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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 20, 1979)
page 4 thursday, September 20, 1979 daily nebraskan Help sometimes necessary when pressures momnt College life. The pressure is on. Studies are pil ing up and hour exams lurk on the horizon. Tuition is due and your ? art-time job takes up study time, 'ou come home from work tense and yell at your roommate. Then your mother calls and tells you she expects a 4.0 this semester. The pressure is on and students are looking for help. Some are turn ing to keep-awake aids to give them those few extra hours everyone seems to need. Others are taking relaxants such as Valium to ease the tension. Still others are turning to alcohol, marijuana and other drugs to get away from it all. And to some the tenth floor window may seem like an attractive alternative to the next day's classes. Better help is available. Talking with friends or, a trusted instructor can sometimes give one a can nrsnective on problems. Most ministers are trained in counseling. Student assistants and residence hall directors will help or can direct you to those who can. The University Health Center mental health unit is staffed with psychiatrists. The UNL Counseling Chapter in Seaton Hall has eight trained counselors to help students with academic, career planning or personal conflicts. There is no shame in asking for help. It's a shame when talented students drop out of school because the pressure is too much. It's a shame when students get addicted to drugs or become dependent on alcohol to escape problems that could be overcome with assistance. College life, and all the tensions thereof, is important. But it is just as important that students remain, happy, sane and alive. V1- m m m m m k i Equal restrooms, equal jobs needed; American women cant wait anymore There are no women's restrooms in the UNL Memorial Stadium press box. That's it. No biting comments, no vicious slams. Noth ing. Just no women's restrooms in the press box. There is a men's restroom in the press box. And, according to Sports Information Director Don Bryant, some people have complained about the situation. One visiting sportswriter was upset because the waiting line was too long during one Saturday half time. He sug gested another restroom be added -another men's rest room. When the Nebraska Legislature is in session, Sen. Shirley Marsh has a male page, check the restroom first, which is In the "Senator'? Only'Uounge, and then wait? outside the door while she uses it. There are three-women senators. At least the Athletic Dept. and the Legislature have one thing in common. The press box was built as a men's area, Bryant said. He told me I could have used the men's restroom if I wanted to. And, if I had been in an extreme hurry, I would have. Fortunately, it was half time and I made my way to second floor where all the V.I.P.'s sit-where there is a women's restroom. Now that I look back on it, however, I realize it wasn't the restroom, or lack of one, that made me so disgusted. When the press box was designed in 1967, women sportswriters probably were rare. The whole facility cost $500,000 and was built with the idea that it would be a "first -class press-radio-TV facility." Yet, although women sportswriters were scarce, surely in 1967 someone must have realized someday there would be women sportswriters. Obviously, no one had that kind of forseeable talent. But, times have changed. All through the country women are crying for equality-UNL is no exception. The press box was built for men. But, the fact remains: there are women sportswriters at UNL now. And there is no reason to believe there won't be any in the future? It's time for the UNL Athletic Dept.-and any other department in the university where women are discrimin ated against -to wise up and realize that womerr are alive and well in predominantly male jobs. And everything possible should be done to make sure that those women are not handicapped because they are women. Posh Greenwich needs to combat its drinking problem GREENWICH, Conn.-Besottled winos don't stumble through the streets of this wealthy and pleasant town as they do on the skid rows of large cities. But the over juiced are here in such forbidding numbers that the local newspaper-the Greenwich Time-wondered the other day whether the town should be called "the capital of alcohol abuse." In a five-part series that took courage to run, consider ing the dignified image the local establishment prides itself on, the paper reported that Greenwich's "reliance on the bottle is "a hidden epidemic" that has reached "drastic proportions." the findings are nationally significant. Greenwich is the top rung, felt-covered, of America's ladder to success. Materialism and consumerism flourish in elegant shops, exclusive country clubs and stylish homes, all of it given a respectable front because the town is home to many of the nation's leading corporate executives. For those on the make for economic success or status, Greenwich is one of the choice havens for the arrived. Except that it's sick. The disease of alcoholism is more shocking here mainly because the drinking climate-the malignancy that spread the illness-appears to be so harm less: It is convivial, if anything. The easygoing and amiable pathology that can lead to alcohol addiction among the successful and respected is described in a short story by John Cheever, t) Youth and Beauty: "At around five; the Parrn inters called up and asked them over for a drink Louise didnt want to go, so Cash went alone. It was sultry and overcast. . : He drank gin with the Parmbters for an hour of two and then went over to the Townssnds for a drink. The Farquarsons called up the Townssnds and tsked them to come over and fcrinj Cash with them, and the Farquarsons they had some more drinks. -V, FOn MEDICAL specialists, the drinking climate is the most frustrating aspect of the disease. Com-ups eidst both before and after the individual's life becomes un manageable because of alcohol. In the before stage, the alcohol industry markets its product in the highest tones of sophistication. Its advertis ing doesn't bother with people who take the alcohol to ease the pains of life. This market has been captured. In stead, it seeks those who already have their pleasures but want them, in the sacred American way, bigger and better. The message of the advertising changes the nature of the product: Alcohol isn't an anesthetic, as medical authori ties say, but a stimulant. And why deny yourself a little stimulation, especially these days? In the recovery stage of the illness, the cover-up is more complex. The victim himself is involved. He can often manage to keep functioning, perhaps disguising his dependence in the good feelings of the cocktail party or in the view that no problem exists until you go blotto on binges. Parts of the medical community know how to look the other way. An official of an alcoholism program in Con necticut told the Greenwich Time the most of the doc tors at the three area hospitals have been treating the dis ease "as a secondary illness. They'll put a patient in for gastritis when the true reason for them being there is to detoxify. Public officials regularly decry the drunken ways of Americans. Joseph Califano did this at HEW. But except among specialists, and those who are victims or relatives of victims, his concerns were dismissed. Here we go again, it was said: Califano doesn't want us to smoke and now he's down on drinking. He was branded a zealot, the meanest of epithets in a society where being laid-back has become a virtue. THAT THOSE who persist in calling attention to the drinking habits are , ignored or attacked isn't sur prising. Their message isn't pleasant: Our life-style is dis eased. Abnormal drinking results from abnormal living. Greenwich reveals these abnormalities in a starker shade than most communities. These driven corporation men are here. Affluent housewives can find themselves idle and isolated. Goals of wealth and comfort are held up to teenagers as worthy of the human heart. These degra dations are felt in every community. The opportunity for Greenwich is to face its problems and thereby tell the rest of the nation that if we can do it, so can you. If it denies or ducks the issue, then the town will be on a level with the Bowery. Perhaps lower even, because at least the souses in the alleys know they are sick. (c) 1979, Tht Washington Pott Company an Abvamies smrcJ AlOUT THIS SUV MHOTUKNa VHTO A REALLY FAT MWURff WHEN OETS HET S 111? I THS iNCSSDlBlB) f whats it ntLKff .