Furthermore, the give and take of social support among college students may enhance psychosocial development. Scholars have found that the university experience can contribute to the development of late adolescents and emerging adults through the supportive relations they share with faculty and fellow students. This web of support has been associated with moral development, personal independence, emotional autonomy, social integration, and general well-being.8 While the receipt or perceived presence of social support seems to be universally valued, less is known about the advantages of giving support. Why, for example, would it be personally advantageous for university students to lend support to their drunken cohorts? As stated above, college life is an opportunity for them to “try on” adult roles. Enacting adult roles and demonstrating adult competence may be increasingly important for college students given the emergence of recent social trends.
There is evidence, for example, that in recent decades the period of childhood dependence on parents has been prolonged and that children have been subjected to increasing surveillance and social control in public spaces. Throughout childhood and adolescence, the modern child’s public life is increasingly choreographed via organized activities like sports, dance classes, and music lessons. The spontaneous neighborhood playgroups of yesteryear have given way to the parent-administered “playdate” and to an endless series of formal games, organized practices, lessons, and activity meetings. Furthermore, sociologist Margaret Nelson argues that
contemporary popular culture is replete with descriptions of a new kind of parenting that appears to prevail especially among elite parents who, supposedly, worry all the time about the safety of their children and who, it is said, hover over and monitor them more closely than ever before, even if they are likely to eschew artificial constraints such as playpens. Parenting books, journalists, and academics comment on this phenomenon that some have dubbed “hypervigilance.”9
Similarly, Markella Rutherford, a sociologist at Wellesley College, suggests that middle-class children especially have considerably less autonomy outside the home than they did just thirty years ago.10 And recent studies imply that the reasons for the modern “choking off” of child autonomy are manifold.11 Rutherford explains,
Various social changes have contributed to the loss of public freedom for children—especially for middle-class children. Towns and suburbs are designed primarily for the convenience of automobile traffic, making it more dangerous for children to play in and near streets. Highly-publicized instances of child abduction make parents wary of leaving their children unattended in public spaces. Public safety concerns and commercial interests conspire to keep adolescents from “hanging out” in malls, parking lots, parks, and other previous gathering spots. A rapidly-expanding commercial and media culture coincides with parental anxieties about risk to divert children’s unstructured play time into adult-directed activities. Middle-class children, in particular, are in a round of near-constant enrichment activities that leave them supervised at all times by adults and give them little control over their own leisure time.12
If Rutherford’s observations about losses in child autonomy are true, what are the consequences of prolonging dependence? It may be that contemporary children and adolescents are lacking opportunities to develop the social skills, problem-solving strategies, and sense of efficacy that they need in order to independently meet the challenges that will face them in the “adult world.” For many emerging adults, then, their first real opportunity to adopt mature roles arrives with the newfound autonomy they enjoy at college. But entering college may not necessarily allow for the autonomy that many emerging adults are seeking. Social critics, college administrators, and university professors claim that a new breed of “helicopter parent” has emerged that hovers over his or her child, robbing the child of the chance to take control of his or her own educational career. Though some studies have suggested that college students benefit from the active involvement of parents, college officials commonly complain about the lingering presence of parents who disrupt the university’s mission of training young adults to become critical, independent thinkers.
So what is the relationship between this prolonged period of dependence—this suspension of autonomy—and heavy drinking in college? The multitude of problems produced by the college drinking culture—and certainly the experience of college in general—may produce a smorgasbord of opportunities for emerging adults to become instrumentally embroiled in “adult” problems with real consequences. In particular, the drinking crisis forces them to take on celebrated adult roles (e.g., nurturing a dangerously ill friend; bailing a captured roommate out of jail) for the first time in their lives. These crises allow students to ask and answer the question, “What kind of person am I?” Dealing with the sicknesses, arrests, fights, and emotional blowouts of the heavy drinking scene creates a context for identity work. Eventually, frequent college drinkers will have to ask themselves, “Can I weather this storm of nausea?” “Do I have the patience and understanding to ‘babysit’ my stumbling, embarrassing, clueless roommate?” “Do I have the poise and calm to respond quickly and effectively when my dangerously intoxicated friend is in need of medical attention?” “Can I be counted on to ‘get my friend’s back’ when people start flexing their ‘beer muscles’ and fights break out?” “What kind of friend am I?” “What kind of person am I?” The drinking crisis is a vehicle for identity formation and an opportunity to showcase character.
