<p>"I couldn’t drink 5 glasses of water or diet Coke over an evening. I think 4 alcoholic drinks over the course of an evening is a lot. "
-Again, goes back to your personally set criteria. 4 drinks is not much for me, average sized female, but I would not have it every night. Most of the nights, I have about 1/3 bottle of beer just for the taste of it.
However, I heard that the amount that puts you over edge is personal and depend on body composition that includes more than mere weight. I am not a doc., I cannot judge, but judging others based on your own experience in regard to alconol intake is very inaccurate. Make advice based on this judgement is much more than simply inaccurate, it may lead to a tragedy.</p>
<p>When I lived in Germany, eventually I could easily finish a liter of beer and move into the next. I’m female, was younger and that was with a meal. </p>
<p>Yes, body reaction isn’t, they say, about weight.
nih:
BAC is influenced by environmental factors (such as the rate of alcohol drinking, the presence of food in the stomach, and the type of alcoholic beverage) and genetic factors (variations in the principal alcohol-metabolizing enzymes alcohol dehydrogenase [ADH] and aldehyde dehydrogenase [ALDH2]). The alcohol elimination rate varies widely (i.e., three-fold) among individuals and is influenced by factors such as chronic alcohol consumption, diet, age, smoking, and time of day (Bennion and Li 1976; Kopun and Propping 1977).</p>
<p>I think the college issue is wanting to be drunk.</p>
<p>The study was done at Colgate. No funds necessary. Unrepresentative (of other schools etc.) sample. Can only be applied to Colgate students interviewed.</p>
<p>I often drank 7 mixed drinks over the course of a long dance party when I was in college and I definitely drank beer by the liter in Germany. I don’t remember feeling particularly drunk in either case most of the time. I do wish that colleges could do a better job of promoting moderation, but I think that’s hard when officially many students are too young to be drinking at all.</p>
<p>
Well that’s a pretty lax definition of “binge” drinking.</p>
<p>I’m sensing a lot of negative sentiment here. Contrary to what a lot of you guys believe Universities aren’t trying as hard to STOP binge drinking anymore, because they know that they can’t control all of there students and people will binge drink whether they like it or not, they are trying harder to educate these days.</p>
<p>Last year when I was an incoming freshman we were literally bombarded with facts about sexual assault, binge drinking, alcohol poisoning…etc. The school put it like this for you," Look, it’s okay if you drink and we accept that, but we want you to be safe and responsible about it so here is what you can do." In my opinion this is the right approach because alcohol has already been ingrained into college culture and it will continue to be like that. The statement “There is no such thing as a dry campus” is entirely true here, technically my campus is “dry” but I never felt the effects of that once. Alcohol was never farther away than a few doors down the hall or a trip to the fridge.</p>
<p>Also, just because one binge drinks does not at all mean that they won’t be successful or even develop any problems down the line; this is coming from someone in the group (white, male, greek) who is supposed to be most likely to binge drink. Does there have to be a negative correlation with happiness and academic success? Absolutely not. When I joined a fraternity my grades actually improved, and in the meantime the rate at which I would binge drink also increased and this was true for a lot of my friends.</p>
<p>Additionally 48% of all U.S. presidents, 42% of U.S. senators, 30% of U.S. congressmen, and 40% of U.S. Supreme Court justices were in a fraternity and I would be willing to put money on the fact the majority of those would binge drink. If THATS not success than I don’t know what is.</p>
<p>I just wanted to give my opinion here that you can binge drink but also succeed in school and be happy while doing it, it doesn’t have to be one or the other because that’s what a lot of people on CC really seem to believe.</p>
<p>
America is conflicted over alcohol. Numerous studies have found that two glasses of wine a day will make the average man healthier - physically and mentally - than his tee-totaling twin.</p>
<p>But apparently it also makes him a “binge drinker.” ;)</p>
<p>I hate it when advocates of a concept stretch their terms to cover just about everything under the sun. It destroys their credibility (with me, anyway) and makes their arguments and observations pretty much meaningless.</p>
<p>Industries depend on such studies… the more people you can fit under the “sick” umbrella, the more hospitals/treatment programs/government agencies can get paid.</p>
<p>It didn’t say they are happier. It said they are happier with their social lives.</p>
<p>The experimental data indicate that the average college male binge drinker who thinks he drank 5 drinks on average drank 11. Half of them drank more. This isn’t counting those who think they had 6, 7, 8, or 9. </p>
<p>The average male college NON-binge drinker who believes he drank 4 drinks actually averaged 9. Half of these “NON-binge” drinkers had more than that.</p>
<p>It is FAR from covering everything under the sun.</p>
<p>well it would help to define “drink”</p>
<p>one person’s drink is another person’s Kool Aid with a splash of alcohol.</p>
<p>If everyone understood the general definition of drink (approximately 1.5 oz 80-proof liquor, or one standard 12-oz beer at 5% ABV, or 6 oz. of 10% ABV wine…), that would help.</p>
