News / Education
Binge Drinking Shockingly High
A Quarter of the population binge drinks
Half the population perceives binge drinking as a serious problem according to the same survey.
Although there is no clear definition for the term, binge drinking is generally recognized to mean five or more drinks in a two hour period. However it is defined, the intention is to get drunk quickly.
Binge drinking occurs all over the country, but the place we hear about it most is our college campuses. Every year, students spend an estimated $5.5 billion on alcohol -- more than they spend on soft drinks, tea, milk, juice, coffee and books combined.
A Harvard University study found that 44 percent of college students said they binge drink. Other studies show that a proportion of college students will leave their university with a degree and an alcohol problem.
The majority of college students are under the legal drinking age which leads to the question; what are colleges and Universities doing about the problem? Until now the answer was not much. Drinking has become so much a part of college life that the legality of the drinking age seems to not apply to college students.
Recently the Princeton Review released its yearly national school survey and Penn State was dubbed the No. 1 "party school" in the country. This was no doubt a disappointment to the school’s President Graham Spanier. The president has been trying to curb binge drinking on campus by sponsoring alternative events in which drinking is not the focus.
Penn State is hardly alone. Nearly 2,000 U.S. college students die each year because of binge drinking, or the extreme drinking of alcohol. This makes drinking on campus a huge problem for colleges and universities. However, all one has to do is spend a weekend on almost any campus across the country to find that the efforts to stop binge drinking are not enough.
We must educate college ages kids about the risks of alcohol abuse. There is a clear link to binge drinking in youth and the onset of adult alcoholism. It is shown that while many binge drinkers appear to do well in college, most fail and drip out.
Narconon of Georgia provides addiction treatment and education for alcohol abuse.
