Student binge drinkers focus on good feelings, ignore reprucussions

Pink Panty Pulldown, Blue Mother F*****, Buttery Nipple, Fuzzy Navel, Leg Spreader, Naked Barbie, $3 Hooker, Call A Cab, Rambo Tears, Rabid Pitbull and A-Rang-A-Tang may sound strange but they are common terms to some bartenders and drinkers.

But these are more than words; they are shots and cocktails that deliver a potent dose of alcohol. Downing four or five of these in just two hours – lightweight by many students’ standards – is the definition of binge drinking.

“Almost everybody does it,” Brittany Leach, a junior history major, said. “Nine times out of 10 if you’re not the drunk one at the party you are going to be standing there like ‘what the hell is wrong with these people?’ ”

According to The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism binge drinking spikes blood alcohol concentration to 0.08 grams percent or above.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates about 90 percent of the alcohol consumed illegally by people under the age of 21 in the U.S. is done by binge drinking.

Michael Hand a senior political science and economics major, and Francis Lavelle, a junior marketing and management major, say they witness this firsthand.

“It’s probably the most popular social thing to do,” Hand said.

“Second only to Facebook,” Lavelle added.

The downside

Despite the negligible social benefits, there are consequences. Frequent binge drinkers are 21 times more likely to miss classes, vandalize, engage in unplanned sexual activity, not use protection, get in trouble with campus police, or drive a car after drinking, according to The Center for Science in the Public Interest.

“The first time you get sick and throw up and have a huge hangover, it’s terrible because your thought process is ‘Ugh, I never want to drink again,’” Hand said.

An estimated 30,000 college students require medical treatment every year after overdosing on alcohol, according to The Center for Science in the Public Interest.

But it’s not just your liver that suffers after a night hitting the bottle.

“You will get super angry, super sad or super horny,” Lavelle said. “Because your inhibitions are lowered and because your emotions are out of control it makes you do crazy, stupid s***.”

Friends can also be instigators of binge drinking.

“When I’ve been downtown have been the times that I have gotten extremely drunk,” Leach said. “I guess downtown there’s more of a pressure to be highly intoxicated.”

With all the negatives, why do we drink?

Let’s be honest, drinking can add to a party’s atmosphere.

“(Drinking) gives you something to do. You can be sitting in a room and be doing nothing, and it’s boring, and a dumb party, and it’s lame,” Hand said. “But the second everyone is holding a drink all of the sudden you are doing something.”

Drinking on the town has been a college tradition for generations.

“On a Thursday night you don’t see thousands of sober people going downtown to just hang out. They drink, and their excuse is to go get drunk,” Hand said. “I think it’s part of the social atmosphere.”

Alcohol as a social lubricant can be positive and facilitate relaxation, and increase the pleasure of eating, according to The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

Alcohol can even be seen as an antidote for a bad day.

“There’s nights when you’re just like, I’ll just have two beers because they are delicious and it’s a social thing,” Lavelle said. “And then there’s nights where you just failed a test and you’re just like ‘f*** the world.’ “

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Nov 13 2009. Filed under Perspectives. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry