Why Young Adults are Drinking in Excess

David M. Eggers
Missouri Western State College
12-5-96

Abstract

Alcohol abuse among young adults is increasing at drastic rate. How can we stop this abuse and what cause a young adult to drink in excess? Many studies show that the cause lies in the family structure. While other say that it lies in need to be wanted and accepted. Through all the dangers of alcohol consumption, like missing classes, grades falling, and the harsh rules against drinking and driving. Why do young adults feel impelled to drink? I wil examine this problem and also address some gender differences along with why under aged drinkers consume more than legal aged young adults.

Introduction

There has been much discussion of why young adults drink when they know all the dangers and laws prohibiting under age drinking and the harsh consequences for drinking while under the influence. Beck, Thombs and Summons (1993) stated that almost all American high school seniors have tried alcohol and more than half use it at least once a month. 3.7% use it on a daily basis and nearly half of the students say, when they drink they get at least moderately drunk . Thomas and Seibold (1995) found that young adults drink to cope with problems such as loneliness, lack of acceptance and when they feel angry. If consumption is done in excess many more serious problems will arise like hangovers, vomiting, depression, relational problems, missing classes, receiving lower grades, . As young adults grow and become more mature, most of them are face with two pressures. One the parents are encouraging them not to drink while secondly their friends are encouraging them to drink to fit in the crowd. This doesn't necessarily have to be peer pressure but pressure from within oneself to be noticed and wanted. If the adolescent has a drinking parent usually the adolescent will drink the same way the parent does. Granier's (1993) study of LSU students found that adolescents that are classified as heavy drinkers, parents a have had some college if not a degree.

60% of high school students feel that getting drunk is part of the normal experience and 57% feel that parties are more fun when you have had a couple of drinks. Students at LSU, 37% stated that they drink at least once or twice a week and have one or two drinks per occasion. Four percent drink some type of alcohol on a daily basis. When asked why they drank, the majority said 'to relax'. Another contributing factor is where the adolescents live. For example many of the heavy drinkers live off campus without parents but live with a roommate. Grenier (1993) also stated that if they belong to a fraternity or sorority the amount of alcohol consumed rises. The more the young adult consumes alcohol the more likely their GPA's will decrease .

The leading reason for adolescent drinking is due to peer acceptance. This does not include peer pressure but rather the pressure one puts on themselves to be accepted. Beck, Thombs and Summons (1993) found that this usually doesn't come into play until these young adults are already frequently drinking. Drinking to get drunk is all part of the social context of having fun with friends.

Males reported having greater intention to drink alcohol than did the females. Also males expected more benefits from drinking such as social acceptance and enjoyments than those of females (Keefe 1994) . Women tend to drink more because of emotional pain, such as negative emotions and depression. Usually women tend to consume less drinks per occasion and in most cases as women go through college, alcohol consumption usually decreases. On the other hand men usually end college with the same attitude of alcohol as they started with . For example they start as a heavy drinker they will end college as a heavy drinker (Klein 1993). Unlike women, men tend to be higher sensation seekers which shouldn't be a surprise due to the consumption of alcohol differences between men and women ( Beck, Thombs, Mahoney, 1995). The purpose of this study is to find why young adults are drinking, so that we can stop alcohol abuse but first we have to know why.

Methods

Subjects

This experiment consisted of college students at Missouri Western State College in array of psychology courses. Subjects were of traditional college age, with few exceptions of the nontraditional students which the oldest participant was 34. The total number of subjects were 150, which 43 were males and 107 were female

Apparatus

The apparatus that was used was a survey which consisted of 24 questions that many came from a pre-existing questionnaire published by LSU Center for Substance abuse. I took out all the questions pertaining to drugs and other substances, except for ones of an alcohol nature.

Procedure

Researcher went into several Psychology classes and asked the students to participate in a survey and all the teachers gave extra credit to the students upon completion. Upon completion of the survey points will be given for each answer. These points were then be tallied and set to find a correlation between many factors, such as mother and father's education level and their drinking behavior. I also looked at how much the subject drinks along with how much their good friends drink. I will also looked at the basics like age, sex and the subject 's GPA.

