What qualifies as "binge drinking" to you?

[TheEnforcer]

http://www.madison.com/wsj/home/loca...php?ntid=62934

Data show UW binge drinking way beyond norm
00:00 am 11/26/05
KAREN RIVEDAL


A Jager bomb - a shot of Jagermeister liqueur dropped into a glass of Red Bull energy drink - is a popular libation among college students. Five or more in a sitting would qualify as binge drinking. A study shows far more UW System students binge drink than their peers nationwide,
(Photo illustration by JOHN MANIACI - State Journal?)

It may be little comfort, but it's official now.

Students in the University of Wisconsin System are drinking dangerously at a rate fully one- third higher than their peers nationwide, with the hangovers, missed classes, DUIs and unprotected sex to show for it.

And students at UW- Madison - party-central for the entire region at Halloween and not exactly stone-sober any other time - are doing even worse.

A first-of-its-kind survey, done in spring 2005 and released this month, found that 78 percent of System undergraduates drank alcohol in the previous month, with 59 percent reporting "binge drinking" - defined as five or more drinks in one sitting - at least once in the previous 14 days.

At UW-Madison alone, the binge rate was even higher, at 66 percent. Both the System average and UW-Madison's rate far exceed the 44 percent average for college students nationwide

"Alcohol abuse among UW students is rampant," Regent Elizabeth Burmaster said at this month's UW Board of Regents meeting in Madison.

The silver lining?

Pretty thin, at this point. System President Kevin Reilly noted the survey at least provides a baseline to judge the effectiveness of prevention programs at System campuses, with follow-up surveys planned every other year.

"The data themselves are very troubling," Reilly said. "But this will allow us to better create and target programs to help alleviate the problems."


Some avoid alcohol Additionally, a closer look at survey results points up one potential positive. While it's clear most students drink to excess with some frequency, the survey also found that a fifth of students reported not drinking at all in the previous month.

"I think that definitely deserves more attention, to find out why 20 percent are deciding not to drink and the important lessons that can be drawn from that," said David Glisch- Sanchez, academic affairs director of United Council of UW Students, a statewide lobbying organization staffed largely by recent graduates.

Glisch-Sanchez also said it shouldn't be surprising to see System students drinking more than the national collegiate average when the state as a whole is guilty of the same thing. A study this year by the Harvard School of Public Health - ground zero for national data about college alcohol abuse - showed binge drinking among college students in the 10 states with the lowest rates of adult, non-college binge drinking is about 32 percent lower than in the 10 states with the highest, which includes Wisconsin.

"We are a state, for better or worse, of drinkers," Glisch- Sanchez said. "At the end of the day, people are going to make their own choices."

Critics of higher education's heavy emphasis on alcohol education and prevention - those who think the entire topic is an overblown concern or not the way to spend taxpayer dollars or grants - also have some facts on their side. It's indisputable that despite heavy drinking on campuses, many students still study hard, get good grades and do lots of things that may have nothing to do with alcohol, such as playing intramural sports, joining student groups and volunteering in the community.

And after college, most former students put their hard- partying days behind them, as jobs and families bring more responsibilities.

"Most graduates go on to successful careers and most students are not going to become alcoholic," said Susan Crowley, who runs UW- Madison's alcohol-prevention effort, known as PACE.


High cost of abuse But there's still reason to be concerned about the measurable harm that many students are doing to themselves - and likely the people around them - right now, Crowley said.

"College drinking today is different from 20 or 30 years ago, when (current students') parents were in college," she said. "The big difference is students today are drinking so excessively and putting themselves at such high risk. For the individuals involved, it's life-threatening."

Recent examples abound of the individual and community cost of abusive drinking.

UW-Madison in August was named the nation's top party school by the Princeton Review, an unscientific but highly publicized annual poll that does little for the institution's reputation as one of the nation's premier public research universities. UW-Madison also was featured prominently in a series of stories about high-risk drinking on college campuses this month in USA Today.

In October, UW-Madison issued its own alarm about student drinking, noting that trips to the detox center for alcohol poisoning surged in the first six weeks of the semester compared to the same time a year ago. The number in late October - even before Halloween in Madison - was 30 students, compared to 17 such cases in late October 2004.

