Halloween celebrations on campus are being harmed by a toxic drinking culture which is detrimental to the experience of student's and their well-being
By: Dawn McKee/Opinion Contributor
Halloween at McMaster is often seen as a time for students to take a break from their busy schedules and have fun. However, many of the off-campus celebrations revolve around heavy drinking and wild parties. This can seem like just a normal part of university life, but it raises important questions about how much drinking is too much and the impact it has on students' well-being.
There’s no denying that parties and alcohol often go hand in hand, especially around big events like Halloween. But when drinking becomes the focus, it can lead to risky behavior and long-term health issues. For some students, the pressure to join in can feel overwhelming, leaving little room for those who don’t drink or prefer quieter celebrations.
McMaster offers some alternatives, like sober events, but they are often overshadowed by the louder, more popular parties. These options are important for creating a more inclusive atmosphere where everyone can enjoy Halloween, whether or not they drink. More effort could be put into promoting these events and normalizing different ways to celebrate.
In the end, Halloween should be about having fun and not about feeling pressured to drink too much. Students, as well as the university, should consider how to strike a better balance. By encouraging safer and healthier events with the focus on something other than alcohol, we can make Halloween a more enjoyable experience for everyone, without the downside of toxic drinking culture.
More than 2,000 maroon-clad students ventured to Dalewood Avenue last Saturday to celebrate McMaster’s first ever “Fake Homecoming” or FOCO, one of the largest student street parties that the university has seen in years.
FOCO was planned in response to the university’s decision to move its annual Homecoming event to the weekend of Oct. 18, overlapping with the end of reading week.
The unsanctioned street party began as a Facebook event called “MAC FOCO 2019 - A new beginning”. According to the page, it had over 2,700 attendees. The party coincided with the McMaster Marauders’ 47-19 win against the Windsor Lancers.
While the reason for the timing change is likely due to the 2019 football schedule, students took it upon themselves to organize a replacement Homecoming event that satisfied their own schedule.
The Facebook event description stressed that although the McMaster administration had decided to move HOCO, this would not stop students from taking advantage of an opportunity to celebrate. Visitors to the page were told to come to Dalewood on Sept. 21 and show their school spirit.
The event attracted the attention of the Hamilton Police and the McMaster administration. A day before, both parties stated in a press release that they were visiting residences to remind students to respect the community.
The Hamilton police noted that they — as well as city partners — would have an increased presence in the neighbourhood to discourage anything and anyone that might be disruptive. Particular emphasis was placed on forbidding large parties and alcohol on the streets.
HOCO has a history of safety concerns and in previous years, there have been issues of students publicly urinating and disrupting neighbors and making inappropriate comments during HOCO concerts. In addition, one woman was run over by a police horse during Homecoming in 2018.
Fortunately, FOCO did not run into such problems. Hamilton Police closed off Dalewood between Main Street West and Westwood Avenue and used caution tape to section off homes not housing students or interested in participating. With the exception of a few medical calls and bylaw tickets, the police made no arrests.
Students remained respectful and enjoyed their time day-drinking on front lawns and walking down the street. Some students even helped clean the street after the parties subsided, earning the gratitude of the Hamilton Police. In addition, the MSU planned a litter pick-up on the street for the Sunday after.
On Twitter, the Hamilton police wrote, “A special thanks to these #McMasterU students for taking the time to clean up after today’s unsanctioned homecoming event in the Ainslee Wood/Westdale area in #HamONT. Thanks for being #good neighbours.”
FOCO also drew in other students from outside Hamilton.
“It was lit. I had a really fun time and I wasn’t worried about anything. Overall, it was really relaxing,” said Trevor Chang, a third-year Laurier student and regular HOCO participant.
The success of FOCO has encouraged some students to plan a similar event next year should McMaster’s annual Homecoming fall during reading week once again.
“It’s a cultural thing. Of course there will be another FOCO. If we want to, university students are going to plan something like this again,” said a McMaster student who wishes to remain anonymous.
Regardless, the event supports the possibility of over 2,000 McMaster students attending an entirely student-run Homecoming event with no major issues.
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To suggest that university students are buying into the culture of partying and binge drinking as an expected part of campus life is an all too clichéd and patronizing generalization. The myth of the “party campus” does not exaggerate the existence of large-scale frosh and homecoming house parties, but it does exaggerate their occurrences and popularity.
In popular media, post-secondary institutions are still synonymous with Hollywood depictions of young people, enjoying their newfound freedom through excessive partying, cheap beer, drugs and sexual liberation.
