Some students wake up on Saturday morning having to nurse their headaches and fight off nausea, while others won’t wake up until well into the afternoon.

But for those whose night ended in the hospital, the night’s antics may be part of a larger problem.

The Office of Judicial Affairs reported 165 cases of extreme drug and alcohol intoxication during SU’s 2010-2011 academic year, often resulting in trips to the hospital. Judicial Affairs reported 122 cases for the 2009-2010 academic year.

In the past couple of years, SU has consistently placed in the top 20 party schools in various national rankings. In August, the university landed the No. 10 spot in the Princeton Review, based on online surveys that polled about 325 students.

While the rankings may be an attractive quality for some students, binge drinking has caused an alarming amount of students to be transported to the hospital for alcohol poisoning.

“I hate to say this, but that means in some cases they were one or two drinks away from possibly dying,” said Cory Wallack, director at SU’s Counseling Center.

Paul Smyth, EMS manager for SU Ambulance, said that in the majority of cases in which SUA receives emergency calls about an individual being heavily intoxicated, the dispatcher is not informed that the person has been drinking. More often, SUA is notified that someone has injured him or herself, or is extremely ill.

It is only upon arriving at the scene that the emergency crew can assess an individual’s level of intoxication, he said.

A medical amnesty policy has been in the works since 2009, when the policy was first introduced to Chancellor Nancy Cantor. The policy would encourage students to call an ambulance in the case of extreme alcohol intoxication without fear of consequences from the university.

Nearly 600,000 students between the ages of 18 and 24 are injured while under the influence of alcohol, and 1,825 students per year die from alcohol-related injuries, according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

“If they’re intoxicated where their judgment is impaired, then we have a duty to act where we have to bring them to the hospital,” Smyth said. “The term we use is ‘fully conscious and alert, times three to four.’”

The Department of Health guidelines state that at the level of three or four, an individual cannot make an informed decision for their own well-being and must therefore be placed under a doctor’s care, Smyth said.

Wallack, director of the Counseling Center, said that one way the university tries to monitor binge drinking is through AlcoholEdu, an online course required of incoming freshman. Results of the course’s surveys show that many incoming SU students are already frequent drinkers, he said.

“What we consistently see is that Syracuse students are drinking at higher rates than the national average,” Wallack said. “That’s before they’re on campus.”

While this is in many ways troubling to the university, Wallack said their stance is not to completely shut down the party culture altogether.

“We’re not trying to push abstinence,” he said. “Our stance is actually not ‘don’t drink.’ Our stance for any student, regardless of age, is ‘if you’re going to drink, make wise choices and be careful about it.’”

This was not the case for Dan, an SU student who declined to disclose his last name. When Dan woke up in his dorm room bruised, cut up and covered in mud after a night out, the then-freshman tried to retrace his steps from the night before.

After downing half a liter of vodka and four double shots of rum back to back, the last thing he could remember was falling down on the sidewalk. When he regained consciousness, he was in the back of an ambulance. But he’ll never know exactly what happened that night.

“There’s a dude and a girl yelling at me … and they were just like, ‘You realize we found you by yourself on the street, laying down on Clarendon?’ and I was like, ‘No, obviously I don’t remember that,’” said Dan, now a senior.

This is not the only time Dan has experienced blackouts from drinking. After one episode, Dan found himself lost in the middle of Syracuse, forcing him to use a GPS to find his way home.

Though this type of behavior — excessive drinking that results in blacking out, passing out, vomiting or other injuries — is often viewed as normal and almost expected of college students, the effects of this type of drinking don’t wear off when the hangover subsides.

Binge drinking habits may not change after graduation, said Dessa Bergen-Cico, an assistant professor in the David B. Falk College of Sport and Human Dynamics who teaches a course on addictions.

“Most people kind of mature out of heavy drinking, but for roughly 5 to 10 percent of the students, they continue that heavy drinking after college and may have problematic alcohol abuse,” she said.

Bergen-Cico noted that chronic excessive drinking during an extended period of time will lead to serious long-term health effects, such as cirrhosis of the liver, stomach and esophageal cancer, and cardiovascular problems.

But for Wallack, it is the short-term effects of excessive drinking that concern him. He worries that students don’t realize how binge drinking will affect their everyday lives.

Wallack highlighted the link between heavy drinking and increased anxiety and depression. The largest problem, however, is how excessive drinking often affects academics.

“There’s some really strong data that shows the more a student drinks, the lower their grade point average is,” he said.

Wallack said about 25 percent of students will report performing poorly on an exam due to alcohol use, whether missing classes because they were hungover from the night before or neglecting to study in favor of going out at night to drink. 

But while missing an exam because of excessive drinking may seem relatively minor in the grand scheme of things, alcohol addiction in college is a prevalent issue.

Said Wallack: “There are some students who have alcohol dependency while they’re in college, whether it’s recognized or not.”

Published on October 29, 2012 at 3:03 am

Contact Avery: avhartma@syr.edu | @averyhartmans