Are you more susceptible to alcohol abuse if you are Greek?

Whilst in college, a student at a young and impressionable age has a few choices in how they socialize, one may choose student/campus/community involvement, another may choose club sports or associations, but with Greek Life comprising of more than 68% of the undergraduate males alone in the top 10 schools in the nation, Greek life seems to be a popular trend.

Many of you have seen the movie “Animal House”, one of John Belushi’s greatest hits, where the fraternity men are depicted as heavy drinkers and reckless party goers. Unfortunately, even in today’s college life, that is still the case. Generally speaking sororities are larger than fraternities, making the following percentages slightly more astounding, “outside the Greek system, 40.9% of college females admit to abusing alcohol, whereas sorority girls drink heavily at a rate of 62.4%.” If drinking is this prevalent in sororities, it’s just as high or higher in fraternities, making alcohol abuse in more than 60% of all Greek members.

So we beg to ask, “Why are Greek members so prone to alcohol abuse?” simplest answer: peer pressure. Since alcohol and college parties are so highly correlated, the organizations in college with the most parties will have the most alcohol, making the prevalence of the situation that much harder to avoid. In Greek Life, be it sorority or fraternity, you strive to fit in with the rest of the chapter, so monkey see monkey do, Greek life alcohol abuse is so common because everyone has accepted that it’s just what you do. The problem lies within the thought of Greek Life, if you join, more than likely, it’s to party.

Trevor J.S.

References:

http://www.onlinecolleges.net/2012/09/05/15-telling-stats-on-the-state-of-greek-life-today/

http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/87974/Taylor2004ExaminingTheComplexRelationshipBetweenGreekLifeAndAlcohol.pdf?sequence=1

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/06/10-colleges-with-the-high_n_2249651.html