Results

The data was analyzed by using a chi-square correlation. As shown in other studies their is a significant difference between alcohol consumption and falling GPA scores (see graph).. Chi-square (12) = 23.45, p<.05. This shows that the more alcohol a young adult consumes the more likely their grades will fall. Father's education level also had significant difference, chi-square (16) = 8.79, p<.05. This study also shows that there is no significant difference between the amount of alcohol consumed and their father's education level, chi-square (16) = 12.25, p>.05. Mother's education level also didn't show a significant difference in the amount their young adult consumes, chi-square (16) = 13.04, p>.05. However their was significance between the amount of alcohol consumed by the parents and how the young adults drinks alcohol. Father's influence on the young adult was shown by, chi-square (16) = 30.23, p<.05. Mother's influence on her young adult is shown by, chi-square (16) = 37.84, p<.05. This shows that the young adult consumes alcohol in the same drinking behavior as their parents ( see graphs). There is also a significant difference between males and females(see graphs). Chi-square (4) = 19.74, p<.05, which shows that males drink more often than females also, males tend to drink twice as much as females per occasion, chi-square (4) = 21.23, p<.05. The last significant similarity is that of being of age to drink and that of being illegal to drink, chi-square (4) = 9.78, p<.05. This shows that the young adults that are illegal to drink, consume alcohol more than those young adults that are of age to drink (see graphs).

Discussion

There are many significant findings of these results and also the same thing is being found for almost every study done. Such as the study done by Grenier (1993), which shows a correlation between the parent's drinking behavior and the young adult's drinking behavior. Although, Grenier (1993) found a significant correlation between the young adults that belong to a fraternity/sorority and the amount of alcohol consumed which study didn't find. This could have been because of the lack of subjects that belong to fraternity/sorority. Another limitation that could have affected the results is the ratio of males to females. There were over twice as many females that males. I don't believe that it was that big of a factor since many past studies have shown the same significant difference, for example the study done by Klein (1993) which found that women tend to consume fewer drinks per occasion than males.

One observation that this study did not examine, is the influence of peer pressure on a young adult, which has been found to play an important role in drinking behavior. If more under aged young adults are consuming more than legal age young adults, what would happen if the legal drinking age was lowered? Would young adults still be atracted to drink if the law says they can. I believe that if the legal drinking age was lowered, these young adults wouldn't feel as compelled to drink as much. I also believe that if we are to stop this alcohol abuse we need to get in the families and not pressure them no to drink but to find the reason why they are drinking. This new insight could show us how we could raise our children better.

References

Beck, K.H., Thombs, D.L., Mahoney, C.A., Fingar,K.M. (1995). Social Context and Sensation Seeking: Gender Differences College Student Drinking Motivations. The International Journal of Addiction,(9), 1101-1115.
Beck, K.M., Thombs, D. L., Summons, T. G. (1993). The Social Context of Drinking Scale. Addictive Behavior, 159-169.
Grenier, Charles (1993). A Substance Abuse Survey Analysis of LSU Students. Journal of Adolescent Chemical Dependency, 2, 95-129.
Keefe, Keunho (1992). Perceptions of Normative Social Pressure and Attitudes Toward Alcohol Use. Journal of Studies on Alcohol, 55, 46-54.
Klein, Hugh (1994). Changes in College Students Use and Abuse of Alcohol and in Their Attitudes Toward Drinking Over the Course of Their College Years. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 23, 251-269.
Thombs, R.W., Siebold, D.R. (1995). College Students' Decisions to Intervene in Alcohol-Related Situations. Journal of Studies on Alcohol, 56(5), 580-588

Survey

This is an anonymous survey. Please mark the response that pertains to you. Please do not mark on the test packets.