And while this year's pre- Halloween detox number wasn't very different from 2003, when it was 27, officials noted that the serious drinkers at UW-Madison continue getting younger. The average age of those taken to detox has fallen from 20.4 years old to 18.9 since 2002.

Halloween weekend itself took its usual toll, with 468 people arrested on a total of 700 charges. About 100 people went to jail, eight went to detox and three were hospitalized for alcohol-related issues. Tested blood-alcohol levels ranged from 0.05 percent to 0.30.

And there was at least one serious injury, when a Halloween reveler from Illinois fell down a flight of stairs off campus. Nicholas Giancana, 19, of Elgin lay in a coma at UW Hospital for about 12 days, before being discharged on Nov. 14 to another rehab center in Wheaton, Ill. His mother, Karen, this week said he is talking and walking again, with some difficulty, but still has serious problems and will probably be hospitalized another few weeks.

Most of those arrested during Halloween were young people from outside UW-Madison, and the event itself was largely peaceful, compared to the riots and damage on State Street in previous years. But it cost Madison police about $350,000 to keep the peace, part of the roughly $1 million that the city and university spend annually for alcohol-related policing and campus cleanups.


'It's a social thing' UW-Parkside senior Chris Semenas, who represents students on the UW Board of Regents, said he was surprised - and worried - to see the high levels of binge-drinking reported in the System survey. He hoped more work with bar and liquor-store owners and community leaders at every System campus could help control the problem.

"Students are going to drink and that's the reality," Semenas said. "It's a social thing. However, we need to be looking at ways to be safe about it, so students aren't getting themselves sick and drinking and driving."

Already, every System campus provides alcohol education programs, some focused on first-year students. Campuses also have tried different types of sanctions, including parental notification of dangerous drinking, and alcohol-free alternative programming, such as keeping gyms and student unions open late on the weekends.

Reilly said research showed that working with tavern owners to limit drink specials can reduce high-risk drinking. Finding ways to change student perceptions also could be helpful, he said, noting students consistently over-estimated how much their peers drank in the System survey.

Reilly didn't believe that abusive student drinking would ever stop. But he said campuses had to keep trying.

"You read about these tragic things that happen because kids make a mistake on this," Reilly said. "The question is, how can you keep the (instances of) bad behavior to as low a number as possible and help protect students' lives?"
========================================

5 drinks? I also read in a different article that it is four for women?

Does anybody else think that is a pretty low amount of drinks to be considered binge drinking? To me it seems that number would make the vast majority of drinkers binge drinkers.

[PornoDoggy]

Where I come from, binge drinking usually involves the number of days, not the number of drinks.

[TheEnforcer]

Originally Posted by PornoDoggy

Where I come from, binge drinking usually involves the number of days, not the number of drinks.

Hahahahaha.. exactly!!

[Red]

5 is a low number to qualify as binge drinking, though I suppose a lot depends on one's tolerance. 5 drinks would have me passing out and throwing up for the entire next day while for many others, 5 barely makes a dent.


I disagree that there is more drinking on campuses today than 20 or 30 years ago. They just never took surveys back then and drunken college stupidity was not as well publicized. Those were the days before fraternity hazing became an issue so there was very little focus on college social life. People are just paying more attention to campus life now, so it's noticed.

[MorganGrayson]

I think there definitely needs to be a definition of the word "sitting." If your sitting is an entire evening in a bar...arriving at say 8PM and not leaving until 2PM closing, with the five drinks spaced out, it can't really be considered "binge drinking." That's a six hour "sitting." One ounce of alcohol is processed by the body in one hour. In six hours, five evenly spaced drinks would be processed, leaving the drinker competent.

If, however, your "sitting" is one hour and you have five drinks, you're definitely "binge drinking." You're also drunk off your ass and liable to be heaving in the gutter.

The study is extremely flawed. They seem to have gotten the results they were looking for.

[Grump]

5 drinks??? Thats a warmup for drinking, not a binge! I used to consider it a binge if I ended up in a different time zone than I started in. Or if my maritial state changed during the fun.

