 Toren Volkmann and Christina Volkmann '70, co-authors of Our Drink: Detoxong the Perfect Family. Photo by Robert Hubner
It wasn't supposed to happen this way. Christina Shamerger
Volkmann had given up her teaching career to stay home with her
three sons, to volunteer in their schools, to attend their numerous
sporting events, to get to know their friends. To be there for them
in their early years so she could confidently send them off as
responsible adults headed for success. And it seemed to be
working.
In the fall of 2003, with one son in graduate school, another
embarked on a promising career, and Toren, her youngest, six months
into a Peace Corps assignment in South America, Volkmann figured
the hard part was over.
But it all fell apart, or seemed to, on September 22, when Toren
called to say he'd been removed from his Peace Corps assignment and
was about to enter an alcohol rehabilitation program in Washington,
D.C.
In Our Drink: Detoxing the Perfect Family, Chris Volkmann
'70 and Toren take turns describing and trying to understand how a
young man who had everything going for him-especially loving,
involved parents who tried their best to set limits and impose
consequences-became an alcoholic, most likely before he even
graduated from college.
As the Volkmanns came to realize, Toren's experience is not
unique. While college-age drinking is much in the news, it is clear
from growing research evidence that alcohol abuse often starts in
high school, or even junior high.
The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration
(SAMHSA) reports that an estimated 1.5 million youth aged 12
through 17 met criteria for admission to alcohol treatment programs
in 2002. Specifically, SAMHSA reports that in 2002, two million
youth aged 12 through 20 consumed five or more drinks on one
occasion at least five times a month.
According to studies by Henry Wechsler of Harvard University,
about 44 percent of college students across the country are binge
drinkers, defined as male students who consume five or more drinks
or female students who consume four or more drinks per
occasion.
John Miller, associate director of health promotion at
Washington State University, says the definition of binge drinking
is somewhat controversial, because there are so many variables. If
a 200-pound male drinks five beers over the course of a gathering
that lasts five or six hours, with a meal included, he won't
necessarily become intoxicated. Instead, Miller says, health
professionals at WSU prefer to talk about "high-risk drinking."
That, he says, means any drinking that impairs a person's judgment
and causes him or her to make unsafe choices.
Miller says the rate of heavy drinking at WSU is far below the
national college average, but any high-risk drinking is a concern.
The consequences are immense, ranging from property damage and
lowered academic achievement to assault, rape, and an estimated
1,400 deaths nationwide each year, mostly from motor vehicle
crashes.
Miller and colleague Jeanne Far were co-principal investigators
on a study funded by the U.S. Department of Education that looked
at effective alcohol abuse prevention programs, including social
norms theory.
Social norms theory is the idea that behavior is significantly
influenced by the perception of what other people are doing,
coupled with the finding that people tend to overestimate the
negative behavior of their peers and underestimate the positive
behavior.
When asked about drinking behavior, Miller says, most students
think their peers are drinking much more than they really are, and
so they tend to drink more to fit in.
Though there are many caveats, Miller says, his research showed
significant improvements when students were presented with a more
realistic picture of peer drinking behavior, which covers an entire
spectrum at WSU from nearly 20 percent total abstinence to
addiction.
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