Raising the bar

Posted By MARILYN LINTON

Posted 3 months ago

Soc, psych, phil and a six pack; biology and a Bailey's. Are college students hitting the books as hard as the bars?

Nobody doubts that having an occasional beer is an acceptable (even inevitable) part of student life, but is getting tanked, sloshed or blotto becoming as common as flasks at a football game?

In recent years, surveys have shown that binge drinking (having five or more drinks at a single occasion) is a growing concern on campuses.

In British Columbia, 73% of students at two universities admitted to activities that led to binge drinking, while a wider campus survey of students from 40 Canadian universities revealed that a majority of students drank and that one-third of them admitted to occasional binge drinking.

"It's important for people to know the risks involved in a binge drinking pattern," says Dr. Robert Mann, a senior scientist at Toronto's Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH).

Hazardous drinking can lead to injury, he says. "Drinking and driving is one of the leading causes of death in the late teen years. Drinking is also a factor in violence, suicide and unwanted or unplanned sex."

Research by the University of Wisconsin-Madison showed that, in 2001, more than 1,700 U.S. college students died from alcohol-related injuries. Further studies on binge drinkers showed that males who drank more than eight drinks or females who drank more than five drinks on at least four days per month were five times more likely to be injured than those who did not frequently cross this limit.

While Canadian campuses have increasingly addressed the issue by trying to educate students and working with campus pubs, Mann is convinced that the most effective kinds of prevention are policy-based measures combined with education.

"In the U.S., for example, we know that since they raised the drinking age to 21 they have prevented over 20,000 driving fatalities."

Keeping in touch with university-aged children who live away from home is important, he says, adding the reassurance that most universities are taking steps to address the issue. "Residences today have more rules and policies around alcohol use. In campus pubs servers are being trained around appropriate serving. These issues are taken seriously."

But it isn't only college kids who are binge drinking their way to disaster.

A CAMH study done in 2007 reported that 18% of Ontario men are binge drinkers and that one-quarter of males in the 18- to 29-year-old age group binge drink.

Neither is binge drinking limited to North America. In Italy, once a country of moderate wine drinkers, binge drinking, particularly among youth, is now a problem.

In the U.K., paramedics report that they're kept busy transporting Friday night drunks to local ERs. About 76,000 facial injuries in the U.K. annually are linked to drunken violence.

Mann says that research indicates that regular binge drinking in young people is the beginning of a pattern. "Some people mature out of this pattern, but some do not," he says. "The evidence states that those who don't are the ones who develop more serious alcohol problems later in life."

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Binge Basics

According to the Addictions Foundation of Manitoba, taking many drinks in a short period of time can lead to an alcohol overdose or poisoning. The person may experience vomiting, blackouts, passing out (becoming unconscious), having cold, clammy skin and shallow breathing. Death is also possible, which is why immediate medical care is needed if there are signs of an alcohol overdose.

Facts on tap

A standard drink is one 355 ml bottle of beer or one 150 ml glass of wine, or 40 ml of spirits such as whiskey, vodka, rum or scotch. Each year, college students spend approximately $5.5 billion on alcohol -- more than they spend on non-alcoholic drinks and books combined. Beer is the most popular alcoholic beverage among students.