Alcoholics Anonymous Reviews

Following last year’s cancellation of the Pub Crawl, the consumption of alcohol by students has been an alarming issue on the minds of the administration, and now they’re going to do something about it.

UW-Oshkosh collaborated with UW-Madison in a program called CHIPs, College Health Intervention Projects, which according to Dr. John Swanson of the Health Center was research that asked students about their alcohol consumption and how their use of alcohol impacted their lives.

Senior Rebecca Kijak was involved in the program since spring semester of her freshman year. After she filled out a survey in the Health Center she was told if her survey was picked she would be asked if she wanted to partake in a paid research study.

“If you were chosen you were put in one of three groups; low risk, normal and high risk,” said Kijak.
The group a person is placed in is determined by their answers to the survey questions. Participants are given a 30-day log where they are told to record everything they eat and drink, whether they exercise or if they smoke or do drugs during that period. For the first 60 days they are involved in the study they meet with a doctor and discuss their log. These visits take about 20 to 45 minutes, and the doctor discusses ways students can improve their health, Kijak said.

After she had been involved in the program for a few semesters, she received a phone call every six months where she was asked questions about her general health as well as her emotional well-being. The calls were about 20 minutes, and she was paid $25 per call, Kijak said.

The study began in Sept. 2006 and was completed last spring, but follow-up calls are still being made, and the study results should be compiled within one year. Swanson interviewed survey students and informed them of how their drinking habits influenced their health. Swanson said the main goal of the study was to change students drinking behaviors.

“The study was never geared to make people quit drinking,” Swanson said. “We talked about how to drink in moderation and how much [students] think [they] would want to cut back.”

He provided statistical information such as the maximum amount that should be consumed in one sitting, and students were informed of how much their fellow students were drinking. Many students had misconceptions that those around them consumed more alcohol then they actually had, Swanson said.

The log contained a pie graph that displayed the alcohol consumption of 2,460 individuals 18 to 25-years-old. It showed that in a typical week 28 percent of males surveyed consumed no alcohol and 27 percent consumed one to seven drinks. Of the females surveyed, 33 percent had no alcoholic beverages and 42 percent of those surveyed had one to seven drinks per week.
One technique used by the surveyors compared the amount of calories students consumed while drinking alcohol to the amount of calories in a cheeseburger. This startled students who had weight issues and realized their alcohol consumption was equivalent to consuming 35 cheeseburgers in one month, Swanson said.

Students whose initial survey results indicated substance abuse were given a booklet that explained ways to change alcohol consumption behaviors. They were also referred to someone who could help address the issue.

The other groups met with Swanson to discuss the drinking behaviors recorded in their log including: how much alcohol they consumed, an estimated blood alcohol level at the time when they drank the most, if they had ever driven under the influence or if they were sexually assaulted after drinking or had unprotected sex because they were intoxicated, Swanson said. He explained the reason why UW-Madison and UW-Oshkosh collaborated on the study.

“They approached us,” Swanson said. “They came up and said, here guys this is a kind of interesting study, it’s kind of rumored that UW-Oshkosh students are big drinkers, and Oshkosh is a big drinking school, and we know you’re concerned about it. Would you be interested in looking at what the problem is at the university?”

Swanson said he believes that substance abuse by students is a problem on campus but no more so at UW-Oshkosh than it is at other campuses. Junior Bonnie Ziewacz said she thinks the average student on campus drinks twice a week and feels alcohol abuse is faced by students at all universities and is a problem.

“People take substance abuse over the edge when they’re trying to relax and just enjoy life,” Ziewacz said.

Studys like CHIPs can help determine what emotional, mental or health problems students face and relate it to their alcohol use.

“I think it helps to know what the problem is before you [can] have resources to …[resolve] the problem,” Kijak said.

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