Crisis Management and Drunk Support
As Adam, a twenty-one-year-old male informant, proclaimed in chapter 3, a drinking episode is a world of “adventure… where anything can happen.” Seasoned drinkers know, however, that specific “unexpected,” unintended, and potentially unpleasant consequences are part of the intoxication process. That is, there are patterns to the troubles that often accompany group drunkenness. The College Drinker may prepare in ways to avoid a negative outcome (e.g., arranging to have a designated driver, employing a buzz check to keep from getting embarrassingly or dangerously hammered). To be sure, the most critical type of drunk support comes in the form of friends and codrinkers encouraging a drinker to avoid ingesting dangerous amounts of alcohol in the first place. In chapter 2, for example, the external buzz check was illuminated as a strategy used by codrinkers or other bystanders to “check in” on the intoxication of friends to make sure that they are not taking their inebriation to a hazardous level. But, according to my analysis of the current data, this sort of helpful, protective measure is far too rare. In the following account, Grace, a twenty-year-old female, gives a rare account of a friend stepping in to encourage a codrinker to desist:
Q: So when you say, “This is my night, I’m going out and I’m going to get really drunk tonight,” are there people that will be with you that you know you can count on? People that are going to look after you?
A: Yes, my best friend, she really does not drink a lot, and if she knows, like, I’m having a really bad week, that I am really upset with school, upset with boys, upset with friends, she’ll, like, she doesn’t always go out with me, she has a very serious boyfriend on campus, but she’ll make sure she’s out with me that night … and just like watching out for me, and just, you know, [she’ll say,] “That’s not a good idea.” [Laughs.]
Q: Right, okay, so what are some of the things that she would say “That’s not a good idea” to? For example?
A: Umm, I want to have that next shot ‘cause I’m very, once I get past the point like, I can drink anything and I won’t think it will affect me at all… but she’ll put a stop to it.
Again, the students suggest that this kind of behavior may be too uncommon. In fact, often codrinkers use a collective buzz check to conclude that the members of their drinking party have not had enough to drink. Thus, the current college drinking culture often does not appear to provide its members with the social resources to avoid taking their drinking into treacherous territory.
And, even when colle
ge drinkers attempt to stop their consumption before things get out of hand, drinking crises have a way of materializing anyway. Therefore, college drinkers must learn how to deal with the crises that commonly arise and often work together to reduce the harms that threaten to ruin their celebrations. While the list of potential crises may be endless, the most commonly mentioned drinking-related problems are discussed below. The typical troubles that are likely to arise during episodes of heavy drinking include getting sick, getting caught, relational breakdowns and arguments, physical confrontations, and the risk of sexual victimization.13 Here, in their own words, college drinkers discuss their encounters with drinking crises and describe the ways in which they manage emergent troubles when “everything falls apart.”
Getting Sick
Overindulgence can result in catastrophic consequences. Dangerously intoxicated partiers may drink themselves to death as a result of alcohol poisoning or may perish due to the aspiration of vomit, which leads to asphyxiation. High-profile stories of such tragedies should serve as cautionary tales to college drinkers. The following story is one such example:
Most often these days, college kids die from drinking’s secondary effects. Drowning in one’s own vomit, for example. According to official records, Duke University junior Raheem Bath died of pneumonia on the Saturday night of Thanksgiving break in 1999. But the root cause of his deadly infection was vomit inhaled after he had puked up a night’s worth of drinks.14
Most college drinkers are aware that severe intoxication can result in tragedy and they most certainly know of the relationship between heavy drinking and vomiting. In fact, one of the most common forms of drinking crisis reported by my respondents was becoming physically ill or having to manage the sickness of a codrinker. For college drinkers, vomiting is a group activity. For example, throwing up is often executed with the assistance of a “spotter” or concerned friend. The social nature of intoxication-induced nausea among college drinkers is odd since vomiting is generally one of the most private rituals in American social life. That is, when most adults are bent over the toilet or lying on the bathroom floor begging for mercy, they usually prefer to be by themselves. According to Norbert Elias’s classic treatment of the evolution of manners in modern social life, the excretion of bodily fluids—like vomit—has been transformed into a shame-producing event and, thus, has become increasingly private over time.15 According to sociologists Martin Weinberg and Colin Williams,
There are cultural distinctions as to what belongs “inside” the body and “outside” the body. Thus certain bodily products (e.g., vomit, menstrual blood, nasal mucous) are considered polluting or contaminating (i.e., disgusting) when they escape the body envelope. For the individual who fails to correctly maintain a boundary, this can lead to “disgust being focused in varying degrees on the self or aspects of the self.”16
According to my observations, many college drinkers don’t appear to share this view. Vomiting, for some university drinkers (especially males), is not something to hide. In fact, it is often a public performance. In the following field note, I describe my viewing of a rather public puking performance. The performer vomits in front of a large crowd and then displays his mettle by raising a triumphant fist and getting right back on the alcoholic horse he fell off. The act of vomiting and immediately returning to drinking again is known as “puke and rally”:
Vomit Scene at a House Party: A very drunk guy announces to everyone that he has to puke. He walks a few paces away from the group but is still close enough for everyone to watch. He bends over, hands on his knees, and opens his mouth expectantly. He spits long strands of pre-puke onto the ground. Nothing else comes out. He sticks a finger deep into his throat. Still, nothing. But sticking his finger down his throat causes him to writhe and gag and stamp his feet. He bends over again, hands on knees, and unleashes a firehose stream of vomit onto the ground and it splashes on his shoes. He repeats this process a couple times before he’s done. His vomit show draws laughter and cheers from the crowd. After he’s done, he turns to his audience and raises his arms over his head. “Yeahhh!” he growls. He is triumphant. He holds his stadium pose for a few seconds. He’s not ashamed or embarrassed. Far from it. I wouldn’t say he’s proud of puking. More like he’s proud of overcoming it. He is not defeated by this minor discomfort. He immediately returns to drinking. This is puke and rally. By the way, later in the night, a young woman disappeared for a few minutes. When she returned, she reported that she was throwing up on the other side of the house. She didn’t put her sickness on display like the other guy. It was a more private thing. She did start drinking again though. (Field notes, June 2008)
According to Brandy, a twenty-year-old respondent, when it comes to getting sick in the drinking scene, there are different rules for men and women:
I think that with women, like me personally… I have been embarrassed in public— just like accidently like throwing up in front of people. But with guys, I feel like guys can get away with it and people don’t really care. But if it’s a girl, ‘cause girls are supposed to be like really refined, like, act a little bit more mature than guys at the bar. They try to hide their intoxication and go to the bathroom to do it [get sick]. But, I just feel like guys can just get away with it so easily.
