Education Study Abroad

Introduction

Going abroad is a wonderful life experience. Notre Dame encourages you to take advantage of the privilege offered through study abroad. In preparation to ensure a safe experience it is important to be prepared for the changes in culture. The following alcohol education is being offered in order to assist you to remain safe. Keep in mind that as an adult if you make the decision to drink, responsible consumption is expected.

There are three sections to the education – the e-chug which is a confidential fun, interactive perspective on your individual alcohol use. Second is a short reading, and third completion of a verification statement. We wish you safe travels!

To access the e-Chug self assessment https://interwork.sdsu.edu/echug2/?id=ND&hfs=true
The id number issued at the site should be typed into the assignment submission of Concourse to verify it has been completed. Study Abroad nor the University has access to the information.

Most countries, as the United States have laws and policies about the use of alcohol and other substances. Some countries are stricter than the United States, (including a zero tolerance for drinking and driving) while others may be more lenient. Many countries’ definition of public intoxication is different. This education will not discuss the policies of the various countries’ public laws and policies. We do suggest before going aboard consider using the web to familiarize yourself with the laws and policies of that country.

Here are some interesting facts that are available on the web. In London and Australia public transportation has the right to refuse entry into their public transport vehicles if they suspect intoxication or believe you will be obnoxious or annoying to other customers. Since most of our students will use public transportation, you do not want to find yourself stranded in the outback.

In the initial exercise of this educational series you completed the e-chug. The e-chug gave you information to understand your own use and limits regarding alcohol use. Responsible drinking includes understanding where your blood alcohol content is vs. judging your intoxication level by how you feel and behave. High tolerance to alcohol tends to be a factor that has lead students to issues abroad.

Prior to going abroad, if you have any indication from the e-chug that cutting back is important, and that you may need to lower your tolerance now is a good time to start. It usually takes someone at least 30 days to lower tolerance. Students who have tolerance do not always feel the effects of alcohol however have higher blood alcohol contents than others. This loss in judgment can lead to poor decisions. You do not want to end up in foreign custody or having to return to the states early.

Visit the Office of Alcohol and Drug Education website at www.nd.edu. Click the link to alcohol information and next the link to the BAC calculator to understand how to keep your blood alcohol content at a responsible limit. The recommended Blood alcohol content for anyone is not higher than .056. Keep in mind that the alcohol content and drink size of foreign beer and/or liquor may be higher than what is listed on the charts in this site, and that for any one, no matter your size, your body only rids itself of one drink per hour.

Below is provided Characteristic effects of various Blood Alcohol Content Levels.
If your tolerance is normal it is how you should feel at the estimated BAC levels.

Estimating Blood Alcohol Levels

BAC Level	Generalized Dose Specific Effects
0.020-0.039%	No loss of coordination, slight euphoria and loss of shyness. Relaxation, but depressant effects are not apparent.
0.040-0.059%	Feeling of well being, relaxation, lower inhibitions, and sensation of warmth. Euphoria. Some minor impairment of judgment and memory, lowering of caution.
0.06-0.099%	Slight impairment of balance, speech, vision, reaction time, and hearing. Euphoria. Reduced judgment and self-control. Impaired reasoning and memory.
0.100-0.129%	Significant impairment of motor coordination and loss of good judgment. Speech may be slurred; balance, peripheral vision, reaction time, and hearing will be impaired.
0.130-0.159%	Gross motor impairment and lack of physical control. Blurred vision and major loss of balance. Euphoria is reducing and beginning dysphoria (a state of feeling unwell)
0.160-0.199%	Dysphoria predominates, nausea may appear. The drinker has the appearance of a sloppy drunk.
0.200-0.249%	Needs assistance in walking; total mental confusion. Dysphoria with nausea and vomiting; possible blackout.
0.250-0.399%	Alcohol poisoning. Loss of consciousness.
0.40% +	Onset of coma, possible death due to respiratory arrest.

