GREEK LIFE and "ALCOHOL ADDICTION" by Recovery Village Interesting stats.
Statistics from other surveys show the direct effects of substance use in Greek organizations. Each year:
- Around 500,000 members suffer unintentional injuries related to substance use
- 70,000 cases of sexual assault and acquaintance rape
- 1,400 members die from alcohol-related causes
- 600,000 assaults occur
- 50% of members perform poorly on important school assignments *************************************
GREEK LIFE is your straight ticket to being a boozer and druggie.
Let's say you yourself are not an "alcohol addict." But somehow you get into one of the frats or sororities where you are surrounded by people who are....
I chose to link to this site because it seems comprehensive.
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Though I don't usually follow true crime podcasts, I've been following the many articles and videos regarding the "Idaho Four." By doing so I've been able to eliminate a great number of content creators who are piggy backing on more journalistic offerings. I'm also avoiding any headline that might suggest the police and many other investigators aren't qualified.
I have yet to find ANY media that would suggest that any of the four murdered college students were alcoholic. Never the less, while again I don't think anyone deserves to be murdered (or the victim of any crime) I think the investigation WILL have to ask some tough questions about the victim's life styles.
For instance a person who drinks to the point of stumbling around drunk IS NOT BEING VIGILANT.
From reviewing hundreds of articles and broadcasts repeated on YouTube, it does SEEM that Kaylee, was supposed to be part of the winter graduation, but had already moved out of sorority house in the past, had already moved or was moving out of the house in which she was murdered. She had broken up with her long term (five year) boyfriend, you could say her high school or college boyfriend, and was moving to Texas to begin a career. She was back in town to visit and tie up loose ends. She was doing what many do once graduated, starting a new life in another part of the country, but was there someone who could not bear that thought that he or she would never see her again?
She might have been sleeping in the same bed as her best friend/sister since the 6th grade Maddy because? Perhaps her own bed had been moved out. Perhaps they drunkly fell into bed together. Perhaps they were both bisexual.
Her dad is the most openly vocal and angry of the parents. We do understand the shock that the parents and family members, close friends, and living housemates, must have experienced, and the grief they are experiencing. Never the less, Kaylee's parents hiring a lawyer to go against the police give me the impression they will sue someone - the police, the landlord, the school.... Someone! It will not be enough for them that hundreds of professionals and millions of dollars are spent on finding the murderer. They are acting as if they are special.
THIS IS NOT CSI the television crime solving series. Even CSI - admits that technologies that do not yet exist are used on the show. It takes much more than an hour to solve a crime. DNA evidence is fairly new.
I await the reveal of the autopsy information including the booze in Kaylee's blood... If she were not drinking for some time at the bar before going to the food truck, I would be less apt to think of this as a "crime of opportunity." That phrase is used to describe a criminal who preys upon someone because they are a good target, and in that sense there is nothing personal. I.e. the rapist who follows a drunk woman home.
I also feel speculative about the identity of the killer or killers and their motivation. The idea that there might have been a get away car. Or that there was more than one murderer.
I think it's possible that other people did show up at the house and see the crime scene and fled, perhaps out of shock and fear.
As for individual locks on the doors, it's clear to me that the owner of the house clearly intended to rent to students, one after another. Someone still on the lease and paying rent for months though moved out? An empty room for the dog to be put into to the killer to hide in? I'm curious about the rent, and if the rent was only affordable to students with rich parents. I can imagine the individuals in the house locking their personal doors when out for the day, but not locking them while at home.
Maybe a frat boy went on a rampage.
It could be that someone heard she would be back in town. One last chance.
So, was Kaylee nice to everyone? Too nice? Or was she a Greek Life snob? There has been no discussion in the media about that possibility. Her grades were excellent AND she had time to party? She also worked part time at the restaurant. She does sound like a dynamo. WHY do people join Greek Life? I think, from reading around this subject, that they intend to have networks for career in place, that they want out of the dorms, and that it's also about being elite or rich enough to afford all that comes with it. But if your purpose in attending college is a career, perhaps the social and career network is the purpose of Greek Life. Oh, and to find a marriage partner who also has potential, comes from money, etc. As campus get to the point of having thousands of students, the frat or sorority becomes a smaller pool of associates.
But all the reportage that drinking is "just letting off steam" and something that all college students do - they are adults but called "KIDS" shows me just how ignorant the media is about alcohol.
