Alcohol Literacy Challenge (ALC) is a brief classroom-based program designed to alter alcohol expectancies and reduce the quantity and frequency of alcohol use among high school and college students. Alcohol expectancies are an individual's beliefs about the anticipated effects of alcohol use, including those that are positive (e.g., increased sociability, reduced tension) and negative (e.g., impairments to mental and behavioral functioning, increased aggressiveness or risk taking).

The Alcohol Literacy Challenge™ is an IOM Model “Universal” underage and binge drinking prevention program. It is the first classroom based alcohol prevention lesson that challenges students’ beliefs about the effects of drinking alcohol. It combines the latest media literacy approaches to alcohol marketing with bar laboratory research showing that most of the experience a person calls “being drunk” is a result of that person’s beliefs, not the chemical effects of alcohol.

Media literacy¹  is a concept related to an awareness of the impact of media messages on our conscious and unconscious choices. Decades of research have show that media education produces healthier, more resilient youth. Children who understand that the media are not real are less likely to adopt unhealthy attitudes or behaviors that are depicted in the media. (Huston, Donnerstein, Fairchild, et al, 1992: Singer, Zuckerman & Singer, 1980; Dorr, Graves & Phelps, 1980).

The Alcohol Literacy Challenge™ has been shown to reduce positive alcohol expectancies across all grade levels, reduce alcohol consumption among high school and college students, and reduce episodes of binge drinking among college students.

Conventional wisdom in the field of prevention holds that brief interventions are ineffective and should be avoided. This notion is unfounded, probably resulting from a misinterpretation of program validation data.

ALC-Training-Evaluation.pdf

2016 ALC College Student Evaluation Survey.pdf

2016 HS ALC student survey.pdf

2017 ALC 7 & 8 grade Student Survey.pdf