what an odd tradition in wisconsin

[oxfordcircus]

LA CROSSE, Wis. -- The city of La Crosse has started to build barriers to help stop the spate of students drowning in the Mississippi River after drinking.

Work began Friday on building gates, rails and chains at three entrances to a levee at the city's Riverside Park, which is two blocks from downtown bars.

Eight college-age men in nine years have disappeared from a city tavern and turned up dead in a river. The town has three colleges and three rivers.

The project is estimated to cost $33,000. It's expected to be completed by Oct. 1. But city staffers said they hope barriers will be installed before classes resume at area colleges this fall.

The new barriers include more railings at the main entrance that will form a maze people will have to navigate to reach entrance ramps.

http://www.channel3000.com/news/13775189/detail.html

 

[freckles and boo]

Yep. Drink until you fall in the river and die. What fun.

 

[Camicar]

I moved to WI as an adult and the amount of drinking that goes on here is like nothing I've ever seen anywhere else in the country. Many a small town consists of a church, a gas station and THREE bars.

Parents routinely give their teens beer to drink at will. Some of my female teen retail assistants would regularly get drunk at home and then get into bars (with obviously fake ids) and go home with whichever man bought them their last drink. (Why hire a prostitute in Madison when you can go into any bar and for the price of a drink get a pretty young girl to do whatever you want?) Drinking governs the social life on most of the college campuses and I know many a kid who has flunked out due to drinking -- which the parents consider a normal rite of passage. An article in the paper about a woman who was killed after a night of drinking on the street nearest campus talked about the 'nasty' level of drinking that goes on -- people do not drink to be social, they drink to get drunk to the point of unconsciousness. We are not talking about dregs of the earth people here -- we are talking about 'good' kids from 'good' homes consisting of teachers, electricians, bankers, nurses.

Finally and most sadly: When my dd was in 2nd grade the teacher had them write a 2 line 'essay' on what laws they would propose if they were president. 25% of the kids' essays were on, "I'd make a law against bars so my parents would stay home some nights instead of drinking."

 

[crzyred]

yes because only in wisconsin are college kids unsafe and unsmart about drinking....

 

[mickeyboat]

Wow, just wow.

(But I think it would be a little funny to watch a bunch of drunk people trying to navagate that maze.)

Organizers had to cancel an annual river flotilla festival up here because a Dartmouth student drank too much and drowned a few years ago. It's too bad because it looked like a lot of fun.

When I was in college, there was a lot of drinking, a lot of date rapes. And it was usually on Thursday nights, since lots of kids went home every weekend.

I think drinking excessively is a big problem on all college campuses.

Denae

 

[oxfordcircus]

yes because only in wisconsin are college kids unsafe and unsmart about drinking....

I think drinking excessively is a big problem on all college campuses.

Denae

i didn't mean to imply by my title that only wisconsin has this problem. it just seemed from the article that the situation was unique to one town which happened to be in wisconsin. what isn't obvious from this article is that it seems to be some sort of challenge that the drunk students are attempting - to swim the river. i don't think it's a case of accidentally falling in the water.

 

[sugarpie]

I'm from Wisconsin and more than a little annoyed by Camicar's post.

I was never given alcohol by my parents, I never had a fake ID, and I never went to bars as a teenager. Never heard of that. I did go to bars once I was old enough, but I have never gone home with a stranger for a beer. I really doubt my kids even know what a bar is, so I doubt they will be writing essays on my excessive drinking.

I don't deny that there's a lot of drinking at the college campuses that are mentioned. In fact I went to UW-LaCrosse for my first 2 years of college, and earned my degree at UW-Madison. Lots of drinking at both, but I don't recall any nights where I drank to get drunk to the point of unconsciousness.

 

[Jaimee]

I too was raised in Wisconsin and never drank in high school and my parents didn't leave me alone to go to a bar. I think the drinking problem is a big college campus issue. I seem to recall from the news stories that not all of the students were from Wisconsin either (just attended school here..). I think the problem is on a lot of campuses, unfortunately La Crosse is near the river and a lot of the bars are too. Hopefully this will prevent any more tragedies.

 

[mickeyboat]

Hey, Badger State: Your excessive drinking is no joke
By JULIA SHERMAN

Wisconsin's problem with dangerous and underage drinking has, once again, been making news:

Wisconsin Drinking

Two national magazines have identified Madison's annual State Street Halloween party as among the rowdiest events in the nation, noting: "Dress as a riot cop and fit right in."