[TheEnforcer]

Hahahah.. good post Grump!! :>))

Morgan and Red, good points. The deifnition of "sitting" and a person's tolerance are issues one has to consider as well.

[MorganGrayson]

Originally Posted by TheEnforcer

Hahahah.. good post Grump!! :>))

Morgan and Red, good points. The deifnition of "sitting" and a person's tolerance are issues one has to consider as well.

I remember getting a "taste" of a restaurant's new house wine. The "taste" hit my empty stomach and I became quite merry. I have an extremely high tolerance for medication, but an extremely low tolerance for alcohol. I'm usually quite soused halfway through a glass of wine. Five drinks would put me in the hospital.

I had one glass of white wine with Thanksgiving dinner. I went straight to bed and hangover mode. Splitting headache, heaving stomach...Chihuahua dancing on me because she wanted to play. I lived, but I don't know how.

[TheEnforcer]

5 drinks is a warmup!!

[Peaches]

5 drinks and I would be passed out and/or puking.

I don't see how they set a certain amount when everyone's different as to how much booze they can consume before it starts affecting them detrimentally.

[pushpills]

5 drinks? I call it "brunch". I'm gonna have to go ahead and agree with PD.

[Trev]

I'm with the other guys here, 5 drinks is just a starter...

[el pres]

depends on the drinks if its a diamondwhite and elephant beer with a shot of cassis snakebite in a pint glass.. then you're on the floor.

[Trev]

Originally Posted by el pres

depends on the drinks if its a diamondwhite and elephant beer with a shot of cassis snakebite in a pint glass.. then you're on the floor.

We used to drink Smirnoff ice and Stella (turbo shandy) before heading off to the football they don't half stop you from feeling the cold, I could only manage about 13 or 14 pints of those before I was bar carpet

[Biggy]

It doesn't take an Einstein to figure out the #1 party school has a higher binge drinking rate than the rest of the country. Go there for one weekend. I was at UW-Madison for Halloween not this past Halloween, but the year before.

I officially had the worst costume ever. I was "static cling" and super-glued a bunch of socks and dryer sheets to a black sweat suit I had purchased. Throughout the night, people would pull it all off me, until I was just wearing in a black jumpsuit. My friends proceeded to call me "cling" for the next 2 months. They still bring it up as the worst costume ever, over a year later.

Gotta love college life. Too bad its over.

P.S. On a side note, Jager bomb happens to be my favorite shot of the moment, so if you see me in Vegas and want one, just holler at me. It is my kryptonite.

[RyanLanane]

When I owned my bar I STARTED the night out splitting a liter of jager with a friend... So 1/2 liter every night to START, usually took 1/2 an hour or so to drink it..

I would say that alone qualifies as Binge drinking, not to mention the next 12-24 hours I would drink straight after that.. Real Binge drinkers know what a binge is, and it sure as hell isn't 5 drinks lol ...

My lil bro is in college, he has a partial scholorship for being editor at the paper, which is a full time job... he has a full course schedule, and he still finds time to party with his frat brothers.. When he drinks I am sure he drinks more than 5 beers within the first hour or two but he isn't a binge drinker, he is more of a social drinker who likes to let loose of built up tension by partying..

As said before here, study has alot of flaws.. As almost all drinking studies do/will have ...

[sarettah]

imho binge drinking totally depends on who is doing the drinking.

If you drink and get drunk and continue drinking at the same rate, you are probably binging.

For me, a fifth of tequila in 3 hours was the last binge drinking I did. I was very surprised that I woke up the next day

[Steady]

Originally Posted by TheEnforcer

5 drinks is a warmup!!

The way it works with me is..."binge drinking" is a twelve pack/one case of beer in one night and doing it again in 3 to 4 weeks.

[sarettah]

Originally Posted by Steady

The way it works with me is..."binge drinking" is a twelve pack/one case of beer in one night and doing it again in 3 to 4 weeks.

And you dare to call yourself a Texan?

[Sin]

Wow...