There’s some truth in these depictions, but they are mostly stories told about a minority of students. While this myth has not influenced the behaviour of the vast majority of students, it has created a perceived norm among undergraduates. More significantly, it has skewed measurements of how much alcohol is too much.
Binge drinking — five or more drinks for men, and four or more for women in one sitting — is inevitably part of not just university life, but young adulthood as a whole. The Canadian Campus Survey in 2004 reported that 28 percent of students across Canada are heavy drinkers, and 32 percent of undergraduates meet the criteria for “drinking hazardously.”
Even underage drinking, while clearly frowned upon, is widely accepted as an essential part of the coming-of-age university experience, and few university students would argue for strict, effective steps to be taken to end this practice.
The danger of this drinking culture does not lie in an inability to see one-time excessive drinking as a threat, but in the way its complacency prevents students who regularly drink unhealthy amounts of alcohol to recognize their behaviour as problematic.
The Reality:
McMaster participated in the National College Health Assessment (NCHA) in 2013. The study ultimately concluded that students overestimate the norm for alcohol consumption levels on campus.
When asked about the amount of drinks participants consumed the last time they “partied,” 24 percent said they didn’t drink, 29 percent of students consumed three to five drinks, and 24 percent of students consumed six to ten drinks. When asked what they thought the “typical student at Mac” drank, students estimated that 45 percent of students consumed three to five drinks and 43 percent of students consumed six to ten drinks. This data indicates that most students drink a limited amount, but many believe the majority of McMaster students drink heavier, thus promoting a larger acceptance of binge drinking, and possibly leading to a perceived need to drink more.
The vast majority of students said that they experienced at least one of the negative consequences associated with binge drinking: getting in trouble with police, non-consensual sex, unprotected sex, physically injuring someone else, or contemplating suicide. About 25 percent of students experienced other minor, negative effects associated with drinking, such as feeling some kind of regret about something they did while drinking.
Arrive and Thrive:
Raising awareness about student behaviour, substance-based or otherwise, is an important part of many campus initiatives. Arrive and Thrive is a comprehensive McMaster project that has been funded through the Mental Health Innovation Fund provided by the Ontario Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities. The focus of the project is to help students develop approaches to deal with mental health and addiction issues, with a focus on students who are transitioning into university.
The campaign, due for a fall launch, consists of three parts. First, Arrive and Thrive Online will launch as a questionnaire designed to help students identify their current habits and coping strategies, offer immediate feedback about how their habits compare to their peers’, and suggest further resources both online and on campus if they feel that they are experiencing difficulty. The second portion, titled Pause, will allow students to meet with a professional counsellor trained in the area of substance use and addiction on a self-referred basis. The final part of the service will introduce a series of interventions and courses to support healthy habits and coping with problematic ones.
“It’s tough because you have this perception that it’s a rampant problem and if I don’t do it, I’m not conforming to the norm. But then, you don’t want to minimize those people that are in the far side of dangerous drinking,” says Arrive and Thrive Project and Research Coordinator Allan Fein.
“Most people will have a positive and fun experience associated with drinking and alcohol, and it’s the few that we really need to focus on. How do we target those people in a way that’s not demeaning to them and not putting them down and not victimizing them or blaming them, but is helping them?” added Fein.
“It’s really about a harm reduction approach, trying to take the person and say, you know, you’re a whole person, you’re not just an alcoholic, you’re not just someone who is dealing with mental health but you are a whole person and let’s deal with you as a whole person and figure out the best way for you to be most successful.”
Dr. Catherine Munn, who is also heading the project, stresses that “people drink for a reason and the reasons are unique to each individual who drinks … It’s really about educating everyone about what is healthy drinking and what is risky or problematic drinking.”
Problematic drinking habits are linked to the motivations behind the habits. Alternatives for Youth is an organization that provides services for youth with addictions. Their Executive Director, Penny Burley, referred to the 2004 Canadian Campus survey that asked students to identify the reasons they drank.
“Largely the reasons youth identify were to be social and to celebrate … when we look at the youth that we work with, often those are the initial reasons for engaging in drinking or other substance use, but overtime, for some people, it can become about anxiety, mood issues. It can become about various mental health concerns, it can be about stress, about coping. So while in the survey there are fewer people who tend to identify that’s the reason they drink. It often becomes the reason why they continue to drink.”
