Alcohol abuse can be a major concern for college students since it is so easy for us to obtain alcohol, and many students do not drink alcohol before college so abusing alcohol is extremely common among college campuses. I found this great article that is easy to relate for college students that is by The New York Times and is called "Get the Keg Out of the Frat House". The article goes into depth about how some students are forced to drink an absurd amount of alcohol as an act of hazing for initiation into certain fraternities. The article brings up one case about a male student who was only 18 years old and attending Louisiana State University who happened to die from the amount of alcohol he was forced to drink at the Phi Delta Theta house (Hechinger web. 2017). The sad thing is that this is not nearly the only time that hazing has caused health or serious injury to a young male going into their initiation process. Criminal charges are even given to some of the older fraternity brothers that are causing these injuries and deaths, which is necessary in my opinion because they should be held responsible for their actions. A lot of steps have been taken to try get rid of hazing all in all so these types of situations never occur again, like banning pledging so there is no time for the new members to be hazed. Being a part of Greek life, it is very upsetting to know that certain fraternities will treat others this way especially people that they want to be their "brother". Although there has been many action to prevent and stop hazing completely, there are still fraternities out there that will continue to break the hazing rules and force new members to abuse alcohol.
Sources:
Hechinger, John. “Get the Keg Out of the Frat House.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 26 Sept. 2017, www.nytimes.com/2017/09/26/opinion/frats-college-partying-pledging.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FAlcohol%2BAbuse&action=click&contentCollection=timestopics®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=collection.
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This was a great connection to your alcohol abuse topic. I have been keeping up with the LSU hazing case and as a former member of a fraternity I can't imagine that type of behavior where they didn't help their fraternity brother that was clearly in need after falling down stairs. Like you said especially when students don't have much experience with alcohol it can be very dangerous for them. I think that cases like this are spreading awareness to the hazing issue and universities are beginning to crack down on fraternities. I have heard of various schools kicking fraternities off campus for hazing violations.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading this blog and thought the connection of alcohol abuse and fraternities was spot on. I am not a member of one but know multiple people that have been through similar situations where alcohol abuse was forced on them. People really don't understand the damage abusing alcohol can do to your body. I think more awareness and attention paid to this subject will help prevent these terrible stories in the future.
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