Over the past three years, nearly 3000 first-year health science students voluntarily filled out the survey questionnaire after watching a 16-minute student-made documentary on Dunedin's student drinking culture called Taking the Piss.
The questionnaire put three questions to students, who were given three minutes to supply their answers, on a blank piece of paper, in their own words.
It was the responses to the question "What are the real reasons we get drunk?" which surprised survey author and campus director of Christian group Student Life Aaron Thomson.
More than one-third of students surveyed (1103) said the real reason they got drunk was to escape their problems. It was the second most common answer after because it was fun or cool (1153).
In contrast, easy access to alcohol was only listed by 15 people as a reason to get drunk.
The response showed changing the drinking culture was not going to be as easy as just raising the drinking age or shutting down pubs, Mr Thomson said.
The biggest issue was that young people were arriving at university at the age of 18 already with a lot of problems and no options for expressing them.
"They are using a bottle of alcohol as a microphone to pour their problems into, instead of somebody who's going to provide constructive options.
"You're pretty much ostracised on this campus if you come out and say you're [an idiot] for drinking."
New Zealand needed to face up to a problem it had created as a society.
"I think ...we need to own up to the reality that in our politically correct environment, we've been mollycoddled and told that whatever we want, is right for us. In that freedom to choose has come a great many consequences no-one wants to own."
For many reasons, a legislative approach would never work to change a culture.
"The respect has gone from our culture and legislation loses its grip because people have no respect."
The solutions had to come from the community.
Examples of things that would help were more money for student health education and mentoring systems in university colleges.
Mr Thomson said he had undertaken the survey, which he hoped would be published later this year, because he was told that to take any action the university needed more than anecdotal evidence of the problem, so he decided to take a more research-based approach, using the technical assistance of research fellow Dr Johnathan Broadbent.