Burley believes that there is a need for a widespread approach that aims to educate and raise awareness about low-risk drinking guidelines and offers alternatives. “I think there’s a responsibility as a community, as a society, to work on changing that culture somewhat. And so when I look, there are university campuses that have policies and protocols to try and shift that culture — things like having dry frosh weeks. It won’t eliminate alcohol use by any means, but it gives youth an alternative.”
An Alcoholics Anonymous volunteer, who shall remain nameless due to AA policy, shared her story with The Silhouette, and the concerns she has about young people lacking the resources to recognize problematic alcohol consumption. She described what she felt separated her personal experience with alcohol from that of others around her. “If I was partying and drinking, there would be people who come to a point and they’d say ‘I’m going to bed, or I’m going home, or I’ve had enough,’ but not me. I was always looking for that next drink, always thinking about that next drink.”
“I used to come home and I’d think I was going to the bar on Friday night and even before I got there — I remember one time I was sitting there — and I was thinking about the night and I remember saying, ‘oh, I could just feel the rush of that drink and what it was going to do for me and I could talk to people and you know, be more friendly and open and not be an introvert,’ … it was a high for me even before I got the drink.”
She further stressed the importance of recognizing a problem, “It’s physical, it’s mental, it’s spiritual for us, you know. We don’t have anything left because alcohol takes everything away. And if you’re younger you have to think you’re going to save yourself all those years, all that pain, but you can’t force it on anyone. If they’re not ready, they’re not ready.”
When Arrive and Thrive makes its official launch this fall season, it will come as an invitation for students to be conscious about the choices they make. Its aim isn’t to tell students that the decisions they are making are wrong, or that there is something inherently shameful about these decisions. It will offer online questionnaires, professional help, courses and extended services in an attempt to reach parts of the student population that may be otherwise left without the outlets to ask the right questions, and seek help if they need to.
For additional information and guidelines for safe drinking, this brochure by the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse is a good starting point. Additional information about the CSAA is available on their website.
I guess you could say I’m pretty edgy. I have a leather jacket, sometimes lick peanut butter off the knife and one time I almost got a facial piercing.
But I wasn’t always this rebellious. Oh no, there was a period wherein I was, if you can believe it, pretty straight edge. Did my civic duty as a small town inhabitant, stayed quiet, kept my nose clean. My curfew was self-imposed for “before dark,” despite the fact that my parents insisted I could (should?) stay out longer. I participated for a few years of Scouting, and got a pretty respectable amount of badges: selling cookies, setting up tents, learning about the virtues of chastity.
You know, the regular stuff.
I had a personal code that I adhered to, and not even my closest, coolest friends could persuade me to bend those rules. One of those rules was that I definitely did not drink. As a hockey player in a boring town attending a public school, my sober statute was an anomaly.
For the better part of high school, Monday chatter in the hallways would surround how drunk everyone had gotten at the party on Friday and/or Saturday. I would usually be sitting on the floor in front of my locker, skimming through The Globe or talking with a classmate about last night’s homework. Some days I would be going through a math problem with a dry erase marker on my locker (I was totally that kid).
I kept my mouth shut and smiling face to my party-happy schoolmates, nodding and laughing at the appropriate moments. But once my fellow nerds and I were left to our own devices, faces of amusement turned to scorn. We criticized their binge drinking, their drug use and their parents’ negligence. We used self-assured tones and condescending language. Standing on our moral high ground, I felt a sense of superiority.
What an asshole.
The superiority was totally fabricated by conflating my personal decisions with the moral ideal; being secure in my own choices went hand-in-hand with putting down those of others. And not only that, but broadcasting my distain to people I knew would agree.
Having an opinion, no matter how secure you are in it, does not mean dismissing others’. It doesn’t invalidate your opinion if you accept those of others, open-minded and without judgement. As long as a person is respecting themselves and those around them, their other decisions are really just tangential. Dismissing the choices of others, talking about them condescendingly, feeling better about yourself because you made certain different choices, doesn’t make you a confident, secure person. It makes you disrespectful.
I’m not saying that you can’t talk about your opinions - this section wouldn’t exist without you doing just that – but don’t do it to put down others or lift yourself up. Do it because you’re passionate about something, because you enjoy a healthy, respectful debate, because talking things through helps clear things up in your mind.
Do it because your opinions matter to you, and are part of who you are.
And I would hope that who you are is not an asshole.
@samwisegodfrey
Amanda Watkins
LifeStyle Editor
It was homecoming weekend. There I was at 9:00 in the morning, dancing to Nicki Minaj and far from my normal sober reality.
