Greeks drinking habits ARTICLE

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‘No’ to Alcohol
Study: Heavy Fraternity and Sorority Drinking Doesn’t Continue 3 Years After Graduation


By Robin Eisner



N E W Y O R K, March 12 — Fraternity brothers and sorority sisters drink more than other students — but only while in college, a new study finds.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
"Greeks" Drink More, But Stop Focus Should Be On Intervention


“This is an important study because for the first time it shows directly how important the perception of peer support is in these groups and that the behavior changes after college when presumably the peer support ends,” says Bruce D. Bartholow, assistant professor of psychology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, an author on the study.
“Previously, some people have believed that students were in fraternities and sororities drank heavily because that’s the kind of personality they have.”

Bartholow and colleagues compared the drinking behavior of 319 continuously enrolled “Greek” students and other college students enrolled at the University of Missouri.

They assessed their drinking habits during their four years of college and again, three years after graduation.

The study is published in the March issue of journal Psychology of Addictive Behaviors.

Experts, though, questioned the short-term nature of the study’s findings and said college-age drinking leads to risky sexual behavior, aggression, driving dangers and other problems.

‘Greeks’ Drink More, But Stop

Members of the Greek letter organizations drank three times as much than non-members during college years, the investigators found.

But three years later the drinking behavior of the two groups, on average, was the same, they found.

Bartholow attributes the change in the Greeks to the different environments they find themselves in during and after college.

“What is socially acceptable in college is not the norm afterwards,” Bartholow says. “Removing them from the college and putting them at work or in marriage changes their behavior.”

Commenting on the study, Henry Wechsler, principal investigator of another alcohol study at the Harvard School of Public Health that has analyzed trends in college drinking since 1993, challenged the focus on just three years after college.

“Alcohol problems are a lifetime issue,” Wechsler says. “People will start and stop drinking throughout their life and an early experience might have helped spur them on.”

Focus Should Be On Intervention

He also called for attention on the harm college-age drinking does do.

“The issue is not whether it continues or not, but what to do at the time the drinking occurs,” Wechsler says. “What is the effect that drinking has on the educational experience of the students in the Greek houses and the other students?”

Besides hurting themselves, Wechsler says Greek drinking hurts the quality of life of other students through late-night disturbances, fights and unwanted sexual advances.

Wechsler also questions the small size of the study and whether the findings are generalizable. In his study of more than 13,000 students in more than 140 colleges, he found heavy drinkers were more likely to join fraternities.

Bartholow does not dispute the need for intervention during college. He says his research supports targeting peer-based interventions to stop the excessive drinking, as well as involving the community, such as bars and the college administration in helping to change college student perceptions about what is normal.

“We need to direct more efforts to get to the source of the beliefs that excessive college drinking is the norm,” Bartholow says. “It doesn’t have to be the norm.”