The Red Cup Q&A at the University of Oklahoma is a universal educational approach to alcohol misuse prevention. Developed at The University of Arizona in 2010 as a media campaign, OU Southwest Prevention Center (OUSWPC) entered into an agreement with them to customize logo and content for use on OU Norman campus.

OU’s Red Cup Q&A seeks to “separate alcohol fact from fiction” by answering students’ questions about alcohol. Questions are answered weekly and published in OU’s print and online newspaper, as well as on the Red Cup Q&A’s Instagram page.

To publicize Red Cup Q&A, OUSWPC purchased ad space on oudaily.com and OU Daily’s twitter feed. To submit questions, students can email [email protected], but more often they submit anonymous questions through the linktree on Instagram. This linktree contains a place to ask questions, an archive of all the questions that have been answered, several tools for students to assess their drinking habits, and links to local treatment and recovery resources. 

The Red Cup Q&A at OU has been gaining followers on their Instagram page daily.  Some of the most popular questions they have answered include, “At what point am I an alcoholic?”, “How does eating help when you are drinking?” and “Does alcohol make you horny?”.

In each of these Red Cup Q&A’s, OUSWPC seeks to answer questions in a non-judgmental and educational tone, so that students can make safe and informed decisions about alcohol. For those under the age of 21, the Red Cup Q&A emphasizes the risks of drinking before legal age. For all populations, the Red Cup Q&A emphasizes low risk drinking practices. The Red Cup Q&A also serves to change perception about college drinking, emphasizing that many students choose to not drink at all.

The Red Cup Q&A at OU is written by Mackee Slattery, BSW; Chloe Sanders, LCSW, ICPS; and Charlene Shreder, MPS, ICPS.