U.S. College Binge Drinking on the Rise

Thanks to Jim Geckler over at Assistance In Recovery for sending me a great article this morning. According to the Healthday Reporter, binge drinking in U.S. colleges is growing even as we bring more attention to it. As I mentioned here and here in earlier blogs, binge drinking and abusive behavior has been growing in this current generation.

According to the article, drinking-related deaths among students and young adults aged 18 to 24 years have increased from 1,440 a year in 1998 to 1,825 in 2005, according to a report from the U.S. National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. And the number of students who acknowledged driving drunk rose from 26 to 29 percent.

Ralph Hingson, the chief researched on this project, had this to say: "The younger people are when they first become intoxicated, the greater the likelihood that when they are in college they will meet alcohol-dependence criteria: that they will drive after drinking; that they will ride with drinking drivers; they will be injured under the influence of alcohol; or they will have unplanned and unprotected sex after drinking."

None of these things sound like fun. We've seen stories in the news of parents providing alcohol to minors for years, and allowing them to drive afterwards. I know in my experience, parents thought they were providing a safe environment for drinking, and didn't know the extent of the consequences to follow.

Dr. Marc Galanter, director of the division of alcoholism and drug abuse in the psychiatry department at the New York University School of Medicine, had this to say: "The heavy drinking during college not only results in severe consequences at that time, [but] it also primes college students for later alcohol addiction. Heavier drink at this age is a predictor of later alcoholism and is likely a major causative factor."

I know that for me, my binge drinking in college lead to me having to find a new path, as my college didn't exactly agree with my behavior. Drinking and driving is also a part of my story, and I'm very very lucky that I didn't have major consequences. Looking back with a sober mind, those decisions were awful- yet I wasn't able to access the "prevention education" that I was taught in school. We need to make sure help is available and accessible for those in need. And we really need to push our kids to recognize that it's OK to ask for help when one needs it. Otherwise, our statistics will get worse, and more and more kids will die as a result of these dangerous behaviors.

Here's a video about defining college binge drinking:


Here's another video about one woman's experience with binge drinking:



Here's something a little more lighthearted.

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Binge Drinking and the Military

In exploring the Blog Catalog, I stumbled across the Addiction Index blog which had a great article about binge drinking in the military. This is such a viable topic these days with the wars going on in the Middle East that I thought I'd grab some of the information and pass it along here.

"Binge drinking is so common in America's armed forces that startling numbers of those who serve on military bases report for work drunk, drive drunk and drink illegally while they are underage, according to a study released today by the University of Minnesota and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention."- this is from the article in the Minnesota Post. The survey covered soldiers at home and overseas, and an astonishing 25% reported a history of drunk driving. Can we point to the fact that their lives are some dangerous that they seek risk even when off duty?

In an interview with a University of Minnesota radio station, Mandy Stahre, a researcher on the project said that 43 percent of the active respondents reported binge drinking in the past month. That broke down to 29.7 incidents of binge drinking per person per year. That's a huge and dangerous number. How do we better educate these service men and women?

An article in the Chicago Tribune touched on the increase in suicide of soldiers. "The Department of Veterans Affairs tracks the number of suicides among those who have left the military. It says there have been 144 suicides among the nearly 500,000 service members who left the military from 2002-2005 after fighting in at least one of the wars." The website wsws.org reported that in 2008, there were 128 confirmed suicides by serving army personnel and 41 by serving marines.

Now we've started to see progress, with the military providing classes on suicide prevention and alcohol abuse. But how do we truly improve this? It's not like we can take away the trauma that soldiers suffer while on active duty. Our Veterans Affairs offices are already swamped with cases and are underfunded. How do we fix this? The easiest solution- provide more funding to attract better researchers and addictional clinicians. However- that would increase taxes, something more than half the country is against, even though it goes towards making our soldiers safer. Some things to think about as we move forward.

Here's the suicide prevention video:



And here's one about the binge drinking in the military:




Here's my favorite new website.

