Alcohol Impact on Collage Students - Essay Example

Topic: Alcohol Impact on Collage Alcohol usage by the college results in certain harmful consequences. Heavily drunk students are more prone to certain health complications. Extensive drinking invites the consequences like loss of memory, stern behaviour, suicide and fatal injuries, sexual assaults, academic failure or illness and stomach and lever disorders. Extensively drunk collage girls most of the times face sexual assault and rape. Academic analysis of American cities indicates the decline in academic grading of drunken students. Students habitual of extensive alcohol intake, lag behind in the academic and physical activities. The play “Cat on a hot tin Roof” by Tennessee Williams paints the real picture of harmful effects of alcoholism on the family life. Brick is the most loved son of big mama and big daddy. He married Maggie, a beautiful girl from a poor family background. Brick is great football player. Skipper is the best friend of Brick. Maggie humiliates skipper for having sexual relations with his husband Brick. Skipper negates it and starts drinking alcohol for mental peace. He died of extensive drinking. Brick considered himself the cause of skipper’s death and indulged in alcoholism. This ruined the life of complete family. Memory loss Alcohol reduces short-term memory by transferring information to long term memory. Therefore, attention span reduces to 48 hours after the drink. Drink causes memory loss to college students this memory loss in known as blackouts (O’Malley & Wagenaar 479). Retention and assimilation capabilities of students are largely affected by alcoholism. A study shows the statistics that, 54% of overindulged drinkers described that they did not remember anything about the world and their mind away in some other world when extensively drunken (Andreasson & Allebeck 634). We can find a good example of memory loss in the play “Cat on a hot tin roof”. Everybody of big daddy’s family knew that big daddy is suffering from cancer but big daddy knew nothing about his real disease. Brick was heavily drunk during conversation with big daddy on the birthday of daddy. During the same conversation, he told big daddy about his real ailment. This created big tension and trauma in the family life. Memory loss takes some time to regain short term memory. Behavioural Abuses Alcohol causes fluctuation in student behaviour. Sometimes they behave very rudely with the close relatives especially when they are just over with a drink. Hangover captures the senses of college students and makes them behave different from the normal (Grossman, et al 349). This behaviour leads them to property damaging and pulling of fire alarms. In one national study, 8% college students accepted damaging public property and pulling fire alarm. 25% administration staff of low drinking level colleges and about 50% of high drinking level campuses reported severe damage to property (Andreasson & Allebeck 636). Students after drinking get very emotional and break everything coming in their way. Brick also showed behaviour problem in the play “Cat on a hot tin roof”. He quitted sleeping with his wife and broke all the relations with her after the death of Skipper. Maggie tried to convince her husband to live a normal life but he did not listen. Complete family tried their best to make him quit drinking. Brick did not pay any attention to the family will and kept drinking extensively until the time he felt a click of peace in his mind. Physical Injuries and Deaths Students who misuse alcohol are exposed to danger of serious injuries and even death. The US department of education revealed death of hundreds of students per year due to alcohol trauma. Students most of the times face hangovers and vomiting. Long-term effect includes loss of immunity against the diseases. Cirrhosis of liver is a lifelong physical damage to human organ (Abbey, et al 1014). There is evidence that alcohol misuse can compel students to commit suicide or to kill somebody. Suicide thoughts also encourage the college students to drink alcohol in huge quantity in order to overcome depression (Singleton & Gorelick 182). Skipper also committed suicide in the play “Cat on a hot tin roof” when he was heavily drunk. Brick’s wife Meggie for having sexual relations with her husband humiliated Skipper. Skipper could not bear this allegation and drunk heavily before committing suicide. Sexual Assault Sexual assault is the most dangerous after-effect of alcohol misuse especially by college students. Sexual assault statistics provide different results in different circumstances. Most of the times, victims do not report the matter to police due to many reasons. In America, 50% of sexual assaults in college campus are related to alcohol misuse (Grossman, et al 351). The ratio of drunk sexual assault is different in white and black American. Skipper was blamed by the Maggie for having sexual relations with his husband in the play “Cat on a hot tin roof”. He was very disappointed with this allegation by his best friend’s wife. Next day he entered the room of Maggie for making love to show that he is not homosexual. He was extensively drunk and could not bear the humiliation and committed suicide later on. Car Accidents Alcohol related traffic crash rate is much higher than the rate of suicide in college students. Recent study inn US estimates that about 1400 college students including girls and boys die each year from alcohol related traffic accidents. The ages of such students are mostly between 18 to 24 years. Alcohol related physical injuries touch