Spring term is almost over, and I’m about to pack it in as another season of part-time teaching here at the University of Oregon draws to a close. Another season of two-hour drives from my home in Portland to spend five hours a week here in Eugene with some of the most intelligent, inquisitive, and all around fun students I’ve ever come across. Yes, now it’s almost summer and my “real” job is about to kick in.
For the fifth summer in a row, I’ll be traveling the country and working with groups of people, teens and adults alike, who are fed up and want to put a stop to the miseries and tragedies of underage drinking. My clients are moms, dads, brothers, and sisters; cops, teachers, victims and survivors; black, white, Native American, rural, urban, and everything in between. I train, teach, consult, laugh, play and cry with these committed individuals as we seek solutions and heal wounds. It’s often heartbreaking and crazy-making, and I love it. I have the most rewarding career in the world.
That’s why I was so disappointed when I read Philip Ossie Bladine’s recent piece in this newspaper (“All D.R.U.N.K.S. Unite For On-Campus Bar,” ODE, May 10, 2007). With increasing numbers of people across the nation rising up and taking a brave stand against underage drinking, it was beyond discouraging to read what amounted to a flippant article about one student’s self-proclaimed love affair with alcohol.
Consider for a minute the numbers when it comes to alcohol on college campuses. According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), drinking on college and university campuses results in 1,400 student deaths – students aged 18 to 24 – and 500,000 being injured; more than 70,000 are sexually assaulted, and 400,000 engage in unprotected sex.
The Journal of Substance Abuse reports that young people who begin drinking by age 15 are over four times more likely to develop alcohol dependence than those who wait until the legal age of 21. Further studies by NIAAA reveal that the human brain, still growing and developing in its sensitive frontal lobes until one’s early twenties, is especially damaged by the presence of alcohol. And the damage, in terms of reduced impulse control and impaired cognitive abilities, may be permanent.
With approximately 60 percent of all the alcohol in America consumed by 10 per cent of the population, it doesn’t take a master statistician, or even a cynic, to see how the alcohol industry benefits from seducing as many young people into drinking as possible. He might not realize it, but Bladine is acting as the perfect shill for this multi-billion dollar industry.
I like to think I’m not a moron; I know a lot of drinking happens on and around this campus, and I don’t expect anyone to read this article and suddenly make some epiphanous declaration of lifelong sobriety. But come on. A bar on campus? A group called D.R.U.N.K.S? With all the stresses, pressures and hazards that already face University students, do you really need another place to consume the drug that kills more young people than all illicit drugs combined?
Like I said, I’ll be packing it in soon and hitting the road for the summer. When I’m sitting with a dedicated group of teens and adults in Tulsa or Omaha or West Palm Beach, brainstorming for solutions and mobilizing scarce, grassroots resources to save lives, I’ll be hoping that Mr. Bladine, with his “slight buzz from the night before,” is feeling proud of having done his part to keep me in business.
After all, I have the most rewarding career in the world.
Nigel Wrangham is an instructor in the Substance Abuse and Prevention Program