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Sober in the Animal House

A blog in the Well section of the New York Times spoke about a 19-year-old college student, Owen Jennings, at Dartmouth with liver disease. This was not caused by drinking, but as a result, he is unable to drink in order to save his liver. His blog talked about his experience, i.e. "Sober in the Animal House," as he was a pledge at the same fraternity that was the focus of the infamous movie. Here's my favorite quote from the article:

"If I hadn’t been diagnosed with liver disease, I would probably be a part of this insane and inane drinking lifestyle. But I’ve come to realize that while I might feel left out at a party or a bar today, maybe I’m lucky. I will graduate from college without ever having woken up on a bathroom floor, wondering how I got there; without ever having to play hide-and-go-seek with the police."

I find this connection similar to being a sober alcoholic in a crazy environment (however, most sober alcoholics have woken up on bathroom floors and run from police). The part that I love about being sober when around people partying is the fact that I can observe the behaviors I used to engage in, and find a new sense of gratitude about my sobriety. The other part that Jennings

What this also touches on is the pressure to drink in a college environment. Jennings talks about turning down cigarettes and marijuana and feeling no pressure. But when someone offers him a drink, they ask again and again if he wants one. "When I decline alcohol, the response is almost always, 'Why not?'" It seems that drinking, even underage, has become not only a social pressure but the social norm. To deny this is almost criminal. We hear stories every day of 18 and 19 year old college students suffering from alcohol poisoning, abusive drinking, and reckless behavior. The new found freedom can almost be too much. How do we prevent this or encourage safer habits? That, my friends, is the big question.

With more and more college age students entering substance abuse treatment, we as a country need to address this growing problem. The Harvard School of Public Health did a national study that showed 42% of college students had engaged in binge drinking over the past year. That is crazy- and why aren't we providing accurate education on this? I can remember being told not to drink in school, but never any education on what to do when you drink too much. Perhaps improving our education and information around this would actually create some change.

Here's a video on college binge drinking:



And here's a public service ad about binge drinking:



Here's something funny.

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Cyber Millenials and their drinking habits

A study being published by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, along with the Center for Disease Control, used audience segmentation as the basis. The "cyber millenials," or those tech-savvy young people living in an urban area, tend to be the biggest high risk drinkers. Most were on the West Coast or in the Mid West, and tended to be well-educated as well as ethnically mixed.

What's interesting about this segment is that outside of binge drinking, they are relatively healthy- lower smoking rates, lots of exercise, and eating organic foods- but yet seem not to recognize the danger that binge drinking presents. Also, this segment tends to have significant financial resources which allow for multiple drinks in one sitting.

Now what's mentioned near the end of the article is what truly interests me: that clinicians "tend to be more blasé with younger, healthier patients, and might not even ask them about their level of alcohol consumption or screen them for alcohol problems." That is the problem. I can remember from my college days, going to see the school psychologist to talk about my depression 2 days a week for 3 months- and we talked once about drinking habits. In seeing a therapist after I'd left school and had developed a significant drug and alcohol problem, we talked about drug use and abuse only twice in 6 months. This is horrendous. Without proper education, we can't expect clinicians to learn how to recognize and treat the disease. A marriage and family therapist averages around 10 hours of mandatory study directly related to addiction while gaining their degree. In contrast, the average drug and alcohol counselor (not a master's degree, by the way), will do at least 3,000 hours of practicum directly related to addiction. So it seems that we should probably provide some additional education around addiction and alcoholism to our therapist community, as most people will see them prior to seeing a drug and alcohol counselor.

It falls back again to the stigma around this disease- the fact that 1 out of 10 people here struggle with drugs or alcohol (not to mention all of the families that are directly affected by one's behavior) means we need to get this out of the dark. When affluent, well-educated young people are binge drinking more than any other segment of the population, we need to be prepared for when they go overboard. Parents, educators, and clinicians need to be well-versed in dealing with alcohol and drug abuse for this new generation. The Millenials are going to need all the help they can get.

Here's a British show about binge drinking there:



Here's something funny.

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