<p>Has anyone read about this study? It is not specific to one university, and was done by the U of Wisconsin.</p>
<p>I think most universities have binge drinkers, some more known for it than others.
I know my daughter is coming home St. Patrick’s weekend because even students who don’t normally drink seem to indulge and that is even worse in some ways.
It’s sad and has many sad consequences but no college has ever developed a good solution to it.</p>
<p>Monitoring the Future, the very large survey put out for the past 30 years puts out the same number. However, we know for certain from experimental data that it is an underestimate. The two pieces of data: 1) When asked to pour a “standard drink”, the average student pours one 1.8X the standard size. So the student who thinks he poured five, actually poured nine. 2) From observed data, the average student who responds that the she had only four drinks (and hence isn’t a binge drinker) actually had five.</p>
<p>What this means is the student who says he had only four drinks (and hence isn’t a binge drinker) had, on average NINE. Half of them would have had more than that, and would not be classified as binge drinking. </p>
<p>If you take the numbers above, and increase by about 20%, you’ll be reasonably close.</p>
<p>Binge drinking is not directly linked to lifetime alcohol-related and alcoholism problems. However, heavy drinking (bingeing three times in a two-week period, or drinking 2 or more drinks nearly every day), is. Roughly three out of five of the above will be heavy drinkers (differs from campus to campus.) Of those, roughly 60% will end up with serious alcohol-related problems or alcoholism sometime in their lives. (It works out to something like 16% of the student body (give or take 2-3%), higher for males, whites, and athletes.)</p>
<p>The differences from campus to campus, even where the student bodies on paper look similar, can be HUGE.</p>
<p>But lets look at the positives here - 56%, or the majority, of students Do NOT.</p>
<p>I would say 44% is very low and I bet the real percentage is more like 70%.</p>
<p>I agree with MoWC. Even <em>I</em> did it three times in college, and I would have been the LAST person you’d expect to do something so stupid. Once I woke up and didn’t know where my car or one contact lens were! I found both of them, thankfully. I have told my kids about my experience, but I don’t know if it will help.</p>
<p>And tomorrow is St. Patricks Day, the day, as a parent, I dread most.</p>
<p>
Three? That’s all? Ah my misspent youth!</p>
<p>LOL, sylvan. I was just the biggest “square” you could imagine, so my HS acquaintances would have been shocked!</p>
<p>I agree with MOWC.</p>
<p>"Fifty percent of college students who drink report alcohol-induced blackouts, and alcohol abusers in general put a heavy burden on the medical care system. Using data drawn from a randomized, controlled alcohol intervention trial at five university sites, our study quantified the costs of visits to emergency departments by college students who experienced blackouts from drinking alcohol. Of 954 students in the study, 52 percent of males and 50 percent of females at the outset of the study had experienced an alcohol-induced blackout in the past year. Of 404 emergency department visits among the study participants over a two-year observation period, about one in eight were associated with blackout drinking. Injuries ranged from broken bones to head and brain injuries requiring computed tomography. We calculate that on a large university campus having more than 40,000 students, blackout-associated emergency department visit costs would range from $469,000 to $546,000 per year. We conclude that blackouts are a strong predictor of emergency department visits for college drinkers and that prevention efforts aimed at students with a history of blackouts might reduce injuries and emergency department costs. "</p>
<p>The study also has statistics about the costs associated with the students who suffered 8 or more alcohol-related blackouts. So y’all think of binge drinking as an occasional thing? I guess my definition was more about frequency and not intensity – if I’m drunk every weekend, do I have more or less than a problem than someone who only drinks 2 or 3 times a semester, but passes out?</p>
<p>Also wondering about the schools used. PSU had 500+ ER visits just last year alone, more than the two years of this study of 5 schools, combined. Prob the same at Alabama, UMich, and others…</p>
<p>I cannot convey how sad this makes me.It is a very sad commentary on the state of colleges.I guess you can add the expense of student on student rape in those figures.I have been reading about the cost of property damage is up there because for some reason it is not enough to let lose by getting drunk but destroying property has become part of the fun.</p>
<p>
Passing out is different than blacking out, just to be clear.</p>
<p>“I would say 44% is very low and I bet the real percentage is more like 70%.”</p>
<p>I think probably around 52%, based on all the data I see. Remember, there are schools where the average student is older (the average undergrad in the U.S. is currently 24.6 years old), and which are more heavily minority (African-American, Hispanic, and Asian American students are much less likely to be binge or heavy drinkers), and commuter schools where a large percentage of students live away from campus have lower rates. </p>
<p>Schools - even those which on the surface seem similar - can actually differ radically in this regard. (So no one should suggest that "they all do it’, or “it’s on all campuses”, because the differences can be as great as the similarities.</p>
<p>As far as I am aware, no one has tried to assess the long-term damage or costs related to alcohol blackouts.</p>
<p>This doesn’t really surprise me at all. Young drinkers don’t drink because it tastes good, they drink to get drunk. Starting as early as middle school, but it seems like early to mid high school is more typical… I don’t think it really starts tapering off until you get into the early to mid 20s when drinking is legal and it’s no longer such a big deal to be able to obtain enough alcohol to get drunk. I stopped going to the football games at my university because my season ticket seats were in the freshmen section and students were constantly vomiting in the bleachers.</p>
<p>But, at the same time, as a non-drinker I had no problem finding other things to do, and the drinking culture at my university largely didn’t affect me at all. It seems a shame, though, to think of all the fun things I did that other students missed out on because they partied almost exclusively for their social outlets. Seems like a waste.</p>
<p>I think it’s a sad commentary on the state of our nation, as well as the state of our colleges. Alcohol, and its abuse, are the norm in this country. Parents tolerate it because “they are just being kids”, “everyone drinks”, “remember what we did, it was so much worse.” S’s college took a hard stance (at least on the books) against hard liquor and turned a very blind eye to other alcohol, underage, in the boys’ dorms,</p>
<p>Mini, how do the numbers look on campuses were pot is more common that on campuses were pot is less common (if that difference exists and is measurable)? </p>
<p>I’ve often wondered if campuses would be a lot safer and saner if kids turned more to smoking pot than drinking to get quickly drunk.</p>
<p>While there are regional differences (as well as individual school differences), in the main pot and alcohol go together in terms of prevalence. (different from 30-40 years ago.) Both pot and alcohol, together, are more common in fraternities and sororities (and schools that have a lot of them). </p>
<p>From what I can tell, no one ever died of pot. (that’s not an endorsement, just a reality.)</p>
<p>I told my daughter I didn’t mind her coming home for St. Patricks, last year, they had quite a few incidences and students missing classes on Friday. She would like to study abroad next year and although she knows they drink there too, she hopes, the ages and restrictions being different, it isn’t such a big deal.
She laments so many occcasions of what she would have thought would be a gooid time was canceled by others to go to a party and then not remember most of it.
I guess the apple didn’t fall far from the tree, because I never drank much and didn’t like the taste of cheap liquor or feeling woozy and sick.
I tell her to be careful at parties, keep your cup near, and never, ever, have someone drive you anywhere after drinking. I can only pray she listens.</p>
<p>
Apparently that depends on where she goes, Debruns. A lot of European countries have drinking problems too.</p>
<p><a href=“Binge drinking: Why do intelligent women drink to oblivion every night? | Daily Mail Online”>Binge drinking: Why do intelligent women drink to oblivion every night? | Daily Mail Online;