Drinking culture could be producing more than just hangovers

A culture of heavy drinking could have some college students tiptoeing the line of alcohol dependency.

“You have four years to be irresponsible here. Relax. Work is for people with jobs. You’ll never remember class time, but you’ll remember time you wasted hanging out with your friends. So stay out late. Go out on a Tuesday with your friends when you have a paper due Wednesday. Spend money you don’t have. Drink ‘til sunrise. The work never ends, but college does ...” Tom Petty, frontman of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, once said.

If Petty said it, it must be sound advice, right? Well, for a large number of college students, it does encourage a certain lifestyle.

“College is really the only time when people don’t have real responsibilities -- people don’t have careers or kids. It’s really the only time that you can be carefree,” said Katy Strupp, a senior at University of Oregon.

Lexi Nystrom, a freshman at Ohio University, said she believes that college students feel like they have a free pass because high rates of alcohol consumption are normal during college years.

Nystrom -- who tries to avoid drinking -- said that the party environment makes it difficult to stay focused on school. She recalls walking down the streets of campus while older students offered free beer to freshmen out of a megaphone.

“This culture actively promotes drinking, or passively promotes it, through tolerance, or even tacit approval,” said Jennifer Summers, director of substance abuse prevention and student success at University of Oregon.

School nights have turned into drink specials at bars, 21st birthdays are a rite of passage where heavy consumption is encouraged and pre-football tailgates are filled with beer-chugging collegiates.

Approximately two of every five college students reported binge drinking at least once during the past 2 weeks, according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA).

“It’s like if you don’t go hard, go home,” said Ernest Owens, a junior at University of Pennsylvania.

For most students, drinking for four years at a collegiate level will be enough and they will eventually transition back into more normal drinking habits, said Dr. Joe Nowinski, author of Almost Alcoholic and clinical psychologist at the University of Connecticut health center.

However, for students whom alcohol is already playing a role in their day-to-day life, there is a greater risk of alcohol dependency, Nowinski said.

“[Students who drink multiple times a week] seem to think as long as they come to the next day, even if they pass out, they’re all OK, and that’s the group that’s at risk," Nowinski said. "A significant number of that group may go on to be heavy drinkers their whole life."

However, alcohol usage can be so intertwined with students’ social lives that usage needs to be looked at on a spectrum, said David Salafsky, director of health promotion and preventive services at the University of Arizona Campus Health Service.

Enter the idea of the almost alcoholic.

“An almost alcoholic doesn’t meet the diagnosis for alcoholism or alcohol dependency, but his drinking habits are not normal. The almost alcoholic may experience negative health effects like trouble sleeping or depressed moods. He or she might have physical problems due to alcohol such as injury to the liver or nervous system. The problems associated with the almost alcoholic may affect the individual but also loved ones, co-workers and friends. In this grey area, there is significant unaddressed suffering,” according to a Q&A with the authors of Almost Alcoholic.

Nowisnki said if students’ academic performance or relationships begin to struggle due to alcohol consumption -- that may be a warning sign.

While Petty might encourage college students to “go out on a Tuesday with your friends when you have a paper due Wednesday,” if these wild Tuesdays become a habit, students may want to evaluate where they lie on the spectrum.

Eliza Collins is a Fall 2012 USA TODAY Collegiate Correspondent. Learn more about her here.

This story originally appeared on the USA TODAY College blog, a news source produced for college students by student journalists. The blog closed in September of 2017.