2008 Woodie Awards
UWF Students learn dangers of drinking and driving
Melissa Cook / Staff Writer
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Why were students in the Commons last Tuesday night drinking tequila, whiskey, vodka and rum? Although the liquor was going down, the blood-alcohol levels of five students definitely were rising as they participated in a controlled drinking experiment aimed at teaching students the risks of drinking and driving.
Oct. 17 through Oct. 21 was alcohol awareness week at the University of West Florida. The Student Health and Wellness Education department put on a series of events throughout the week to teach students more about the dangers of alcohol consumption and how to set healthy limits when drinking.
On Oct. 18, a drinking exhibition aimed at teaching students about their blood-alcohol concentration, or BAC, was conducted in the Commons Auditorium. Police use a BAC measurement to determine if a person has been drinking and driving, if a minor has consumed alcohol, if a person is excessively drunk in public, if a person being charged with a felony has been under the influence of alcohol, to monitor people on probation, and sometimes in custody battles where a parent has a history of alcohol abuse.
For the drinking exhibition, Student Health and Wellness Education paired with Patrol Officer A.J. Hanks of the UWF Police Department, as well as some officers from the Pensacola Police Department, to conduct a controlled drinking experiment.
"There were five students over the age of 21 who were given whisky, tequila, vodka or rum cut with Coke, cranberry juice or Sprite," said Shannon Arsenault, program administrator for Student Health and Wellness Education.
Arsenault said the five students â€" two women and three men â€" drank based on their body weights and genders. Students were given 2 ounces of alcohol at a time, mixed with the soda or juice of their choice.
"We had to give alcohol to the students based on their body weight and gender because women get drunk faster due to having a higher fat content," Arsenault said. "Also, women do not metabolize alcohol as well as men."
Arsenault said that after one hour, when students had consumed half the alcohol they would be given, a BAC measurement was taken. After two hours, when the students had consumed all of the alcohol they were given for their body weight and gender, their final BAC's were measured.
After the demonstration, an officer talked to the students about sobriety and how alcohol can impair them.
"Only one girl was visibly drunk," Arsenault said. "The other four students were not visibly drunk, but all of them had a BAC of over .08."
Having a BAC of .08 or higher is considered legally drunk. If a person is older than 21 and driving with a BAC of .08 or higher, he or she could be charged with driving under the influence, also known as a DUI. If a minor or person younger than age 21 is caught driving with a BAC .02 or more, it is an automatic DUI. Trevor and Travis Ten Brink, 21-year-old twins who are political science majors at UWF, participated in the drinking exhibition. Trevor Ten Brink had the lowest BAC of the five students who participated, with a BAC at .084 after two hours. Travis Ten Brink had the second-highest BAC â€" .097 â€" after two hours. Trevor Ten Brink said he started with 2 ounces of whiskey mixed with Sprite, and he switched to rum and Coke for the remainder of the two hours.
By the time the two hours had passed, Trevor Ten Brink had consumed 10 ounces of liquor. Although his BAC was the lowest, it still was not under the legal limit to drive.
"Everyone failed the test miserably," Trevor Ten Brink said. "The lesson that I got out of this experience is that no matter how drunk you are, and even less drunk that your friends are, neither of you is probably sober enough to legally drive. People should never go home with the least-drunk person as their driver because drunk is drunk."
Trevor Ten Brink said he has learned to set limits for himself after being a part of the controlled drinking experiment. Trevor Ten Brink said that his BAC after one hour was .040 after drinking six ounces of alcohol and that if he had stopped drinking then, he would have been legal to drive.
As for his brother, Travis Ten Brink started out drinking a whisky mixed with Coke and then switched to rum and Coke for the remainder of the two hours. By the time the two hours had passed, Travis Ten Brink had consumed 11 ounces of liquor, but on an empty stomach. Travis Ten Brink said that having not eaten contributed to his blowing of the second highest BAC out of the five students.
"I had a test that I was studying for all day, so I had no time to eat anything," Travis Ten Brink said. "I learned that if I go out and will be consuming alcohol, I need to eat something first. I felt like I was buzzing after the first drink."
"Students were entertained by the drinking exhibition, but it also had a good learning component," Arsenault said. "Many of the students in the audience thought that some of the people who were drinking would be legal to drive. But in real life, if those students had blown those BAC's, they all could have received a DUI."
The police told Trevor Ten Brink, who had the lowest BAC, that even his number legally could receive a ticket but that not all police would ticket someone with a .084.
Arsenault said that she felt the drinking exhibition went well, and that continued Wednesday when 375 students turned out for Oksoberfest in the Commons. Beyond just having information booths and food, Arsenault said that the police had beer goggles that students could try on for size.
The real Oktoberfest is a tradition in Munich, Germany, where people enjoy a variety of beers being served in beer gardens. Each year, 6 million visitors who drink more than 5 million liters of beer attend Oktoberfest.
Students who attended UWF's Oksoberfest, could drink from a keg of root beer donated by McGuire's Irish Pub, eat various desserts and visit booths that had information about alcohol awareness and peer education. Thursday evening was Alcohol Free Fun Night, where faculty and staff took on students in a game of dodgeball.
At Oksoberfest, students played a trivia game where they had to race through a pyramid by answering questions and get the answers right before they could move on. The winners of the game were given gift certificates that had been donated to the school.
"We are trying to find creative ways to get information about alcohol out to the student body," Arsenault said. "We focus on the prevention of alcohol misuse and abuse."
Arsenault said she hopes these events have made students more aware of their alcohol consumption and the effects alcohol can have on their judgment. Researchers from universities nationwide have been studying what causes students to drink heavily and what university prevention techniques work best to curb alcohol misuse.
According to an article on the misperceptions of college drinking norms and related problems that was published in the 2005 Journal of Studies on Alcohol, three-fourths of college students nationwide overestimate the amount of alcohol consumed by their peers at parties and social events. Researchers that conducted this nationwide study on exposure to prevention information included Wesley Perkins, Ph.D.; Michael Haines, M.S.; and Richard Rice, M.A.; from the departments of Anthropology and Sociology at Hobart and William Smith colleges in New York.
The study also found that whether a college campus' drinking norm is low, moderate or high, a consistently large number of students perceive that the norm is to drink more than actually is being consumed by the majority of students at their school. The researchers found that a student's perception of the campus drinking norm is a much more powerful predictor of their drinking behavior than what is actually being consumed by most of their school peers. This means that if students were to realize that their peers actually drink less than what they think, they too would be more likely to drink less.
"I feel there is an accurate perception of how much drinking goes on at UWF," Trevor Ten Brink said. "We have a smaller school, so it is easier to know different kinds of people. I know a bunch of people that drink way too much, some that only drink occasionally and others who never drink at all."