• Six intoxicated young men, four of whom were college students, have drowned in La Crosse's area waters in seven years.

• Two Wisconsin metropolitan areas (Milwaukee-Waukesha and Duluth-Superior) were designated as high binge-drinking areas by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the American Journal of Public Health.

• Madison was named the 11th most dangerously drunk city in the nation by Men's Health Magazine.


http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=308714

Midwest rates high in heavy alcohol use

by Lee Lowenthal

Wednesday, February 23, 2005
It is no secret that those in college drink in excess and now a study conducted by the National Survey on Drug Use and Health corroborates the claims that students drink more than the general population.

In the most recent national survey on alcohol use throughout the country, college campuses were revealed as the most common sites of heavy drinking.

While 13.4 percent of 18 to 22 year olds not enrolled in a full-time college reported signs of heavy alcohol use, nearly 18 percent of the same age group were enrolled in a full-time college exhibited habits of high-risk drinking, according to the 2003 study released Feb.11, 2005. The standard measure for a heavy drinker is seven drinks for a male in one sitting and four drinks for a female in one sitting.

The study showed the breakdown of heavy alcohol use by region and concluded the Midwest to be the foremost region of the country cited for excessive drinking, while the South showed the fewest signs of risk drinking.

The University of Wisconsin is no exception to the rule.

“I think it is a northern climate issue, also partly [the number of residents] with Northern European heritage blended with a bit of Wild West ethics,” said University of Wisconsin associate professor of family medicine Richard Brown.

A staggering 30.2 percent of Madison residents in the 18 to 23 year old demographic reported heavy drinking more than 10 times a month, according to a Policy Alternatives Community and Education (PACE) study.

This figure is almost twice as high as the national average of heavy drinkers on college campuses.

However, the numbers do not tell the whole story.

“Madison [is seen to have] an extraordinarily high rate of binge-drinking because of the number of college students [in the immediate area.],” PACE Project Director Susan Crowley said.

Brown agreed with the sentiment, adding that Madison feels the effects of having “lots of young people in a state where drinking beer is a [large] part of the tradition.”

Many UW students are well aware of the notion of heavy, risk drinking before even setting foot on campus.

According to Crowley, students at Madison translate working hard during the week as a reason to party hard on the weekend and students are also more free thanks to an absence of authority figures formerly present in high school.

“Cheap, easy access to alcohol is a theme of Madison and contributes to risk drinking,” Crowley added, saying when students come to Madison from all over the country, the importance of alcohol use in the culture becomes all too apparent.

Brown feels that in order to truly cut down on the rate of excessive drinking, which amounts to the deaths of 1,400 college students throughout the country per year, Madison should enact higher taxes on beer purchases.

“Many studies show that drinking is price sensitive; other states with higher alcohol taxes have seen a decrease in drinking among young people.”

Alcohol use remains a staple of college life here at UW, with only 12 percent of the population abstaining from drinking. However, the prevalence of high-risk drinking on campus can also be attributed to drinking within the state and region.

“In this state, [alcohol use] becomes both a social and recreational activity.” Crowley said. “Drinking is [especially] part of the in-state students’ culture.”

http://badgerherald.com/news/2005/02/23/midwest_rates_high_i.php

It does sound like WI colleges have a larger than average problem.

 

[crzyred]

i didn't mean to imply by my title that only wisconsin has this problem. it just seemed from the article that the situation was unique to one town which happened to be in wisconsin. what isn't obvious from this article is that it seems to be some sort of challenge that the drunk students are attempting - to swim the river. i don't think it's a case of accidentally falling in the water.

well they aren't trying to swim across the river. i went to school in Winona MN which is about 20 minutes away from La Crosse, literally just up the river.

a few of these deaths occured while i was there. there wasn't anythign to indicate that the students were "horsing around" or being irresponsible. many witnesses actually have said that the ones that happened to drown ended up leaving the bars by themselves. so yes in a way that in itself is irresponsible.

La Crosse is built by the Mississippi River. Many bars are still along the river. Personally I see that La Crosse is actually trying to do something now to prevent more deaths as a positive thing.

 

[chyam]

I'm from Wisconsin and more than a little annoyed by Camicar's post.

I was never given alcohol by my parents, I never had a fake ID, and I never went to bars as a teenager. Never heard of that. I did go to bars once I was old enough, but I have never gone home with a stranger for a beer. I really doubt my kids even know what a bar is, so I doubt they will be writing essays on my excessive drinking.