Estimating Blood Alcohol Level (Based on Weight)

Males

Weight	1 drink	2 drinks	3 drinks	4 drinks	5 drinks	6 drinks	7 drinks	8 drinks	9 drinks	10 drinks
100 lbs	.043	.087	.130	.174	.217	.261	.304	.348	.391	.435
125 lbs	.034	.069	.103	.139	.173	.209	.242	.278	.312	.346
150 lbs	.029	.058	.087	.116	.145	.174	.203	.232	.261	.290
175 lbs	.025	.050	.075	.100	.125	.150	.175	.200	.225	.250
200 lbs	.022	.043	.065	.087	.108	.130	.152	.174	.195	.217
225 lbs	.019	.039	.058	.078	.097	.117	.136	.156	.175	.195
250 lbs	.017	.035	.052	.070	.087	.105	.122	.139	.156	.173

Females

Weight	1drink	2 drinks	3 drinks	4 drinks	5 drinks	6 drinks	7 drinks	8 drinks	9 drinks	10 drinks
100 lbs	.050	.101	.152	.203	.253	.304	.355	.406	.456	.507
125 lbs	.040	.080	.120	.162	.202	.244	.282	.324	.364	.404
150 lbs	.034	.068	.101	.135	.169	.203	.237	.271	.304	.338
175 lbs	.029	.058	.087	.117	.146	.175	.204	.233	.262	.292
200 lbs	.026	.050	.076	.101	.126	.152	.177	.203	.227	.253
225 lbs	.022	.045	.068	.091	.113	.136	.159	.182	.204	.227
250 lbs	.020	.041	.061	.082	.101	.122	.142	.162	.182	.202

Time is the only factor to lower one’s Blood Alcohol Content. Coffee, cold showers etc… are all myths.
The only thing you may get is a wide awake drunk.

Time Factor Table

Hours since first drink	1	2	3	4	5	6
Subtract from blood alcohol level	.015	.030	.045	.060	.075	.090

Effects on Behavior

In part because of tolerance phenomena, and in part because of the absence of sufficient research, it is difficult to specify the precise behavioral effects of particular BAC levels. There are, however, very clear effects of intoxication on behavior, with the magnitude of effect increasing with dose and BAC. This final section will summarize some of the main known effects of ethanol on behavior.

Expectancies

It is important, first of all, to distinguish between the actual effects of the drug ethanol and the changes that people expect to experience when drinking. Studies by Sandra Brown and her colleagues have identified six common types of changes that American college students expect to occur when they drink:

1. that it changes your thinking so that you experience things as more positive and interesting, and generally feel more optimistic
2. that it enhances social and physical pleasures
3. that it increases sexual enjoyment and performance
4. that it makes you feel more powerful and act more aggressively
5. that it makes you more socially assertive – less shy, more courageous, more sociable, more expressive
6. that it reduces tension, and helps you relax.

These expectations are not the same in all cultures or subcultures. In some countries, people expect alcohol to make you more lethargic, sleepy, and passive. In others, people believe that drinking gives you increased energy. In many cultures, drinking alcohol provides social permission to violate some of the usual rules of behavior.

Until the 1970’s, research on the behavioral impact of alcohol failed to take into account the effects of such expectancies. If, for example, a person drinks alcohol and then becomes more aggressive, is this because of a chemical effect of the drug on the nervous system, or because the person expected (or had permission) to behave more aggressively? One way to sort out these influences is through the use of the balanced placebo design, a research strategy in which subjects are given beverages to drink and then their behavior is tested. Some of the subjects get drinks containing alcohol, and others receive alcohol-free drinks. Within each of these two conditions, some are told that they are receiving alcohol, and some are told that they are receiving an alcohol-free drink. The tastes of the drinks are carefully controlled so that it is difficult to detect whether or not alcohol is present.

There are, then, four groups:
1. people drinking alcohol and knowing it
2. people drinking no alcohol and knowing it
3. people who think they are drinking alcohol but in fact are not (the placebo group), and
4. people drinking alcohol without knowing it (the balanced placebo group).

Research of this kind has shown that many of the effects once thought to result from alcohol – particularly the pleasant effects that people desire when they drink – are, in fact, the result of psychological expectancies rather than the drug. People in the placebo group have been found to become less anxious, more sexually aroused, more sociable, more aggressive, and to find things funnier and to “lose control” after receiving drinks they believed to contain alcohol. Such effects are rarely observed in the balanced placebo group, where people receive alcohol without realizing it. In some cases, the actual effects of alcohol are opposite to those expected by most drinkers. The true drug effect of ethanol on sexual arousal, for example, is a depressant effect, reducing arousal.

