On Wednesday night, the The McDonald Center for Student Well-Being (McWell) hosted an event as part of their "Choose less BOO-ze" initiative in the month of October to encourage students to reflect upon their relationship with alcohol.
The event, called ”Crafting, Community and Chipotle Night,” was full of students decorating cookies, eating Chipotle and designing their own personal picture frames. The event was sponsored by the peer group, Zero Proof which is part of McWell.
“We want to build intentional community amongst people who are questioning their relationship with alcohol or maybe in recovery, and alcohol is just not going to work for them. Or, maybe just thinking about not drinking for other reasons,” said Mara Trionfero Lucas, the McWell assistant director for Assessment and Education.
The group started piloting a few events last year and found much success. Around 200 students attended their ice skating event they hosted on the last day before reading days. They plan to have this event again.
“I think sometimes people are just craving for something a little bit different that maybe gets them off campus and stuff like that,” said Lucas.
This year, they have found success when scheduling events during popular “going out” times such as Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights. They have also been hosting sober tailgates during home football game weekends.
Senior Mary Musselman, who serves as the student coordinator of Zero Proof, said she was interested in knowing if there was a space for students to question their relationship with alcohol.
“‘Why do I drink? What is my relationship with alcohol?‘“ she said. “And I was really interested if there was one campus that provided an opportunity for other students to ask that question, because I feel like sometimes at Notre Dame, people kind of come in and they’ve never drank before.”
According to a study conducted by the American College Health Association in the spring of 2022, 71% of undergraduate college students reported having drunk alcohol in their lifetime.
“I just kind of wanted to provide students with a space to kind of reexamine their relationship with alcohol and whatever they kind of decide to do with that from there,” Musselman said. “Just kind of looking at it and finding where the benefits are in their life and where it kind of fits in.”
While questions about drinking and alcohol arise in academic settings, such as University courses like Drunk on Film, Zero Proof hopes to serve as a place to have those discussions outside of the classroom. The group hopes to one day better bring conversations like these into the dorm communities.
“I’d say my goal is just to normalize not drinking in college, or even drinking sometimes and not other times,” senior fellow for student wellbeing Mary Kate Cashman said.
Zero Proof is not trying to separate those who do not drink from those who do, or from those who are recovering from addiction. Cashman said the goal is to give everyone a space to make a connection in a substance free environment.
“We’re just building community and trying to create authentic relationships and showing people that they could do that without alcohol,” she said.
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