National Alcohol Screening Day Thursday to educate the Aggies
The USU Health Services, in conjunction with the Counseling and Psychological Services Center, will host multiple activities April 8 in the TSC Ballroom for Nation Alcohol Screening Day.
There will be activities outside the Ballroom, such as relay races with beer goggles, while inside the ballroom will be a movie during which participants can take a confidential survey on alcohol use. Counselors will be available to talk to and answer questions about risky behavior and how to help a friend who is possibly participating in risky behavior.
Michelle Swaner and Cammie Hanson, both seniors in the community health major and interns for USU Health Services, explained what was meant by “risky behavior.”
“It really depends on how much you drink and how often,” Swaner said. “Do you feel guilty when you do drink? Are others affected negatively by your drinking?”
Hanson said, “What we can teach people here is to know their limits, to help people find a line of responsibility while they drink.”
To which Swaner added, “We are not telling people to not drink or that they should if they avoid risky behavior, but if someone has made up their mind that they make the choice to do it responsibly.”
Swaner said there is often a window in the freshman, sophomore or junior year of college in which a student who drinks can “pass through a period of high-risk drinking.”
Swaner said high-risk drinking is not necessarily a high health risk. However, it is associated with impairment problems such as violence in relationships, work or school problems, trouble with the law and sexual assaults.
“Seventy-five percent of all sexual assaults are associated with alcohol,” Swaner said.
Ryan Barfuss, a prevention specialist at the Student Health and Wellness Center, said, “In reality, high-risk drinking affects all of us, whether it be by highering insurance or tuition costs. There are not many people that are immune to the costs of others’ high-risk behavior. So it is not enough to just say, ‘Drinking is someone else’s problem, not mine.'”
Those that do fill out the confidential survey and feel that they should speak to a counselor can do so at the event. They will be shown the resources that are available on campus to help them through the high-risk window.
Hanson said, “Even if we identify two or three students who display high-risk behavior, we have done a lot of good to those two or three people.”
– mfiggat@gmail.com