12th January 2016
4
Alcohol Do you drink?
How many units do you drink a week?
Responses from people who answered no begin on page 7
How often do you have an alcoholic drink? Daily 4.7% Every few days 43.8%
Do you think that you drink an acceptable amount?
An acceptable amount (56%) Neither an acceptable nor an unaccepatble amount (25%) An unaccepatble amount (16%) Unsure (7%)
Weekly 36.9% Rarely 16.7%
ANALYSIS Dan Falvey The results from this year’s Alcohol and Drugs survey not only reveal some interesting figures in regards to how much and how often students at UEA drink alcohol, but also highlight some growing trends at the university. 73.2% of participants drink under 21 units a week. The maximum weekly recommended units of alcohol for women is 21, and 28 for men. Consequently, the vast majority of students at UEA do not drink an excessive amount of alcohol in a week. Further, the large majority of students who drink at UEA believe that up to 21 units a week is an acceptable amount to drink in a week. However, despite the majority of UEA students drinking less than the weekly recommended units, the results of the 2015 Survey highlight that in recent years there has been a small increase in the number of students at UEA who drink more than once a week. Concrete’s 2014 Drugs and Alcohol survey indicated that the number of students studying at UEA who drank more than once a week dropped to a low of 45.4%. However, since then there has been a slow rise in this number, with this year’s Drugs and Alcohol survey indicating 48.4% of students drink alcohol more than once a week, representing a 1.2 percentage point increase on last year.
The trend showing a small rise in frequent drinking at UEA in recent years is in contrast to the number of young people drinking more than once a week nationally. A report by the Office of National Statistics last year indicated that between 2005 and 2013, the number of people “frequently drinking” fell by two thirds. The number of people who do not drink alcohol has also risen since last year, with the number of tee-total students more than doubling. While the results of Concrete’s 2015 Drugs and Alcohol survey highlighted that 2% of UEA students were tee-total, the results from this year’s survey indicate that number of people who do not drink alcohol is 4.5%. Almost all students (98.5%) who drink state that they have participated in drinking games and just over half believe that drinking games, increase the pressure to “perform” by drinking to excess. However, in spite of this, 62.8% of people believe that they themselves have not drank to impress others therefore implying that a significant number of people believe that while they are not peer pressured into drinking, they believe other people are. Given that these results clearly indicate that people believe drinking games peer pressure their friends to binge, it is interesting to note that the majority of students do not believe that this means their friends drink excessively as a whole, with 11% of respondents believing all of their friends drank acceptable amounts of alcohol and 44.8% believing the majority of their friends drank acceptable amounts.
Do you think that your friends drink an acceptable amount?
They all drink an acceptable amount (11%) The majority drink an acceptable amount (45%)
They drink neither an acceptable nor an unaccepatble amount (16%) The majority drink an unaccepatble amount (23%)
They all drink an unaccepatble amount (3%) Unsure (2%)
Has drinking had an effect on your degree?