My housemates and I were hosting our own informal house party to get ready for the football game as we passed around a can of something called “Sucker Punch” and a tube of maroon lipstick. Because hey, what’s a little oral herpes among friends?
The concept of “day drinking” was foreign to me, and quite frankly, I had no idea that a football game and face paint also meant we needed to start hitting the Sambuca 12 hours earlier than normal.
Prior to starting university, I led a pretty alcohol-free and sports-free life. And although I wasn’t all too familiar with either of these worlds, a part of me knew that they weren’t always grouped into one.
As we eventually made our way to campus to watch the game, I was greeted by a string of piss drunk students who, in addition to making me feel sorry for toilet bowls across Hamilton, also made me feel a lot better about my own alcohol tolerance. Everyone had their Mac sweaters on and seemed to be pretty jazzed, but a lot of people seemed completely oblivious to what would be going on that day.
Homecoming means showing school spirit. It’s a time to welcome back alumni and celebrate your school with your classmates and friends. It could mean decking yourself out in maroon and grey, or learning the obscure lyrics to the McMaster anthem, but getting sick from the drink seems like a burnout excuse for enthusiasm. Alcohol is fun and delicious. I will say that openly without feeling shameful or like a washed up Disney star. But I will also say that I know it’s not a necessary part of having school spirit.
As fun as it was to be drunk in the wee hours of the morn’, it was also kind of sad. My friends and I left the game at halftime because we all felt like shit. And by 6:00 in the evening, we were all lying on the ground, completely hung-over from the morning passed.
As fun as it is to escape from reality for a while, being wasted all the time makes you lose sight of what we’re actually here for. And so, with that being said, I announce my quest for sobriety. For the next month, I will be leading a completely alcohol-free life. And yes, that does include Halloween.
You don’t need to follow my example, especially seeing as we’ve laid out this week’s issue with a kick-ass Mac-inspired drink, beer reviews and hangover cures. But as you indulge in our suggestions and advice, just be safe, use your judgment and remember that we're all coming together this weekend to respectfully celebrate our school.
So thank you, alcohol, for helping make and erase a long string of memories. But I think it may be time for things to change.
By: Alon Coret
Drunk. Tipsy. Inebriated. Intoxicated. Hammered. Trashed. Sloshed. S***-faced. Slizzered. F***** up. Our extensive vocabulary says it all: alcohol consumption is very common in our society, especially on university campuses. For many first-year students, getting drunk has almost become a rite of passage. Alcohol is a substance that allows people to relax, feel less inhibited and be livelier, making it an integral part of any social occasion. Problems arise when alcohol consumption becomes excessive, leading to higher risk of negative physical and/or sexual behaviors, violence, vomiting, and in extreme cases even death.
It is easy to establish a dichotomy when it comes to drinking patterns by labeling people either as ‘alcoholics’ and ‘non-alcoholics.’ This oversimplification is not only wrong, but also gives many regular (and sometimes heavy) drinkers the chance to avoid the classification of alcoholism. Instead, we should be thinking of alcohol consumption as a continuum, ranging from normal, socially acceptable, and healthy drinking to detrimental, long-term drinking. The McMaster Student Wellness Center (SWC) outlines four main ‘types’ of drinkers that we should be aware of:
While most university students fall into the first two categories, gradually developing a more serious dependence on alcohol is not as big of a jump as one might think.
The SWC also identified possible risk factors for becoming an alcoholic. These include: beginning to drink early (before age 16), drinking more than one to two drinks per day, being under a lot of stress, having an underlying psychiatric condition or being a smoker. One or more of these risk factors likely applies to many university students.
It’s not just long-term or dependent drinkers that experience negative effects on their health. Episodic, or binge drinking, can have serious health ramifications as well. A study conducted at the Complutense University of Madrid showed that binge drinking causes general brain deterioration similar to that caused by old age, such as dementia. Binge drinking has also been shown to damage the hippocampus region of the brain, affecting cognitive performance and long-term memory. Binge drinking is defined as five drinks or more in one sitting for men, and three or more drinks for women – this is not an uncommon amount to drink at a party.
While the responsibility of living a healthy and safe lifestyle lies in great part with the individual, their environment also plays a crucial role. On the McMaster campus, there are two venues serving alcohol to students – TwelvEighty and the Phoenix (you could also try the Faculty Club, but that’s a different story). There are numerous alcohol-infused parties and events taking place every year on school grounds, not to mention the countless off-campus alternatives. There is nothing illegal about having these options for students of drinking age, and there is nothing wrong with having a great time. It’s just important to recognize the environmental pressure on students - from venues as well as peers - that may encourage drinking.
