College- Time to get Wasted!!!

Tomorrow I will be speaking at the College Application Success Campaign
in Costa Mesa, CA at Early College High School. It seems like an
excellent conference at a school that does a great job getting their
students through the tedious process of applying for college and
choosing a college.

The first year of college is often a major turning point in a person’s
decision on drinking and using drugs. Parents are no longer around to
influence your decisions or prevent you from experimenting. Sometimes
college freshmen get heavily involved in partying where they flunk out
in the first semester. I remember when I was in college, we lost so many
people to this in the first semester. It seemed like 10% of the class
had to pack up and go home. My university was not known for heavy
partying either, it’s just an average to sub average party school. Once
people settled in I remember people drinking once a week for the most part.

Thursday night was called “bar night.” Somehow, student organizations
would find a bar that would let all the 18-22 year olds in and let them
drink as much as they want. It was an open secret that nobody seemed to
concerned about. Friday morning was pretty miserable on campus. Everyone
looked tired and sick.

We did have one incident where a student was pledging a fraternity and
died of alcohol poisoning in the bathroom of our dormitory. I guess
that’s not super noteworthy, it happens almost every year at most
schools. The chances of it happening to you are fairly slim. The more
likey risk that college freshmen face is that they might have a genetic
propensity for “Alcohol Use Disorder.” If you have a family member with
this problem, there’s a 60% chance that you will be predisposed to the
disorder.

Taking a drink for the first time is a choice that you make. As you
continue drinking more and more, the choice is slowly taken away from you.

A review of studies from 2020 by Nat Neurosci looked at a genome-wide
analysis of more than 435,000 people, and found 29 different genetic
variants that increased the risk of problematic drinking. Do you have
those 29 genetic variants? Or maybe just some of them? That first year
of college might give you the answer to this question.