For both men and women who are involved in the college drinking scene, however, being “drunksick” is a unique phenomenon. The unique properties of drunksickness (i.e., intoxication-induced nausea) include the public spectacle that it often becomes, as well as the social collaborations that are sometimes created to manage bouts with vomiting. Most adults view vomiting as a private affair; it is not something to share with others and there is generally no need for others to support them during the act. Children, on the other hand, are often shepherded through the vomiting process by a concerned parent. Parents encourage and soothe children, coach them through the elimination process, and clean up after them when they are done. When college drinkers become ill, the ritual is often less private than a typical adult’s experience with nausea. In fact, the alliances that arise out of drunksickness more closely resemble the parent-child collaborations discussed above. That is, “spewing” sometimes becomes a supported activity with a benevolent codrinker.
According to some respondents, helping a friend to vomit is a common and taken-for-granted duty that codrinkers must fulfill. The following informant, in fact, sees attending to a drunksick associate as “part of the fun”: “The only consequence [of the drinking episode] was my roommate got sick and I had to take care of her, but I didn’t really mind, it’s all part of the fun” (Janet, eighteen-year-old female). Really? Helping your friend to puke is fun? Maybe what Janet means is that giving support is part of the total party package. That is, in a world where “anything can happen,” the drunksick roommate is just one of the many problematic consequences that require one codrinker to care for another. While Janet and her roommate probably had an unspoken sense of their affection for one another, the act of caring for a sick friend brings that mutual regard to life. Other respondents spoke of caring for an overly intoxicated friend in more sterile, utilitarian terms. Katie, a twenty-year-old female, sees “babysitting” for her smashed and drunksick friend as part of her position description:
Yeah, I followed her around to make sure she didn’t do stupid stuff or get sick on herself, or get sick and choke on it. And she would do the same for me. It’s just something that has to be done with her on certain nights. Like babysitting her, like she’s become a child almost. I guess you could say it’s my job…
The reader will notice that Katie describes her “job” as babysitting and compares her friend in need to a child. This sort of mother-child role playing is common in the data and suggests that those who deliver drunk support are getting practical training in the area of nurturing and caring for a dependent other. Even those college students who do not actively participate in the drinking culture find opportunities to experiment with adult roles in drunkworld.
In the following story, a nondrinking twenty-one-year-old female describes her maternal role in residential housing:
As a sober person living in the dorms I’ve found myself “mothering” the other students as they wander in from a night out.… Last weekend I came back to the dorm to find the floor a mess and one of the girls in absolute tears. Drunk, she explained she had lost her shoe on Thomsen Hill. Everything seemed like a horrible tragedy to her.
The mothering of drunks is typically performed by female students. The majority of stories that describe caring for sick codrinkers or counseling sad, drunken friends involve female caregivers. This should come as no surprise. Generally speaking, emotional work is largely taken on by women; social norms stipulate that women should be the primary givers of emotional support.17 And caring for those “in need” provides a ritual that gives emerging adult females the opportunity to demonstrate gender competence by assuming the role of the nurturer.18 On the other hand, many of my respondents reported instances of young men providing drunk support to friends in need. Male drunk support, however, is more likely to take the form of protection or physical “backup” and will be discussed at length later in the chapter.
The mothering of sick college drinkers appears to make the pain of vomiting a bit more tolerable. While respondents certainly did not enjoy throwing up, there was often a pleasant tone about the support that college drinkers received from their cohorts. Emma, a nineteen-year-old female, drinks herself into a nauseated stupor and, as a result, finds out that she has friends who really care for her:
Getting Wasted: Why College Students Drink Too Much and Party So Hard Page 12