Reflexes and Reaction Time

Reflexes are more or less automatic reactions of the body to changes in the environment.

• Intoxication causes a slowing of reflexes, most likely because alcohol as a depressant drug slows the transmission of nerve impulses in general.

• Reaction time increases: it takes longer for the person to react to a change. Reaction times slow markedly at BAC levels around .08.

• Certain kinds of reaction time tasks, such as those in which a person must divide attention between two stimuli or pay attention to multiple stimuli (an ability critical in driving), are affected at even lower BAC levels. These are effects of ethanol as a drug, and do not seem to be affected much by expectancies.

Muscle Movement

Moderate BAC levels have been found in some studies to facilitate muscular output, perhaps by suppressing fatigue effects. At higher BAC levels, however (in excess of .10), coordination of movement is impaired.

• The more complex the coordination required by a task, the lower the BAC level that disrupts it, and the more the task is impaired as BAC level increases.

• Complex or fine motor coordination tasks (such as keeping a rod over a light that is moving in a circle) are impaired at BAC levels as low as .04-.05.

• Movements that have been practiced many times and are quite familiar may be less affected than unfamiliar tasks.

• At BAC levels over a.15, even highly practiced tasks like walking a straight line become difficult. Balance decreases, and the person is more likely to stumble or fall.

Sensation

Increasing BAC levels also affect the sensitivity of human senses. Visual acuity is impaired, and at higher levels of intoxication the disruption of muscle control in the eyes can result in fuzzy or double vision. The pupils are slower to adjust to changes in light intensity, as in night driving with oncoming headlights.

• The field of vision narrows by as much as 20 degrees, causing a “tunnel vision” in which the person fails to detect stimuli in the peripheral visual field. Intoxication also impairs red-green color vision.

• Across a range of sensory dimensions, intoxication is associated with an increase in absolute threshold, the minimum stimulus level that a person can detect 50% of the time.

• In other words, stimuli must be brighter, louder, or stronger before the person will notice them. This is especially true for the senses of taste and smell. The ability to discriminate among similar stimuli also decreases.

Perception and Judgment

Not only are sensory inputs changed, but the ways in which people process sensory information are altered. Stimuli have different meanings. On word association tests, intoxicated subjects give more unusual responses.

• Social situations that would seem neutral or harmless when sober may be perceived as threatening, challenging, or hostile. The accuracy of judgment decreases, and people are more likely to say and do inappropriate things.

• These are fairly early effects of drinking, occurring at relatively low BAC levels (.05-.08). This is one of the more dangerous characteristics of ethanol, because one cannot perceive when perception is altered, and one cannot judge when judgment is impaired. The result may be dangerous risk-taking, with injurious or tragic results of “accidents” because the person misjudged or misperceived.

Attention and Memory

Intoxication makes it more difficult to focus attention on a task. Even simple tasks like letter cancellation (“Put a line through every letter ‘e’ in this paragraph.”) show impairment at moderate BAC levels. Tasks that require mental concentration, such as doing mathematical calculations in one’s head, are likely to show effects as BAC rises, unless they are familiar and over practiced.

• Relatedly, memory storage is hindered by BAC levels as low as .06-.08, and the impairment increases with higher degrees of intoxication. People are less able to recall accurately what occurred during intoxication. Free recall (having to remember without any hints) is usually more impaired than recognition (for example, having to choose six names of people you met out of a list of twelve names).

• At higher BAC levels (usually in excess of .20, but sometimes as low as .08-.10) a total memory blackout can occur in which the individual has no recall for events that occurred during a career of heavy drinking, the BAC level required to trigger such a blackout tends to decrease.

• A phenomenon known as state dependent retrieval occurs between .08 and .12. New information that is learned while the person is in this BAC range tends to be more easily recalled (retrieved) when the person is again at this level of intoxication, than when the person is sober.

Mood and Emotion

One’s mood can be quite influenced by intoxication, although there are large individual differences here. Despite the fact that many people, when sober, report that they feel less anxious and depressed when they drink, there is evidence that just the opposite can occur.

• A “biphasic effect” may account for some of the apparent discrepancies here. At lower BAC levels (.02-.05), a slight improvement in mood may occur: the person seems a little happier, less anxious and depressed. As indicated earlier, this improvement in mood may be due to the expectancy effects of drinking, and not to a drug effect of ethanol.