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Addition to original post on 12/23/2022
As I search for new information on this case, "the Idaho Four" I see that the case may not be cold, but after about six weeks of very frequent reportage, including by independent content creators who post on YouTube, reportage with NEWS (ie what's NEW) is subsiding. It may be that there is a lull, that the speculation has not been fed with anything much since the spectacle of the white car search, which seemed to end when a crashed car fitting the description was discovered in Oregon. The video of a police call to the house when a party was going on but none of the room mates was actually home was revealed.
More proof of behavior that's NOT SAFER BEHAVIOR. And proof that there wasn't just a hell of a lot of DNA in that house, but also that at least one, if not all housemates, were terribly irresponsible about allowing access to the house. I'm really sick of the reportage being that they were KIDS, and also that they were TYPICAL COLLEGE STUDENTS. No they were not.
I'm using the term Safer here akin to when we use the term Safer re Safer sex rather than Safe Sex. Safer behavior may not entirely eliminate danger but will greatly improve your chances of not being exploited or infected so...
If you're reading this and wonder...
Drinking to the point of being drunk, especially stumbling around drunk, greatly increases your chances of being exploited and targeted. Usually for sex, but could be for murder.
Giving out the codes to bypass the security of your house or room is dangerous behavior. You really want people to know what all you have? To go into your personal areas?
Allowing people to use your house to party when you are not home is ridiculous. They bring other people in who you may never have met. This level of "trust" is foolish. Not to be confused with being "social."
You cannot trust the vetting process of a sorority or fraternity to ensure that the people you surround yourself with are all OK. While you can have by choice a "family of friends" in addition to or as a substitute for the family of birth or adoption, the entire sorority or fraternity is NOT YOUR FAMILY. Further HAZING and other stupid rituals of acceptance that are about power and degrading or humiliating others to prove how much they want to be one of your brothers or sisters is fundamentally beyond immature, it is sick. Do you intend to keep up that attitude and behavior when you graduate and are employed or working your own business? (In my opinion, colleges should no longer allow these organizations on campus' because colleges supposedly stand for inclusion.)
So let me tell you what those I've met in life who became members of AA and other 12 step type clubs told me years ago, when I asked them to explain. THE TIME YOU SPEND DRUNK OR HIGH is not time in which you experience life, but time you are escaping it. A person who starts drinking as a lifestyle at 18 who quits at 38 is often a 38 year old who is still thinking and acting like an 18 year old. I do realize there is controversy and confusion about at what point a person is actually alcoholic. For instance, drinking and driving - when you are impaired - could be defined as one beer. Also, some people are allergic to alcohol or do not physically process it through their system the same. If you rarely drink it may effect you more profoundly. Some people define it as, even if it is only one glass of wine, if it is being drunk for an alteration of mood or to escape, then it is your purpose in drinking that defines you.
A while back some friends took me out to lunch and we ate a lot of food and I had one glass of wine. That wine hit me quickly and did not seem to effect them at all.
Your friends who drink more than you may be your examples or define for you that since you're not keeping up with them, they have the problem, and you don't.
I simply ask you to be self aware and ask yourself honestly how much you are drinking and how often and why.
If you graduate or leave college after the Greek Life, you may network with others in that life for years, however, if you have been alcoholic as a way of coping with the "stress" of academic stress, before you move to another state to begin your career, or attempt to have an adult, independent life, with a good career too, you very likely want to quit the booze. (Or drugs.) The stress and responsibility of adult life is usually beyond what you experience in college. You won't just have to show up for classes but be on time for work and work for many hours a week. You may partner, have children to raise right, have family responsibilities that include caring for parents.
Going out to celebrate after completing a semester or quarter or on break is different than parties every day or every weekend. A drink with dinner is different than a case of beer. However, some people can still have that one beer, be drunk, and drive irresponsibly. Some people can drink to the point of throwing up, then ace a test the next day. But, it's more likely that you wont study well with a hang-over.
Some people point to the Greek Life brother or sister as an example. Academic excellence as proof that the person does not have a problem with substances. However, that person may also be blessed with a high-IQ, may have had a pre-college education that put them ahead of their peers, may cheat, or in some way be exceptional.
Take it from someone who has had the alcoholic boss, who, along with others at work, lived around what mood or condition he would come into work with. His lateness and his excuses for being out and gone most afternoons, while his secretary help-mate did massive amounts of trouble-shooting.
At another job, an alcoholic co-worker of sorts who came in most mornings in a rotten mood, even abusive. One wondered why this person had not been fired for all the misery, but like a college student who still got good grades, he managed to make his quotas. There were (and still are) lots of people who accommodate.
There is also this aspect of alcoholism, and that is that is one way or another, in adult life it throws responsibility that is yours onto other people who are often unable to say no to taking on more.
C 2022 Wishing all of you a better tomorrow. Christine Trzyna