I don't deny that there's a lot of drinking at the college campuses that are mentioned. In fact I went to UW-LaCrosse for my first 2 years of college, and earned my degree at UW-Madison. Lots of drinking at both, but I don't recall any nights where I drank to get drunk to the point of unconsciousness.

Well I moved from Wisconsin and I will agree with you 100%. I too thought Camicar's post was a little excessive. Yes my town had bars, schools and churchs and I always said that when I left I would find the same bar stools filled with the same people if I returned 25 years later. But I don't think that in general that the whole state is a bunch of drunkards! Probably more so around the campuses because these kids are now away from their parents and have freedoms. And I never had someone buy me a drink to take me home, nor would I have gone home with them!

 

[hercamore]

czyred, , I agree with you. Glad to see that the City of LaCross is waking up and doing somehting to prevent more deaths.

I'm in SE MN about 60 miles from Lacrosse area.


herc.

 

[Camicar]

I'm from Wisconsin and more than a little annoyed by Camicar's post.

Sorry, but I am reporting the reality I see every day. I do not live amongst the dregs of society - I am living in suburbia and work/live amongst people with college degrees.

When 25% of my suburban elementary school's 2nd grade kids are choosing to pick as their number one priority for laws that their parents keep out of bars, I'm willing to state that there is a big problem here.

When more than half of my teen assistants tell me that their parents are the ones who gave them their first drink, I'm willing to state that there is a big problem here.

When ALL of the people I know whose kids went to UW campuses report that the social life largely revolves around drinking to unconsciousness, then I'm willing to state that there is a big problem here.

When the Wisconsin State Journal does a front page story* on how drinking is different now than 30 years ago and how it's now all about drinking to extreme excess, then I'm willing to state that there is a big problem here.

I'm not saying that every person in WI is a drunk, nor am I a bible-thumping teetotaler myself. But I can state that based upon way more than anecdotal evidence (see the post above that cites two separate articles), there is much higher than normal drinking problem in this state.

I have lived all over the country and never seen this level of drinking anywhere else.


*

The case of Kelly Nolan, a 22-year-old UW-Whitewater student murdered after a night of partying in Downtown Madison, has reverberated in ways large and small across the city and led to a new round of hard questions about the intersection of alcohol, crime and risky behavior.

"I wish we could give the average Madisonian just a glimpse of what we see," said UW-Madison Police Chief Susan Riseling. "It's not the romantic remembrance people have of drinking during their college days. It's a much more graphic, gritty, vulgar thing than they realize."
...

Nolan's body was found in a wooded area Monday near the border of Fitchburg and the town of Dunn. No arrests have been made.

Nolan had been convicted of drunken driving twice in the last three years, serving 14 days in jail this spring for the most recent offense.

At Connections Counseling in Madison, which runs an outpatient alcohol and drug program for college students, the Nolan case has elicited strong feelings and fears among college students receiving treatment, said Director Shelly Dutch. While these students are able to acknowledge the jeopardy they once put themselves in, the typical response from college students is denial, Dutch said.

Dutch calls this "terminal uniqueness," or the ability to convince yourself you're exempt from bad endings.

"They'll say, Well, that could never happen to me because I never drink that much, or I don't black out, or I would never go home with someone I don't know.' There's a whole process of rationalization."

...A 2003 analysis by the Madison Police Department of substantial batteries in the Downtown area found 77 percent of the victims and 73 percent of the suspects were believed to have used alcohol. When people drink to excess -- on State Street or anywhere else -- "the risk level just goes huge," Schauf said.

During a meeting Thursday of about 100 parents attending student orientation sessions with their children at UW-Madison, a gasp swept through the crowd when an employee of University Health Services noted that one of the 112 students taken to detox during the prior school year had a blood-alcohol level of .41, more than five times the legal limit.

Later at the same meeting, parents shook their heads in disbelief as a campus police lieutenant read off descriptions of some of the students taken to detox -- the girl passed out in a courtyard with her pants around her ankles, the boy unable to talk and unaware of the date, time or location.

...Drinking for friendship

Smith, the college senior who is now in alcohol-abuse counseling, said she didn't start drinking until the summer between her freshman and sophomore years.

She was lonely and wanted to make new friends. "It's what I saw most people did to meet people -- go drinking."

She says she was simply oblivious to the negative aspects of alcohol, even though she was drinking almost every night to the point of drunkenness.

Link: http://www.madison.com/wsj/mad/top/index.php?ntid=201436

 

[sugarpie]

Sorry, but I am reporting the reality I see every day. I do not live amongst the dregs of society - I am living in suburbia and work/live amongst people with college degrees.