<p>And how in the heck is this being measured – are people following them around, watching them? Are the testers literally spending their time monitoring all of the subjects’ behavior?</p>
<p>"The experimental data indicate that the average college male binge drinker who thinks he drank 5 drinks on average drank 11. Half of them drank more. This isn’t counting those who think they had 6, 7, 8, or 9.</p>
<p>The average male college NON-binge drinker who believes he drank 4 drinks actually averaged 9. Half of these “NON-binge” drinkers had more than that."</p>
<p>What’s the point of getting wasted? I never understood that.</p>
<p>What is happiness? The article neither defines it nor describes how it is measured. Apparently it is related in this study to satisfaction with the “college social experience”. If the study focuses on a single college where binge drinking is a major feature of the campus social experience, then it isn’t surprising that binge drinkers participate more actively in that experience. O.K., so now we’ve discovered that binge drinkers fit in socially with people who binge drink. Next study?</p>
<p>“And how in the heck is this being measured – are people following them around, watching them? Are the testers literally spending their time monitoring all of the subjects’ behavior?”</p>
<p>That’s exactly what they do. With video cams. Two major studies, repeated. They followed subjects in a drinking situation, counted the number of drinks in an evening. Then asked the subjects the next day how many they had. They discovered that, on average, the 4-drink NON-binge drinker actually had five. But was still counted as a non-binge drinker. As the numbers went up, college students got less accurate in their estimates of the number of drinks they had. Those who drank alco-pops from a can (an increasing segment of the college population) were even less accurate, as they didn’t know how many standard drinks were in a can.</p>
<p>The second studies asked students to measure out a standard drink. On average, college students poured a drink that was 1.8X the standard size. Half poured drinks larger than that. Almost none poured a “standard” drink.</p>
<p>So a NON-BINGE drinker who though he had four drinks on average had five (half had more), and the drink size was 1.8X the standard. Thus the NON-BINGE drinker had 9 drinks - with half of them having more. Almost none of them had four drinks. The average 5-drink binge drinker had 11 drinks, with half having more. Virtually none of them had five drinks. </p>
<p>Yes, testers spend a lot of time monitoring this stuff. That’s how they get Ph.Ds.</p>
<p>I don’t see any reason to disbelieve the study: students who binge-drank were happier with their social lives than students who didn’t binge drink.</p>
<p>But, hello? This wasn’t a randomized trial. They didn’t assign students to drink or not drink; they merely looked at the students who drank and those who didn’t. It’s not as if the students who didn’t drink were identical to their drinking peers except in alcohol consumption. </p>
<p>There’s absolutely no reason to believe that if the non-bingeing students began to binge, they would have happier social lives. Most likely, in most cases, the students who would be happier drinking were already drinking.</p>
<p>I’ve known so many “moderate” (non-bingeing) students who have been miserable at my alma mater over the years, and I’ll bet that’s true at a lot of other places as well. (They don’t perceive there is much else to do.) At many campuses, when you take away the binge drinkers and the total abstainers, you quickly discover that the so-called 'moderate drinkers are a vanishing breed.</p>
<p>Small differences in the percentages of bingers makes a big difference in campus culture. On a campus where 30-35% binge, abstainers and moderate drinkers will dominate the campus culture. On campuses where it is more than 50%, drinking (usually led by males, often athletes) will dominate the campus culture. Yes, one can always find a way to fit, but why should one have to?</p>
<p>No, Cardinal, they questioned the students, not just looked at them. And, they did determine that poorer, non-frat kids who were binge drinkers reported higher levels of happiness than their non-binging counterparts.<br>
Mini, they can also hold over-21 events where they can control the alcohol output. Served Joe 9, he later reported drinking 4.</p>
<p>The binge factor isn’t only the amount or within x hours, it’s the frequency.</p>
<p>The point being that a reported five drinks as defining a binge is an EXCELLENT measure for college drinking, because as a purely statistical matter, almost no one who reports five actually had only five.</p>
<p>Carolyn L. Hsu has stumbled onto the importance of “fit”.
If binge drinking is a symbolic proxy for high status at Colgate, it would be interesting to try to re-frame her study at an institution where some other activity is highly valued. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>[BYU</a> Divine Comedy “Provo Girls” - YouTube](<a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2W3EKMuWyps]BYU”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2W3EKMuWyps)</p>
<p>“Unrepresentative (of other schools etc.) sample. Can only be applied to Colgate students interviewed.”</p>
<p>That’s a bit much – I don’t think Colgate is unique. I’d be pretty comfortable drawing conclusions from this study for other small, selective, largely white, rural, Greek campuses in the Northeast.</p>