There are approximately 80 facebook groups at the University with the word "addict" or "anonymous" in the title. Take "Kimchi Addicts," for example, or "Alcoholics Not So Anonymous," whose group page boasts: "Our primary purpose is to stay drunk and help other alcoholics to avoid sobriety."
Oh sure, fake therapy groups are all fun and games on the facebook, but start searching for addicts in the rest of cyberspace and one soon finds sites for Sexaholics Anonymous and Lip Balm Anonymous -- 12-step programs populated by real, live, addicts ... sort of.
According to Lenny Carter, crisis management coordinator of Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS), there are more undiagnosed addicts -- alcoholics, in particular -- at the University.
"People say, 'Well, I'm not an alcoholic because I only drink once a week,'" he said. "If you look at the clinical criteria, the person has pretty serious consequences. One example might be someone who, frequently when they drink, they have behavioral problems and are out of control."
However, according to Sociology Prof. Joe Davis, alcohol consumption is steadily decreasing. The rate of self-professed addictions, however, is at an all-time high.
"We've expanded the notion of addiction from a kind of physiological dependence to this notion of a 'process addiction' -- that you could be addicted to the process of acquiring the thing or the substance," Davis said. "That radically expanded the scope of things that fit within addiction or were described as addiction: over-shopping, over-caring for pets, biting your nails, craving romance, being promiscuous."
University students today consume less alcohol than they used to, Davis said.
"Nobody at U.Va. would say there's more drinking now than there used to be," he said.
Davis added that the national use of hard drugs has decreased in recent years as well. He attributed this development to increased "surveillance" by parents and adults in an age where pressure to succeed is extremely high.
"There's more pressure on parents and on kids," he said, citing instability and competition in social and economic spheres. "You don't have the kind of single career, or at least the career with the same company. We have a higher divorce rate. There's more pressure to succeed and parents are more anxious for their children and manage them to steer a pretty clear course."
Davis said this translated to greater parental involvement in their college-aged children's lives.
"Since about 1999 [college] admissions boards have noticed that parents are a lot more involved in their kids' college experience -- even calling teachers about grades and keeping in touch with kids through cell phones," Davis said. "There's a shorter leash there, related to anxiety."
He suggested that such pressures can have a homogenizing effect.
"We have this pathologizing of certain personalities," he said. "There's a certain model personality type that everyone's sort of forced toward."
At the University, this may contribute in part to students' unwillingness to get counseling, according to Carter.
"People are often reluctant to seek help," he said.
Carter described the rate of alcohol dependency among Americans as "shockingly high" -- around 10 percent.
CAPS psychiatrist J. Anderson Thomson Jr. said he, too, believes people underestimate the prevalence of addiction in society.
"It's not just limited to people who end up on skid row," he said. "Substance abuse is widespread in our society, and many people who suffer from addictions on the surface appear to be functioning at an adequate level."
Davis, however, said that such criterion is a new development.
"The term alcoholic has become narrower," Davis said. While it used to connote moral failing, today many view alcoholism as a disease, not a behavior, he said.
"According to the disease model, you can be an alcoholic and never have taken a drink," Davis said.
While Davis attributed the overall decrease in alcohol consumption to the increased interaction between parents and children, he said the popularity of support groups like Alcoholics Anonymous may be due to a breakdown of family relationships.
"Friendship and community networks are thinner," he said. "People tend to have more recourse to things like support groups to deal with that [which] they might have dealt with previously through extended family."
Davis added that the Internet has fostered interactions between "addicts" -- often creating their own surrounding sub-culture.
"The Internet has facilitated a lot of communication between people who presumably might never have come in contact with one another," Davis said.
The effect can often be to foster self-destructive behavior, he added, citing "pro-ana" Web sites which have built virtual communities of people who view anorexia as a lifestyle choice.
Carter conceded that not all those who drink heavily in college are destined for alcoholism.
"Lots of college students use tremendous amounts of alcohol [and] in spite of that they turn out okay later in life," he said.
The long-term effects of periodic alcohol abuse are still being studied, he added, citing possible correlations between Alzheimer's Disease and binge drinking.
According to Carter, the abstinence-only approach of addiction groups like Alcoholics Anonymous is unique to American culture.
"If you look at some of the European studies, there's more this idea of reduction control rather than abstinence," Cater said. "There is a huge controversy" regarding which approach is more effective.
Carter added that he believes the success rate of either approach really depends on the individual.
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