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Students and alcohol

Posted: Thu Jan 17, 2019 10:21 am
by Lucy11
Having recently gone to university, my son has started to drink heavily.

Over the Christmas break I noticed that his hands were shaking quite a lot and he was keen to have a beer or 2 in the evenings. Do we need to worry that he's becoming addicted to it or is this just something that will go with him through university? How would we raise anything with him without it becoming a shouting match?

Your thoughts would be appreciated.

Re: Students and alcohol

Posted: Thu Jan 17, 2019 11:47 pm
by Teyhou Smyth
Hi Lucy

Thank you for sharing your concern with us.

The adjustment to university life often contains period of heavy drinking as young people find their way in their new surroundings with independence and has a settling in period. It is hard to tell if the new drinking patterns are a temporary or if they have manifested into full blown addictions. One way to assess for addiction is to be observant and see if the new behaviors are resulting in any impairment in functioning. If his level of day to day functioning is becoming impaired as a result of new behaviors patterns, than it may indicate a more serious issue.

Please find some tips on parenting college aged children which may be helpful https://www.webmd.com/parenting/feature ... -college#1.

Wishing you the best of luck. Thank you