Alcohol and other drugs

There’s a myth that all Uni students binge drink. 78% of surveyed students (96% of first years) thought that ‘most students would drink five or more drinks at a sitting at least once a week’.

By stark contrast 62.1% of students reported drinking ‘three or less alcoholic drinks a week’ and only 7% of surveyed students had drunk five or more alcoholic drinks in the previous fortnight.

So… most students thought that other students were binge drinking but reported drinking less than the norms for use in their age group (as defined by the Australian Drug Foundation).

Only 46% of surveyed students who drank five or more alcoholic drinks at a sitting said they averaged marks of credit or above.

69.7% of surveyed students who drank three or less alcoholic drinks a week averaged credit or above.

In other words drinking moderately increases the likelihood that you’ll succeed academically.

Alcohol advertising promotes the idea that alcohol can connect you with others.

Surveyed students echoed this with 86% saying they thought it ‘breaks the ice’ and 82% thinking it ‘enhanced social activity’.

This contrasted with what actually happened for students who had drunk five or more drinks at a sitting in the last fortnight.

They described the negative effects on their reputation, fun, friendships and academic success.

59.7% of surveyed students who drank five or more alcoholic drinks at a sitting said they had ‘done something they later regretted due to drinking’.

Don’t find out the hard way that reputations are not drunk proof.

30% of surveyed students who drank five or more alcoholic drinks at a sitting said they had ‘been hurt or injured due to drinking’.

Drinking dramas do damage.

40.3% of surveyed students who drank five or more alcoholic drinks at a sitting said they had been ‘criticized by a friend about their drinking’.

Don’t find out the hard way that friendships are not drunk proof.

34.4% of surveyed students who drank five or more alcoholic drinks at a sitting said they had ‘performed poorly in a test or important assignment due to drinking’.

49.9% of surveyed students who drank five or more alcoholic drinks at a sitting said they had ‘missed class due to drinking’ and.

64.4% of surveyed students who drank five or more alcoholic drinks at a sitting said they had ‘lost memories due to drinking’.

Poor performance + missed classes + lost memories = missed academic opportunities.

The Alcohol and Other Drugs taskforce is a group of staff and student leaders established by the university to minimize harms associated with the use of these drugs. The group is chaired by Joanne Barlow (Director of Counselling Services) and has representatives from the Student Union, student services, the sports centre, equality and diversity, student enrichment as well as the coordinator of health promotion projects and the deputy director of counselling services. They have:

• considered the University’s Alcohol and Other Drugs policy (which will apply to all staff and students), 
• instituted a number of changes to university practices, 
• administered the CORE survey to identify student attitudes and practices and 
• developed and run the Dissolves in Alcohol health promotion campaign based on the information in the survey.

For the last two years La Trobe University has invited 10,000 students to complete the CORE survey which asks them to tell the university about their use of alcohol and other drugs and about their attitudes and perceptions to drinking and use of other drugs. In 2011 over 1000 students took up this invitation and spent 45 minutes completing the survey. What they told us almost directly paralleled the results of the survey in 2010.

The survey revealed clear themes:

• Students thought that other students were binge drinking but reported drinking less than the norms for use in their age group reported by the Australian Drug Foundation.
• Students thought that alcohol helped them connect socially but those who drank at levels defined as binge drinking by the Australian Drug Foundation described how it had harmed their social relationships.
• Students who drank three or less alcoholic drinks a week had mark that were significantly higher than the mean while those who drank at levels defined as binge drinking by the Australian Drug Foundation had marks that were significantly lower than the mean.

La Trobe University is then a place where the social norm is to drink moderately. When you look at the benefits La Trobe students have experienced because of this and how they contrast with the negative impacts of binge drinking there are good reasons for this.

A health promotion campaign (Dissolves in Alcohol) which ensured students had this information at the start of the was run at the beginning of 2012.

The Dissolves in Alcohol campaign was also run in 2011 using information from the 2010 survey.

38% of students reported that they had reduced their drinking since the start of the year with only 15% saying they had increased their drinking. Students can see the way this works too.