Down at College

Everyone feels sad from time to time, but only a minority become clinically depressed—a constant feeling of sadness and hopelessness that lasts for more than two weeks. This minority includes people of all ages, but college students and young adults are especially vulnerable. Why? For some young men, the reason may have more to do with drug abuse than with deep psychological problems or a genetic predisposition to depression.

Psychiatrist Marc Schuckit of the University of California at San Diego studied 964 men between the ages of 21 to 25 who were affiliated with the university. He found that while 82 percent had never been depressed, 11 percent had been. An additional 7 percent had had depression that seriously interfered with their lives. Writing in the American Journal of Psychiatry (Vol. 139, No. 11), Schuckit reported that only 30 percent of the never-depressed young men had problems connected with drug or alcohol use (job loss, arrest, ill health, marital disruption), compared with half of the most seriously depressed group. Moreover, a majority of the depressed men said that their drug-related problems had preceded their depression. (Only about a quarter said that they had become depressed first.)

On the whole, the young men were quite familiar with drinking and drug-taking. They drank an average of two or three drinks two or three times a week. Fifteen percent had missed work or school because of alcohol or drug problems, and 20 percent had blacked out at least once. Since on most campuses this rate is probably the rule rather than the exception, students would do well to consider changing their drug habits before they come to the conclusion that they are hopelessly depressed.

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Why Men Don't Speak Their Minds	\|	Analysis

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