In Illinois, binge drinking dropped when students learned that not everybody
does it

When students at Northern Illinois University were asked to guess how many
of their peers drink heavily, the results were surprising. Officials found
those surveyed guessed high far too high.

Those overestimates about binging have led to a new weapon in the battle to
curb college drinking: Telling kids the truth.

Heavy drinking dropped on the De Kalb, Ill., campus after administrators
went public with the survey results, which showed that not nearly as many
people favored "binge" drinking (having five or more drinks while
"partying") as students thought.

This positive peer pressure approach has caught the eye of the US Department
of Education and other universities, who are beginning to see it as a viable
alternative to fighting alcohol abuse on campus, often called the No. 1
problem in American higher education.

"This approach does work, we have seen this, that there is a modification of
binge drinking," says Lavona Grow, a program analyst at the Safe and
DrugFree Schools program at the Department of Education. "Once students
realize, 'Gee, not everyone is doing this,' it does change the drinking
patterns."

A recent study by the Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia
University in New York reported that alcohol is a factor in 28 percent of
dropouts and 40 percent of all academic problems. It also reported that,
over a twoweek span, 42 percent of all students get involved in "binge
drinking."

But at Northern Illinois University, binge drinking that used to involve 45
percent of the student body has dropped by 35 percent and alcoholrelated
injuries have fallen 31 percent over six years. The school's approach has
been replicated at the University of Arizona in Tucson, which in only a year
reduced drinking by 7 percent. Another two dozen or so colleges across the
US are in early stages of using it as well.

Some critics and many administrators say, however, that a tougher approach
is needed that makes alcohol less available.

In Massachusetts, for example, after the alcoholrelated deaths of three
college students here this fall, the state's Board of Education voted
unanimously to urge a statewide ban at its 29 publicly funded campuses. It
is the first state to put forward such a sweeping mandate to address the
drinking issue.

Education Department support

Still, supporters of the "changing misperceptions of the norm" approach see
a place for it in the mix of solutions. The Education Department, for
example, now gives money to schools trying ways to fight binge drinking.

The inventor of the new approach, H. Wesley Perkins, professor of sociology
at Hobart & William Smith, in Geneva, N.Y., was first to discover that
students would change their drinking behavior to conform to more accurate
information about the drinking expectations of their peers.

But it was Michael Haines, the health services coordinator at Northern
Illinois, who latched onto Professor Perkins's idea the year after three
students died from incidents related to alcohol at the school.

At first, Mr. Haines's team tried traditional methods to squelch binge
drinking and alert Northern Illinois students to the hazards of alcohol
abuse a simulated drunkdriving car crash on the mall, inviting media
personalities to speak against drunkenness, and pamphlets and posters,
telling about the hazards and harm. Excess drinking rose.

Haines decided to shift gears and adapted the Perkins example. First, he
surveyed 1,000 students. He found 45 percent of the student body actually
drank to excess. But students mistakenly thought that 69.3 percent of their
peers were drinking too much.

"Because peoples' perceptions of what is 'normal' are strong mediators of
behavior, we felt this overestimation of heavy drinking was pushing students
to drink more," Haines says. "We felt that if someone could change that
perception, we could reduce heavy drinking."

Getting the message out

Haines and his crew of three had a budget of only $8,000 when they set out
to correct student perceptions. It allowed them to hire student actors to
dress up as the "Blues Brothers" and give away $1 bills to those who could
tell them what the majority on campus really thought about drinking. It was
a highprofile, lowcost campaign.

In addition, the student newspaper, the campus Web site, classified ads,
posters, and flyers all featured this simple message: "Most students have
five or fewer drinks when they party."

After that, Haines says, student attitudes regarding drinking began to
approximate "the norm" of what students actually expected and approved of
which was far less alcohol consumption than most people thought.

Students come to college with "this 'Animal House' view created by mass
media that all students are heavy drinkers," says Perkins. "We can combat
that with print advertising, an electronic online mass media campaign.... If
we can tell them the truth, the students respond."