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Our approach is to change the campus and the surrounding community’s culture of alcohol abuse by building connections between university organizations, groups, and agencies and between the university and the greater Madison community. Research and our own experience show that when people care about and are accountable to each other, they are less likely to be complacent about their collective problems. And they care about each other when they are brought together by a common interest. The PACE Project’s primary goal is to facilitate that coming-together. Examples include :
“High-risk,” “hazardous,” “binge,” and “heavy episodic” drinking are all meant to label the same phenomenon: drinking to get drunk. High-risk drinking best describes the action of drinking to get drunk and conveys our project’s focus. On February 5, 2004, the NIAAA National Advisory Council approved the following definition/statement:
In the above definition, a “drink” refers to half an ounce of alcohol (e.g., one 12‑oz. beer, one 5‑oz. glass of wine, or one 1.5‑oz. shot of distilled spirits). Binge drinking is distinct from “risky” drinking (reaching a peak
BAC between 0.05 gram percent and 0.08 gram percent) and a “bender”
(two or more days of sustained heavy drinking). For some individuals (e.g., older
people or people taking other drugs or certain medications), the number of drinks
needed to reach a binge-level BAC is lower than for the “typical adult.”
People with risk factors for the development of alcoholism have increased risk
with any level of alcohol consumption, even that below a “risky” level.
For pregnant women, any drinking presents risk to the fetus. Drinking by persons
under the age of 21 is illegal. Dr. Wechsler found this definition of binge drinking to be a threshold at which students were much more likely to experience primary and secondary effects. But students questioned that binge drinking was “drinking to get drunk,” since individual tolerances for liquor can vary widely. Though “binge drinking” has become the term the media uses to talk about drinking to get drunk, we prefer “high-risk drinking” because it alludes to two consequences of drinking to get drunk: putting yourself at risk, and putting others at risk. Both the primary effects of high-risk drinking (the effects the drinker experiences) and the secondary effects of high-risk drinking (the effects experienced by people other than the drinker) are serious. These effects provide the impetus for the PACE Project: “Changing the UW–Madison campus and community culture to reduce high-risk drinking and its consequences.” We’re working to shift the norm of high-risk drinking on campus, to make these effects unacceptable.
We’re not against alcohol, drinking, or bars. Our main concerns are quantity of alcohol Wisconsin students consume (hence our project title, “A Matter of Degree”) and how it affects the quality of life of this community. We worry about the student norms that allow binge drinking to occur (and their justifications, which range from “There’s nothing else to do” to “Everyone else is doing it”) and the community norms which allow it to continue (from “It’s just a part of college” to “That’s Wisconsin culture”). “The enemy is not alcohol,” writes Dr. Richard Keeling, past president of the American College Health Association, “nor is it a drinker; it is certain patterns of drinking that are human events in a social context.”
Five or more drinks at one sitting is the technical definition of binge drinking. But as stated above, the term we prefer to use (and the behavior we prefer to address) is high-risk drinking — drinking to get drunk — and drinking which has negative repercussions both for the drinker and for people other than the drinker.
Alcohol 101, a CD-ROM designed to help students make informed choices about alcohol use, is an initiative of The Century Council, an organization supported by six American distilleries and commercial liquor manufacturers: Allied Domeq Spirits and Wine North America, Bacardi USA, Inc., Brown-Forman, DIAGEO, Future Brands LLC, and Pernod Ricard USA. In his May 1994 Journal of American College Health editorial “Changing the Context: The Power in Prevention,” Dr. Richard Keeling calls for substance abuse prevention programs to decline the support of the alcohol industry. He writes:
“Giving up money from the alcoholic beverage industry is essential to the integrity, tone, authenticity, and success of the complex process of change we must begin. This commitment is painful, but it speaks loudly of our seriousness. It says we are not about window dressing; we are hard at work on real problems with real people....It says we would rather be poorly funded and clear than well-supported and confused.” Dr. Keeling goes on to predict the inevitable evaporation of funding from the alcoholic beverage industry. “As long as our posters, pamphlets, and peer educators make little difference in drinking patterns, and therefore in profits, the industry will eagerly assist us, give us grants, and send us materials. But should we actually begin to change anything, the industry’s enthusiasm will wane quickly and the funding will disappear. Giving up their money earlier won’t make any difference in our success, because nothing they fund will succeed.” For the sake of integrity and posterity, the PACE Project refuses the resources of the alcoholic beverage industry, including Alcohol 101.
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To get involved
with the PACE Project, contact us at pace@news.wisc.edu. |
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