Binge drinking
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Binge Drinking
The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) task force on college drinking, in a 2007 booklet entitled What Colleges Need to Know Now: An Update on College Drinking Research, defines binge drinking as “a pattern of drinking alcohol that brings blood alcohol concentration (BAC) to 0.08 gram-percent or above. For a typical adult, this pattern corresponds to consuming 5 or more drinks (male), or 4 or more (female), in about 2 hours.” Heavy drinking is defined as consuming 5 or more drinks in a row on at least 5 occasions in the past month. Often people who binge drink experience blackouts.
Dangers of Binge Drinking
The NIAAA and other research findings point out numerous dangers inherent in binge drinking. A National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC) showed that in 2001-2002, 70 percent of young adults (aged 18 to 25) in the U.S., or about 19 million people, consumed alcohol in the year prior to the survey. NIAAA publications indicate that young people’s patterns of drinking also put them at greater risk.
• They drink heaviest in their late teens and early to mid twenties.
• Young adults are “especially likely” to binge drink and to drink heavily.
• Consequences often lead to alcohol-related traffic fatalities.
• Rapid binge drinking may lead to alcohol poisoning and death.
• Binge drinking early in the young adult’s life, when the brain is still developing, may lead to lifelong impairments in brain function, especially coordination, memory and motor skills.
• Young adults who consistently binge drink are likely to suffer repeated bouts of alcohol withdrawal.
Factors That May Affect Binge Drinking
Numerous factors may affect binge drinking among young adults.
• Gender - Binge drinking and heavy drinking are more prevalent among males than females.
• Race, ethnicity and cultural differences - are also important factors. White and Native American young adults, in general, drink more than African Americans and Asians, with Hispanics falling somewhere in the middle. According to the NIAAA, research points to White’s drinking peaking about 18-22, while African Americans and Hispanics carry on heavy drinking into adulthood. Some of this, says the NIAAA, is due to Whites regarding heavy drinking as a “youthful lifestyle,” while Hispanics look at heavy drinking as a “right they earn when they reach maturity.”
• College/Non-college - Interestingly, college versus non-college drinking is mixed. In general, college students drink less frequently than non-college students but, when they do drink, they drink in larger quantities, as in during weekend parties. But college students tend to stop drinking more quickly – before it becomes a problem - than non-college counterparts. People in their thirties who didn’t attend college have higher rates of heavy drinking than those who did go to college.
• Employment – Studied found that those with full-time employment after high school had slightly increased current drinking but slightly less heavy drinking. Unemployed men tended to reduce drinking, and homemakers tended to reduce drinking and heavy drinking – although this could be because of increased marital and parenting responsibilities.
• Military service – Young adults in the military tend to drink more heavily than older military service personnel. Speculation as to the reasons for heavy military drinking includes increased alcohol availability in and around bases and a workplace culture that supports alcohol use.
• Marriage/Parenthood – In general, marriage and parenthood seem to decrease incidents of heavy or binge drinking. NIAAA research found that young adults with serious alcohol dependence may not choose stable roles such as marriage and parenthood.
• Personality characteristics – Several personality characteristics are commonly associated with binge or heavy drinking. These include risk-taking, sensation-seeking, impulsivity, feeling of invincibility, depression, and anxiety disorders.
• Genetics – While there is evidence that there are genetic links to drinking behavior, it isn’t yet clear whether the drinking patterns and problems in young adulthood of children of alcoholic parents is different from those without a family history of alcoholism. Studies involving gene variants linked to the regulation of serotonin found that Whites with a particular variant of this gene were more likely to engage in binge drinking. Another study focusing on the gene that helps form the enzyme aldehyde dehydrogenase (or ALDH) found that Asian Americans possessing this gene variant were less likely to be regular drinkers or to binge drink.
• Family influences – What goes on in the family heavily influences young adults’ attitudes and acceptance of drinking – heavy or binge.
• Expectancies – What a person thinks about alcohol’s positive or negative affect influences later behavior with drinking. These expectancies, researchers found, not only predict when the individual will drink, but how much and how often. As young people age, their expectations of alcohol’s benefits increase while their perceived risks decrease.
--Suzannekane 22:09, 3 November 2009 (UTC)