I won't say what the people that I know, drink. Then again, I work in a microbrewery... lol

[Newton]

The world needs more chavs

[Trev]

Originally Posted by Newton

The world needs more chavs

Chavs aren't binge drinkers... they're professional street drinkers

[Dravyk]

Those college kids are total lightweights!!!!

I'm with nearly everyone else here ... it's a warmup, it's breakfast, it's nothing.

Also, Morgan has an excellent point. What is a "session"? If it's a night then .... they are just pathetic!

Here, college kids. You weak pathetic little binger-wannabees need a role model like we had back in the day!

[TheEnforcer]

Originally Posted by Dravyk

Those college kids are total lightweights!!!!

I'm with nearly everyone else here ... it's a warmup, it's breakfast, it's nothing.

Also, Morgan has an excellent point. What is a "session"? If it's a night then .... they are just pathetic!

Here, college kids. You weak pathetic little binger-wannabees need a role model like we had back in the day!

I would put UW-Madison college drinkers up against just about any people you would put in front of them in a drinking challenge!!

Just because it's a messed up way to measure a study doesn't mean there isn't a legit reason UW-Madison was the #1 partry school in this years Princeton review and always is in the top few spots of such rankings!

[pushpills]

well to set the record straight...they are talking about a college bar in some farmtown. they close at 1230 when the rest of us are heading out for the night. I'd imagine they quadrupled that number at a nearby frathouse within an hour.

[Newton]

When you wake up with a bastard behind the eyes and smelling of Eau de Robert Downey Jnr thats a good time ..

[Trev]

Originally Posted by Newton

When you wake up with a bastard behind the eyes and smelling of Eau de Robert Downey Jnr thats a good time ..

Yup it pretty much is, it's a once in a blue moon kinda thing these days though.

[Nickatilynx]

Lighhtweights LOL

I gave up booze because I was drinking 2 litres of Vodka by lunch and wandering round apparantly sober to others....

[PornoDoggy]

Seventeen hours after I got a DWI (.032) and fourteen hours after my last drink I was taken to the base security office and given a breathalyzer - it was at .017).

The guy that took me to the base security office was trying to scare me, and it worked.

I sold my car.

Binge drinking as defined for that survey kills off 10-20 high school and college students a year just from alcohol poisoning. Nobody knows how many it kills off because they try to drive, they try to walk, they find themselves talking shit to the wrong people in the wrong part of town.

College students, on average, are in their late teens and early 20s. In other words, they are dumber than a box of rocks. To paraphrase the old song, "They're still young, it's there fault, there's so much they have to go through..."

Now, the odd thing is, most of them live through it without somebody like Voo having to notify a NOK.

USUALLY people mature, and begin to moderate.

Not everyone does, and not everyone who doesn't has a problem with alcohol (me, I seldom met a substance I couldn't abuse). Some aren't drunks - they are just stupid.

Me, I gave it up because life got just too damned exciting. One day I could drink everybody under the table and still be going at it when they got back up, and the next day I'd start drinking in St. Louis, only to find myself up in Grogan's neighborhood four days later without a clue (other than ticket stubs and credit/ATM receipts) as to how I got there.

[Dravyk]

Originally Posted by PornoDoggy

Me, I gave it up because life got just too damned exciting. One day I could drink everybody under the table and still be going at it when they got back up, and the next day I'd start drinking in St. Louis, only to find myself up in Grogan's neighborhood four days later without a clue (other than ticket stubs and credit/ATM receipts) as to how I got there.

And now you're alive but it's all so damned boring.

Just kidding! Good job, PD!!!!

[DrGuile]

Saturday, a friend threw up on my car...

I believe that qualifies as binge drinking...

[Newton]

Originally Posted by DrGuile

Saturday, a friend threw up on my car...

I believe that qualifies as binge drinking...

It might have been your choice of automobile? Does it have spinners?

[Nickatilynx]

Originally Posted by DrGuile

Saturday, a friend threw up on my car...

I believe that qualifies as binge drinking...

No he knows something of cars and was making a statement about Hyundais

[Inabon]

Originally Posted by Dravyk

Those college kids are total lightweights!!!!

I'm with nearly everyone else here ... it's a warmup, it's breakfast, it's nothing.