• If drinking continues, however, the effect on mood seems to be reversed. Anxiety and depression increase. Interestingly, when such people are again totally sober and are asked how alcohol affected their mood, they tend to report only the positive effects. This may be due to the fact that the point at which mood begins to deteriorate (around .07-.08) is also the approximate point at which memory impairment becomes significant.

Perhaps this is why there can be such large discrepancies between what a drinker says about how alcohol affects him or her and what those around
the drinker observe.

Driving Behavior

It is now well known that intoxicated persons are highly over represented among drivers involved in crashes, particularly fatal crashes. Given the range of sensory and behavioral impairment described above, it should not be surprising that driving behavior is impaired by even low doses of alcohol. Consider the effects of ethanol: increased (slowed) reaction time, decreased visual acuity, impairment of attention and concentration, increased emotional lability and risk-taking, impaired muscle coordination, slowed reflexes, distorted perception and judgment. Yet the impairment of judgment and perception may leave the drinker with the impression that he or she is driving safely, even better than usual.

• Clearly the only safe BAC level behind the wheel is zero. If one drinks before driving, then, the only truly safe plan is to allow enough time for all of the alcohol to be eliminated from the body.

• Think about the risks involved in having a BAC during other hazardous activities such as swimming, boating, skiing, using power tools, etc.

• Many “accidents” that cause injury or death are not truly accidents, but result from the dangerous combination of alcohol with such activities.

• In situations where you need all of your physical and mental abilities, the only safe BAC is zero.

It is important to think about activities you will be involved in while abroad that already involve risk prior to adding alcohol to the equation.

Social Behavior

The effects of drinking on social behavior are quite variable, with large differences among individuals and cultures. Some people become more talkative, while others grow quieter. Many experience an increase in the desire to be with others, but for some the effect is just the opposite. Although few consistent changes seem to occur across individuals, it may be that for a particular person the results of drinking are quite predictable.

• Violent crimes in particular are associated, in a majority of cases, with alcohol consumption by the offender, the victim, or both.

• Of particular importance here is evidence that intoxicated people overestimate the extent to which they are being challenged or threatened. Thus a drinker may perceive a relatively normal situation as hostile, and react accordingly. Add to this the perception of being more powerful, and the tendency to misjudge (overestimate) one’s abilities, and the stage is set for foolish risk-taking, particularly for risks with a lower potential for positive payoff but a higher potential for danger.

• Certain individuals seem to be uniquely sensitive to alcohol, and become highly aggressive or disoriented every time they drink even small doses of alcohol. This rare condition, known as pathological or idiosyncratic intoxication, is recognizable from the consistency of psychotic or aggressive behavior on virtually every occasion of drinking, even when the BAC level is far too low to account for such a major behavior change.

Sexual Behavior

Normal subjects, particularly males, show increased sexual content in their fantasies and stories when intoxicated, and also become more aroused (at even low BAC levels) by sexual stimuli, including socially deviant (e.g., aggressive) sexual stimuli, than when sober. Research employing the balanced placebo design, however, indicates that these changes are due to psychological expectancy effects rather than chemical effects of ethanol. The increase in sexual arousal in strongest, in fact, among subjects who believe that they are drinking alcohol but in fact are not. The drug effects of alcohol on sexual functioning are depressant. Normal sexual arousal is slowed by increased BAC levels. In males, moderate BAC levels also slow ejaculation, a fact that has led some men to attempt to use alcohol as a self-medication for premature ejaculation. At slightly higher doses, however, ethanol’s muscle relaxant effects decrease duration of erection, and may inhibit erection altogether. The results of research with women are more complex, but are consistent with this overall picture of decreased sexual arousal from ethanol.

Alcohol tends to be the leading factor in unwanted sexual situations for both males and females.

We hope that the education you have received has been of benefit to you. In order to verify you have completed the educational orientation go to the reflection section under assignments and enter that you have finished the process and understand the need for safe decisions. If you are interested in more information or actual experiences previous students have encountered go to the oade website at www.nd.edu and click on students’ abroad for more information. You can also access these pages through the OIS website as links are provided.

Safe Travels!!!

Office of Student Affairs