When 25% of my suburban elementary school's 2nd grade kids are choosing to pick as their number one priority for laws that their parents keep out of bars, I'm willing to state that there is a big problem here.

When more than half of my teen assistants tell me that their parents are the ones who gave them their first drink, I'm willing to state that there is a big problem here.

When ALL of the people I know whose kids went to UW campuses report that the social life largely revolves around drinking to unconsciousness, then I'm willing to state that there is a big problem here.

When the Wisconsin State Journal does a front page story* on how drinking is different now than 30 years ago and how it's now all about drinking to extreme excess, then I'm willing to state that there is a big problem here.

I'm not saying that every person in WI is a drunk, nor am I a bible-thumping teetotaler myself. But I can state that based upon way more than anecdotal evidence (see the post above that cites two separate articles), there is much higher than normal drinking problem in this state.

I have lived all over the country and never seen this level of drinking anywhere else.

Your "statistics" are not worth my time disputing. I never said there isn't a drinking problem at a lot of the college campuses. But your "statistics" are a little off.

 

[oxfordcircus]

well they aren't trying to swim across the river.

you're correct. my interpretation was based on a conversation about the article. my mistake.

 

[freckles and boo]

Many college students drink to excess all across the country, but there is a long-standing drinking culture in Wisconsin. To deny it would be kind of silly.

 

[crzyred]

you're correct. my interpretation was based on a conversation about the article. my mistake.

sorry i wasn't arguing with you!

camicar: i'm wondering what will happen when your child goes off to college. will you send them to another state because wisconsin is so horrible?

 

[crzyred]

Many college students drink to excess all across the country, but there is a long-standing drinking culture in Wisconsin. To deny it would be kind of silly.

yes there is. and yes it would be silly to deny it. however, i do believe it is completely wrong to assume that EVERY person in wisconsin is this way.

 

[freckles and boo]

yes there is. and yes it would be silly to deny it. however, i do believe it is completely wrong to assume that EVERY person in wisconsin is this way.

Of course not every person in Wisconsin drinks, let alone drinks to excess. I wouldn't suggest such a thing. But with the German/Czech/Scandanavian ancestry, brewery history, lower drinking age than the surrounding states for many years, and northern weather, there isn't as much of a stigma about overindulging as there is in many other places. Everyone, and I do mean everyone, in the Illinois town I grew up in knew that Madison was the place to go to school if you wanted to party. Friends that grew up there drank early and often. Wisconsin is a beautiful state and if my daughter's want to attend college there I hope it will be because of the educational opportunities and not the perceived social ones.

 

[petrymom]

Many college students drink to excess all across the country, but there is a long-standing drinking culture in Wisconsin. To deny it would be kind of silly.

I subscribed to this post last night as I needed to run and wanted to respond to this thread. This topic is a major topic in my life. I feel very strongly about alcohol in the wrong places ro used too much.

Though I do not feel that Wisconsin is the only place were heavy drinking is a problem, I do feel there is an innopropriate acceptance of binge drinking in this state.

I have seen many of the perils of alcohol. My maternal grandfather died of cirrhosis of the liver. He fractured my grandmother's skull with a chair while on a drinking binge. My father was an alcoholic and drank hiimself into traction for 6 months when I was 10.

My father in law was a lifelong alcoholic (and abusive when the kids were young).

I have always been scared that I might become addicted to alcohol as there is obviously a tendency to alcoholism in my family. I chose not to drink and DH does not drink either.

BUT, as our kids are getting older, we are exposed to alcohol more and more. DS's baseball (little league) tournaments and games. Many of the parent's load their trunks with liquor and mix drinks all day at these tourneys and drive their kids home after a day of drinking at little boys tourneys. The kids talk about whose parents make a fool of themselves at the bars after wrestling tournaments and who's husband was oblivious to the fact that his wife is flirting with somebody else's dad. This is a hard thing to explain to kids who are not generally exposed to such behavior. How do you explain why DS's baseball coach is walking around drunk at a baseball tournament (after their game, of course).

Society as a whole is teaching our children from a young age that alcohol is acceptable and sometimes necessary to socialize. This is not true. Peopel can have fun without alcohol.

Again, I don't believe that Wisconsin is alone, but since I live only in Wisconsin, I can attest to the fact that there is an issue here and it is NOT ONLY COLLEGE KIDS!!! A sad, but true fact.

Okay, I have said my peace.