Union booze

It doesn’t take a genius to realise that students like to drink. They will have a pint in the day or at night, between lectures, and yes they will drink during that famous rite of passage known as Freshers’. I mean, can you honestly remember the last time you went to a party all alone, in a strange place and perhaps an alien city, facing lots of new people, without a little Dutch courage to help you on your way?

Yet, according to “a group of experts,” “a recent study” and my mum, the university experience has been reduced to one big amoral haze in which memories and virginities are lost, ditches are fallen into and questionable kebabs are consumed cautiously at the roadside.

But while the statistics concerning drinking in universities or the number of directly related accidents that are caused might be alarmingly thin, the message is quite clear: booze is bad and student unions are actively promoting an unhealthy culture of excess.
I aim to prove why this is really not the case.

Admittedly from the public health perspective, alcohol doesn’t do itself any favours – high doses can cause intoxication, stupor, coma and in some bizarre circumstances, the enjoyment of house music; but in lower levels, its effects may actually be benign. As a social lubricant, alcohol channels creativity, improves confidence and provides a much needed release from those stressful six hours a week. It is possible after all, for a student to get drunk without getting smashed, though my mum will never believe it.

In any case, unions definitely don’t promote excess and these images, (usually found off campus) of beer-guzzling teenagers endorsing 2-for-1 discount deals, do the student population a great injustice.

The Huffington Post reported last year that 37% of a nationwide sample of (only) 2,027 students, drank at hazardous drinking levels of 51 or more units per week for men, and 36 or more units for women, but the fact that hardly anyone goes to campus bars shows that most will be doing so away from their SU.

In reality, the income that student unions make from drink has declined so much that they are now changing bars into coffee and juice venues (that’s essentially what The Courtyard is anyway,) with unions actually being lauded by support groups for their responsible drinking policies. Gone are the days of free shots on entry, and in are the alcohol awareness leaflets that cover the bar tops and litter the floor.

That said, if people are going to drink exceptional amounts of alcohol, surely there is no safer place to do it than within one’s unions? After all, how many bars out there will stop serving kaylied students when they’ve had four too many, offer them transport home and stay with them until such transport arrives? Tommy Fong just doesn’t care.

Yes, binge drinking is an issue that affects students, but it is also part of a much wider, national crisis that does not originate in student communities, and certainly not one consolidated by unions. All the same, I think that alcohol does have a necessary role to play at university, if only to provide icebreakers and anecdotes, or to cope with meeting someone who does Maths.