If you’re the parent of a college-bound teen, you should know that every school is a party school. Helping your student understand how the social drinking scene works and how to avoid getting sucked in to this destructive behavior is something every parent should consider.
According to Thomas Vander Ven, author of Getting Wasted, most American college campuses are home to a vibrant drinking scene where students frequently get wasted, train-wrecked, obliterated, hammered, destroyed, and decimated. The terms that university students most commonly use to describe severe alcohol intoxication share a common theme: destruction, and even after repeated embarrassing, physically unpleasant, and even violent drinking episodes, students continue to go out drinking together. In Getting Wasted, Thomas Vander Ven provides a unique answer to the perennial question of why college students drink.
Vander Ven argues that college students rely on “drunk support:” contrary to most accounts of alcohol abuse as being a solitary problem of one person drinking to excess, the college drinking scene is very much a social one where students support one another through nights of drinking games, rituals and rites of passage. Vander Ven argues that college students continue to drink heavily, even after experiencing repeated bad experiences, because of the social support that they give to one another and due to the creative ways in which they reframe and recast violent, embarrassing, and regretful drunken behaviors
“Vander Ven analyzes the college drinking culture in an entirely new way — through the eyes of college drinkers themselves. In doing so, he brings a unique voice to the college drinking debate, which will shape the discussion for decades to come. This is a must read for anyone who wants to understand college drinking and its consequences.” –Kathleen A. Bogle,author of Hooking Up: Sex, Dating, and Relationships on Campus
“Getting Wasted weaves many detailed stories of college drunkenness into a compelling account of its communal nature. Students don’t drink alone or get drunk alone. They do it together and the togetherness helps explain their otherwise baffling, self-destructive activities. This book is must reading for anyone interested in college students, drinking, and the combination of the two.” –Howard Becker, author of Outsiders: Studies In The Sociology Of Deviance
“The book is worth a read to get students’ perspectives on the binge-drinking culture, and provoke thought on how to address the problems that stem from it.” –Teresa Malcolm,National Catholic Reporter
Enter my book giveaway today and snag a copy of this book, read it, and encourage your college-bound teen to read it as well.