community is affected overall if we have students not living up to their potential,” said Sheryl Eyster, assistant dean of students and associate director of the Office of Student Life. Eyster also heads the University’s Substance Abuse Prevention Team.
Alcohol dependency yields dangerous results
Excessive or prolonged alcohol intake has acute effects, University Health Educator Annie Dochnahl said.
With each drink, a person has less control over his or her movement and coordination and impaired judgment and memory.
“Alcohol is a poison of sorts,” Dochnahl said. “The liver has to detoxify (the body).”
Dochnahl said it takes at least an hour for the liver to process one drink — one drink translates to about 5 oz. of wine, 12 oz. of beer, or 1.5 oz. of hard liquor. This means certain drinks like a Long Island Ice Tea, which is made up of various shots of spirits, actually constitutes more than one drink, Dochnahl said.
Many students may not be aware when a drinker has succumbed to alcohol poisoning, Dochnahl said. When a peer passes out, they just leave him or her in bed to sleep it off not realizing that the person is in trouble.
Symptoms of alcohol poisoning include irregular breathing, cold, bluish skin, unconsciousness and excessive vomiting.
This fall alone, two students died from alcohol poisoning at universities in Colorado.
University Department of Public Safety Interim Director Tom Hicks said no alcohol poisoning deaths were reported last year, but officers have been called to help people in serious conditions.
“Last year we responded to a substantial number of intoxications where the person wasn’t able to take care of themselves,” Hicks said, adding that many had to be taken to hospital.
Students who become alcohol-dependent may see their studies, as well as their emotional well-being, suffer. Such students may miss class, fall behind, do poorly on exams and could eventually be forced to drop out.
Counseling and Testing Center Associate Director Edel Davenport said several students visit the center with alcohol-related problems — in 2003, 137 people were treated for alcohol issues.
“It’s not a quick fix,” she said. “If you had that on a regular basis, it’s very hard to give up.”
Uncontrolled drinking harms individuals in other ways.
Nationwide, at least 70,000 students between the ages of 18 and 24 are victims of alcohol-related sexual assault each year, according to a National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism study. About 400,000 have unprotected sex under the influence of alcohol.
“It’s hard to talk about alcohol without talking about sexual assault,” Dochnahl said. People may take advantage of an incapacitated drinker or a person may not remember having given consent, she said.
In fact, because of alcohol’s impact on one’s mental faculties, the University Student Conduct Code states that a person who is drunk cannot give consent because of “mental incapacitation,” due the “influence of a controlled or other intoxicating substance.”
“The consent is huge and that’s why alcohol with sex is really murky,” Dochnahl said.
Drinking can put students on the wrong side of the law
Students who drink excessively might also find themselves at odds with the law.
Criminal mischief related to alcohol costs the school and the city a substantial amount of money each year. After students were involved in several riots stemming from parties that got out of hand, the University and the Eugene Police Department have invested extra time and resources to curb future problems.
Each weekend, the Eugene Police Department sends out a party patrol unit to the West University neighborhood, which is heavily inhabited by students.
“A typical weekend with this extra focus patrol runs about $4,400 in overtime costs,” EPD spokeswoman Kerry Delf said. She said riot prevention is a high priority.
In 2003, there were 567 citations for liquor violations in the West University Neighborhood, 117 on the University Campus and 92 in the South Neighborhood, which is also adjacent to campus, Delf said.
Violations include minor in possession, open containers and attempting to buy alcohol with false identification.
Citation for these violations are not cheap. A minor in possession ticket could cost a student as much as $311 in fines. And possession of a fake ID is a Class C felony with a hefty tag of up to $100,000 in fines or jail time.
Hicks said DPS also makes a concerted effort to prevent alcohol-related crimes on campus, and it is worth having extra officers out.
“Just having a visible presence puts a damper on it,” he said.
DPS issued citations for 99 liquor-related violations in 2003. In addition, 1,124 violations were handled through the Office of Student Judicial Affairs, Hicks said.
The University’s Student Conduct Code prohibits underage drinking or furnishing alcohol to minors on University owned property or at University sponsored or supervised activities.
Students with alleged Student Conduct Code violations are summoned to a hearing by the Office of Student Judicial Affairs. If the charges are substantiated, various sanctions could be meted out, Student Judicial Affairs Director Chris Loschiavo said. Students may be required to take a 10-hour class called BUSTED — Beginning Underage Success Through Educational Diversion — perform community service, or meet with a substance abuse counselor. Some students might be required to attend an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.
“The overall philosophy of the code is to be educational,” Loschiavo said. “Generally the idea is to get (students) to see that they’re heading down a path they may not want to.”
Loschiavo said part of the reason some students drink is because they aren’t ready for school and are trying to “figure out what they are doing here.” Part of the judicial affairs process is to link these students to resources that will help them achieve their goals.
Barnhart and Riley Complex Director Stephen Jenkins, who also oversees the Student Conduct Code process in the halls, also emphasized the educational nature of the sanctions.
“We can’t force behavior change,” he said. “Students have to make that decision themselves.”
Students with repeat offenses may have to take an additional 20-hour class, BUSTED II, and might eventually be evicted from the residence halls, Jenkins said.
Repeat offenders are very rare though, administrators say.
“We have a marked decrease from the first violation to the second violation,” Jenkins said.
Even if they don’t cross paths with law enforcement, drunk students still affect other students around them.
Drunk students in the residence halls are loud, disruptive and at times destructive, Jenkins said.
“It definitely has a negative impact on the quality of life in the residence halls,” he said.
Director of Resident Life Sandy Schoonover agrees.
“We see a lot of vomiting,” she said. “They come back to their rooms and they are loud and it wakes up the entire floor.”
While other students may initially find it funny, they soon get tired of the distraction because they cannot sleep or study, Schoonover said.
Campus organizations
address alcohol issues
Several campus departments, including the Office of Stud
ent Life, Housing, Department of Public Safety and the Health Center, collaborate in outreach, education and enforcement efforts to address alcohol related issues on campus. The University has a Substance Abuse Prevention taskforce made up not only of campus representatives but people from the community as well.
Associate Dean of Students and Director of the Office of Student Life Laura Blake Jones said the administration recognizes that students will drink, therefore the focus is on “harm-reduction” rather than abstinence.
Blake Jones said the administration employs social norm theory in its outreach efforts — the concept involves showing students that others actually drink less than they perceive, so excessive drinking is actually not a social norm.
Most students assume others drink more than they do: In a 2002 University Health Center study, when students were asked how much they thought their peers drink when they go out, 30.4 percent estimated it was three to four drinks, while 65.2 approximated that it was more than five drinks. In reality, results from the same survey show 31.4 percent of students said they had three to four drinks at a time, while 23 percent had more than five drinks.
If these misperceptions are addressed, then high-risk drinkers might drink less.
The University uses multiple approaches, Eyster said, because “there’s not (just) one thing you can do to reduce high-risk drinking.”
Many of the University’s outreach campaigns are conducted by other students or peer health educators who visit classes and residence halls or go door to door before holidays like Halloween giving out information on responsible drinking, how to keep parties in control and alternative non-alcoholic events, Blake Jones and Eyster said.
“It’s much more effective when it’s student driven,” Eyster said.
She added that if students drink they should be aware of their rights and responsibilities.
“We all have rights, but in a community we all have responsibilities too,” Eyster said.
In the resident halls, the administration addresses alcohol as soon as students move in, Schoonover said.
Overall, administrators said it’s important for students to understand the impact of their drinking and how to stay safe.
“We acknowledge that students have the choice to drink or not, and if you do choose to, here are the consequences of drinking at different levels,” Dochnahl said.

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