A Possible Reason High-risk Drinking is So Intractable in College?

Students Who Limit Their Drinking, as Recommended by National Guidelines, Are Stigmatized, Ostracized, or the Subject of Peer Pressure: Limiting Consumption Is All But Prohibited in a Culture of Intoxication - https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1178221818792414

First, I realize that this is a study conducted 3+ years ago and in New Zealand no less, however, its points seemed to resonate with me given my experience working with collegians in a small, private, urban university.

The gist of the argument presented is that the cost in social capital for students to identify, by declaration and/or behavior, as moderate drinkers or abstainers is high. In addition, "the labels" proffered by students when asked about their peers who drink, seem positive when a peer reports what we preventionist would classify as high-risk and derogatory regarding moderate or abstaining peers. There is more to the article than this but it got me thinking.

We know that student misperceptions about collegiate drinking are significant. We also have learned that when designed and conducted correctly, social norms marketing can be quite effective. We also know, however, that there is a stubborn core of high-risk drinkers that does not seem to budge no matter what preventive steps we take or programming efforts we mount. I am wondering if there is a "social capital" concern in this high-risk core regarding these negative if not derogatory labels affixed to moderate drinkers and abstainers...someone looking for a topic for a master’s thesis or doctoral dissertation? :)

Related to this stubborn core that appears immune to our prevention efforts to date, I was reading an article recently that suggested that social norms marketing can actually backfire if messages convy a social norm that is perceived by peers to be vastly out of their reach, as learning about this norm can actually discourage pursuing change. This got me thinking again...it would not surprise me to learn that the proportion of collegiate drinkers who meet the criteria for a diagnosis of an alcohol use disorder is higher in the persistent 22-23% of students reporting frequent "binge drinking" than in the general student population. If this is the case, especially if those AUD students have tried to change and were unsuccessful, might the traditional social norms marketing message that reports something like "X% of students report drinking 4 or fewer drinks when they drink" trigger a 'why bother' or what is called a "what-the-heck" reaction to our social norms messages?

The article I was reading suggested that if a target behavior is growing in popularity -- in our case, 

the number of moderate drinkers and abstainers is increasing -- especially if by modest amounts, instead of reporting actual percentages, simply report the upward trend, sans the details. So, instead of reporting that "X% of State Univ students report consuming 4 or fewer drinks if they choose to drink," reporting "for the Xth month/semester/year in a row, an increased number of State Univ students report moderating their drinking if they choose to drink." Where the 1st message could alienate high-risk drinking if construed as indicative of a peer group w/which I cannot or do not wish to identify, the 2nd is inclusive and uses positive peer pressure to affect change. True, someone who is drinking 10 drinks per outing 2X/wk and decides to "moderate use" by having 7 drinks 1X/wk is still engaging in high-risk behavior, but, hey..."any port in a storm."

Just a couple thought...what do you think?