In August and September, many students start school. This is an exciting time of new beginnings, new experiences, and new hope.
It can also be a dangerous time. Some students might engage in dangerous behavior such as binge drinking and experimentation with drugs and drug culture.
Students who move away from home to attend school might experience freedom that they’ve never encountered before. They might feel as if they can do whatever they want, since there are fewer controls on their behavior than there have been in the past.
Just because people can do things, however, doesn’t mean that they should do them. Many new college students may feel as if they need to drink large amounts of alcohol because that’s what they think college students do.
This might not be the best decision. For one, these students may not have consumed alcohol in the past, so the substance can affect them more physically than people who are veteran drinkers. These new drinkers might not know now how alcohol affects them, so if they consume it and suffer ill effects, they could be in danger if such episodes occur at a large party or other environments with large numbers of strangers or other variables that are beyond their control.
Statistics unfortunately support this. “About 696,000 students between the ages of 18 and 24 are assaulted by another student who has been drinking,” and “[a]bout 97,000 students between the ages of 18 and 24 report experiencing alcohol-related sexual assault or date rape,” reported the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism in 2015.
Colleges and universities are offering alternatives for students to combat these alarming statistics. More and more universities and colleges are offering alcohol- and drug-free sober dorms.
Such dorms are an attractive alternative for people who don’t want to face the culture of alcohol or drugs so popular on many campuses. They’re also useful for students who have abused alcohol and drugs in the past. There are no guarantees that such dorms work to combat all drugs and alcohol on campuses, of course. But perhaps such housing alternatives can minimize danger and temptations for students who want to avoid such substances.