1.  How old are you ?                    
a. under 18       b. 18       c. 19      d. 20      e. 21 or over
         (2)                (37)        (31)       (23)              (57)
2. What is your sex?
a. male 	      b. female
    (43)                       (107)
3. What is your class rank?
a. Freshman       b. Sophomore       c. Junior      d. senior
      (61)                       (36)                         (27)          (26)
4. How many semesters have you been in college?
a. this is my first       b. 2nd      c. 3rd         d. 4th     e. 5th or more 
        (52)                          (3)           (40)             (8)               (47)   
5.  Which best describes your  present living arrangements?
a. Dorms     b. Fraternity/Sorority   c. off-campus with parents    D. Off-campus with roommates or alone   
      (36)                    (1)                                      (56)                                    (31)   
e. Off-Campus with Spouse/children            
                (26)
6.  Do you live alone?
a. yes             b. no
   (12)               (138)
7. Are you a member of a fraternity/Sorority?
a. yes             b. no
   (20)               (129)
8. How would you describe yourself?
a. Black    b. Hispanic       c. White, not Hispanic    d. Asian      e. Other   
      (7)               (3)                     (133)                             (5)                 (2)
9.  What is your mother's education level?
a. Elementary School        b. High School graduate      c. Some college      d. College graduate     e. Graduate school degree  
                    (9)                                         (71)                                  (35)                        (28)                                  (6)
10.  What is father's education level?
a. Elementary school     b. High school graduate   c. Some college      d. College graduate      e. Graduate school degree	     
                (10)                                  (61)                             (41)                          (26)                              (10)
11.  What is your marital status?
a. never married	  b. living with romantic partner      c. Married      d. Divorced/separated      e. Widowed
               (11)                                (8)          			      (17)         		(10)			    (0)
12.  What is your overall grade point average?   			__________ 
         A's=23     B's=75     C's=47         D's=3      F's=2
13.  When you were growing up did you live most of the time in:
a. rural area	b. town under 10,000   c. City of 10,000-50,000   d. City of 50,000-100,00   e. City over 100,000
         (45)                   (24) 			(21)				(44)			   (16) 
14.  How often do you drink now?
a. every day	b. once or twice a week   c. Once or twice a month   d. once or twice a year   e. never   
          (1)                    (21) 			   (55) 				(33)			  (30)
15.  How much on average do you drink on each occasion?
a. more than six drinks     b. 5-6 drinks	 c. 3-4 drinks	  d. 1-2 drinks     e. Never drink
                (11)		               (21)                    (51)	       (32)		(31)
16.  How old were you when you first got drunk?
a.  before 12 years old     b.  12-14     c.  15-17    d. 18 or older   e. Never drink     
                    (5)                        (27)            (58)          (33)                   (27)      
17.  When and if  you drink, what do you usually drink?
 	a.  beer      b.  wine     c.  wine coolers    d. Liquor (Jack, bourbon .)     e. I never drink  
                (48)             (4)                 (39)                  (31)                                                     (26)
18.  Why do you drink?
a. to get drunk      b. to relax easily    c. To impress others    d. Other( with meals .)    e. Never drink  
         (36)                          (32)              	     (0)                                (34)                                     (28)
19.  About how often did your father drink when you were growing up?
a. every day	b. several times a week    c. several times a month   d. several times a year    e. never drink
        (18)                   (18)                                     (20)                                     (16)                                     (45)
20.  How would you describe your father' s use of alcohol when you were growing up?
a.  heavy       b.  moderate       c. light    d. very light       e. Never drank  
      (17)                 (21)                  (26)          (41)                          (37)
21.  About how much did your mother drink when you were growing up?
a. every day	b. several times a week    c. several times a month   d. several times a year     e. Never drank    
             (3)                      (9)                                           (9)                                       (32)                               (72)
22.  How would describe your mother's drinking when you were growing up?
a. heavy   b. moderate    c. light       d. very light          e. never drank
      (6)               (13)             (15)               (43)                        (68)
23.  Think of your best friends.  How often do they drink?
a.  every day	  b.  several times a week     c. several times a month   d. Several times a year     E. Never drink
         (7)                        (27)                                   (54)                                    (35)                                    (22)
24.   Think of your best friends.  How much do they drink on each occasion,  on average?  
a.  more than 6 drinks  b.  5-6 drinks	 c.  3-4 drinks    d. 1-2 drinks      e.  never drinks
                   (29)                             (39)                        (35)                     (20)                          (20)

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