INTERRELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN ALCOHOL CONSUMPTION, STRESS LEVELS, AND RELIGIOSITY IN COLLEGE STUDENTS

The ways in which alcohol use was related to stress and religious actvity was examined in students enrolled at a private, church-affiliated university in the southeast. Large numbers of male college students were discovered consuming alcoholic beverages, with negative consequences, like lower GPA, resulting from such use. First-year students who drank and seniors who did not drink had the highest stress levels of those students tested. Alcohol use was negatively correlated with religious activity. Students were drinking alcoholic beverages in large quantities, perhaps as a way of coping with stress. This may be especially true of first-year students, who are in a highly stressful situation, and those who do not have strong religious beliefs to use as a source of tension-reduction.