the figures of 50000 per year between the same age group college students. Most of them develop permanent disability and quit education ultimately. SAMHSA data estimates that 18% of drivers age 16-20 drive cars under the influence of alcohol. About 2.5 million teenage drivers drive under the influence of alcohol. (Abbey, et al 1012) Impact of Alcohol Abuse on College Life  Fights are very common between drunken college students. Alcohol misuse leads to brutal fights between the students. Heavily drunk students fight more dangerously and cause injuries to body parts. Approximately 600,000 college students aged 18 to 24 are assaulted by other college student who has been drinking excessive alcohol (Andreasson & Allebeck 637). Drinkers make noises, disrupt sleep, and study timings of other students. In CAS, 61% students complained loss of sleep and disruption of studies due to alcoholic students (O’Malley & Wagenaar 483). Impact of Alcohol Use on Academic Performance Alcohol use has damaging affect on the academic performance of a college student. A national study shows that the colleges with for years study programme, student securing “A” takes 3.3 drinks in a week. Students with “D” and “F” take approximately 9 drinks in a week. Missing of classes, poor performance in tests and memory loss are the common problems associated with alcoholic college students. Virginia technical school showed great results in 2002. Students claimed that alcohol never degrades their academic potential. The statistics show that 68% of VT students never missed any class because of alcohol misuse, 66% of VT students never attended a class with a hangover, 80% have never studied with a hangover and 92% have never undergone a test with a hangover (Del Boca & Noll 355-356). These statements can be true but a student faces gradual decline in his academic performance after excessive alcohol intake. Analysis Alcohol consumption is the major reason of memory loss. Underage drink adversely affects the short-term memory of college students (Grossman et al 79). Sometimes it effects so much that one is unable to control his tongue, hands and legs. Behavioural abuse is another major problem caused by college students. Drunken students take part in property damaging activities (Singleton & Gorelick 178). They destroy training aids and sometimes pull fire alarms. Fighting and driving are the two main activates that endanger the life on alcoholic college student. Numbers of incidents have taken place where students have been seen vomiting and trembling at the public places. Excessive drinking compels college students to think about committing suicide (Del Boca & Noll 352). This encourages them to drink more and more. Drunken girls and college boys, both are prone to sexual assault specially when they leave their campus and move around at public places during night times. 50% of the sexual assaults comprise of the drunken college students in America (Abbey, et al 1021). This is a huge ratio as compared to other cases of sexual assault. Car driving is an extremely dangerous adventure by the alcoholic college students. Car driving during hangover can be fatal and can cause injuries. In US, more than 1400 students die each other as a result of car accidents. Rash driving and careless attitude are the leading factors of these incidents. Age of these car lovers varies from 18 to 24 years (Andreasson & Allebeck 633). Alcohol abuse damages the college life of all the students weather drunk or not. Drunken students indulge in fights with each other. Sometimes these fights cause irreparable human lose. About 60000 American college students fight after consuming alcohol (Del Boca & Noll 359). Alcohol has long lasting effects on the alcoholic user college students. There is always a great relation between excessive alcoholic consumption and lower grade securing by the college students (Grossman et al 85). A study of 429 students conducted at Midwestern University reflects harmful impact of alcohol use was most obvious on educational attainment in college among those students who performed very high in their school level academics (Grossman, et al 363).  Conclusion Alcohol usage by college students has devastating effects on the present and future of the student. Memory loss is a common problem that can only be addressed by defining limits if alcohol consumption. Brick and Skipper also greatly suffered memory problem in the play “Cat on a hot tin roof”. Behaviour problem is another curse of alcohol abuse in youngsters. Quitting alcohol is the only permanent solution for living normal life. Physical injuries and deaths happen when students are heavily drunk. They must not drive a car or get out of their room during hangover. Sexual assaults on drunken girl students are always on the rise. Students must not move out to public places after consuming alcohol. They must make them calm before taking any decision. Students must not be allowed by the police and by college management to drive a car after drinking. This habit can be fatal for the students. I thing college administration must take some measures to stop fights between the drunk students and minimize the property damage by allowing alcohol consumption at certain fixed places. Academic performance of alcohol habitual students runs towards decline. Students lack the concentration during hangover. Students must be prohibited from using alcohol other than weekends or closed holidays. In the end, I would say that, alcohol is the biggest menace which is damaging the potential youths of the nation. 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