The bottom line: most of us are aware that alcohol negatively impacts our health, but we should realize that it can do so even at quantities which we consider normal, or quantities that would ‘only make a lightweight drunk.’ The line separating healthy, typical drinking and alcoholism is often a fine one. Lastly, nobody should feel pressured to drink when coming to university. While it might seem as though everyone enjoys Thursday night clubbing, many surveys show that the majority of students do not see alcohol as being important at a party.
If you want to drink, that’s cool – just be smart about it.
By: Miranda Babbitt
Dear Drinking Age of Canada,
Canadians always have had a knack for comedy, eh? Constructing our national flag around the glorious symbol of peace, unity and strength - otherwise known as the majestic maple leaf. Sure to intimidate any rivals from overseas with our alarming abundance of maple syrup. We. Will. Drown. You. With sugary goodness. But what’s even more intimidating than a maple leaf, you ask? Our ancestors will announce in gleeful unison, “But a beaver, of course!” I’m sorry to tell you this, you may want to sit down, but our flag very well may have had the dominating presence of a beaver in its center. It was a seriously considered option. The only reason we went against it was the fact that maple leaves are easier to draw. Our sense of Canadian logic really is remarkable.
But there is one central part to Canadian society that simply defies all logic: the drinking age that came a year too late to make any sense at all.
With Canadians’ clever sense of humour in mind, I can almost imagine the scene unfolding: Sitting ‘round a table made out of a tree they fetched from their backyard, a polar bear politely sleeping at their feet, their graying heads somberly nodded in mutual agreement over the age that will enable us to vote, to risk our lives in fighting for our country, to whisk our lover away to get married, and deciding on what age will finally let you saunter into that sketchy piercing shop, your chest puffed up with pride, without your anxious mother trailing behind you, stifling your independence, and just not giving you your space, man. But then, amidst all the quiet and reasonable discussion, one voice piped up from the far end of the table, with the familiar, mischievous twinkle in his eye reserved only for your younger brother on April Fool’s Day. “You know what would be really funny guys? If we were to delay the drinking age by just one year. Come on. Just one totally pointless year. Keep ‘em guessing. It’s like if we put it to age twenty seven or thirty three, entirely random, but even more brutal because all the kids will be able to taste it, they’re so close.”
So all the boys crack up and loosen their ties, throw off their wigs donning white ringlets and pound their fists together in a joke well pulled.
Obviously, the Quebecois were more of the partying type, understanding that by the time we have the opportunity to go abroad and educate ourselves, leave the abode of our parents, and do almost everything else, we should have the right to drink.
Perhaps it’s that nonchalant air, the exotic taste for croissants in the morning or snails served with olive oil. It’s that je-ne-sais-quoi of our francophone neighbours that let them take a breather for a minute and come to the sensible realization for themselves. And so it was that my friends in Quebec, where the boys and girls speak French in pretty little accents, twirling around with freedom at their toes, had the Frosh Week of champions.
As they were drunkenly frolicking with the Montreal natives, intoxicated with that irrepressible, youthful desire to live each moment to the fullest, and yet somehow not “throwing their lives away” in the face of this strange, dangerous liquid before them, I attended an ice-cream social in the basement of my residence. Hold on though, I did get pretty crazy with the endless variety of syrups and sprinkles. Maybe I even acted a little irresponsibly. Maybe, Canadian Drinking Age, I went a little overboard on the chocolate sauce and it tampered with my blood sugar levels. Maybe I am tainted as a socially responsible individual now. Better raise the Sundae Consumption Age immediately.
But don’t get me wrong. I will never deny myself the luxury of a sundae on a weekday, and our Frosh Week leaders truly milked whatever they could out of the given circumstances, but the irony is plain to see. We’re a collection of adults being educated as the leaders of tomorrow and they had to face the fact that in some senses, we’re being held back to the status of children.
It’s not as if we’re some foreign species from all other nineteen year olds who are deemed fully matured and capable enough to consume this beverage. As I wait to turn nineteen, I am eagerly awaiting a full body and mind transformation, because apparently that’s what is expected to happen within a single year.
But let’s be honest, the drinking age in Canada really is just an optimistic suggestion, isn’t it?
Cheers,
Canadian First Year Students of Canada
