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
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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
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