Also, Morgan has an excellent point. What is a "session"? If it's a night then .... they are just pathetic!

Here, college kids. You weak pathetic little binger-wannabees need a role model like we had back in the day!

ohh yes he is/was GOD I had so much fun at college and i did follow his model hehe i was going to be a doctor and turned out computer engineer (cause i could go drunk to class and not worry about killing anyone ---- burp ahh shit well it is only a computer---- burp)

hahaha

and again dravykk when it comes to politics we don't agree on anything but when it comes to drinking i think we agree on everything

[DrGuile]

Originally Posted by Newton

It might have been your choice of automobile? Does it have spinners?

No... maybe he thought my car would look better with a brownish-red stripe at the back...

[Dravyk]

Originally Posted by Inabon

and again dravykk when it comes to politics we don't agree on anything but when it comes to drinking i think we agree on everything

I'll drink to that!

[TheEnforcer]

Originally Posted by DrGuile

Saturday, a friend threw up on my car...

I believe that qualifies as binge drinking...

On or in.. big difference!!!!

[DrGuile]

Originally Posted by TheEnforcer

On or in.. big difference!!!!

luckly, mostly on...

[TheEnforcer]

Hahaha.. yes.. definately lucky...

[Bigsister]

5 drinks? I also read in a different article that it is four for women?

Does anybody else think that is a pretty low amount of drinks to be considered binge drinking? To me it seems that number would make the vast majority of drinkers binge drinkers.

I never had thoughts like this. I was raised in the wild, wild country. What I was able to consume when I was 17 would possibly be conserned unbelievable in US and I would be possibly crucified.

Very important is that people come to contact with alcohol early, so they have a few incidents and they know where to stop after on. I suppose drinking in pubs is the most intensive part of our culture. It's considered a shame not to control yourself after few hours of drinking, on the other hand the trouble is that there are quite a lot of drunken drivers - that's the worst part.

Our country is 160 litres that makes about 42 gallons of beer/ year per person including kids, women and abstinents.

[DannyCox]

When I was studying Engineering in the early '80s, we used to have the "24 Club" and the "48 Club". You started with the 24 Club, which meant you had to drink 24 beers at one sitting, without sleeping, passing out, or puking. The same with the 48 Club, which was 48 Beers. There was no time limit, and I made the 48 Club in just over 20 hours.

Keep in mind, this was Canadian beer at a 5.5% alcohol content!

These days, I drink a 6.2% beer, and usually put back about a dozen on our Friday beer nights I don't drink at all the rest of the week, so I am what they call a binge drinker!

[Dravyk]

Originally Posted by DannyCox

These days, I drink a 6.2% beer, and usually put back about a dozen on our Friday beer nights I don't drink at all the rest of the week, so I am what they call a binge drinker!

That's not binge drinking, Danny; that's just expeditious time utilization.

[Timon]

How many drinks is one bottle of wine?

[sarettah]

Originally Posted by Timon

How many drinks is one bottle of wine?

I believe the formula (and yes there is a formula) is one six ounce glass of wine is equal to one shot of alcohol.

So, at that point depends on whether you are drinking a 750 or a mag

[CDSmith]

Is there a difference between a binge and a bender?

I would say that if you've drank enough beers that you have enough empties to cash in and buy another case, you're probably on a binge.

[TheEnforcer]

Heheheh.. I used to go to parties during the summer when I worked at Noah's Ark and always brought a liter bottle of schaaps, tequila, whiskey, or other such hard liquor to swig down while I was drinking beer all night! :>)) My favorite to bring though was Goldschlagger.

I would guess there are many Opranoites here who, at some point in their life, could drink a small countries worth of alcohol in one night! ;>))) I know if I tried to drink like I did when I was in my late teens to mid 20's I would have some serious problems!!

[Timon]

Originally Posted by sarettah

I believe the formula (and yes there is a formula) is one six ounce glass of wine is equal to one shot of alcohol.

So, at that point depends on whether you are drinking a 750 or a mag

So one standard bottle of wine is only about 4 drinks?

[Trev]

Originally Posted by Timon

So one standard bottle of wine is only about 4 drinks?

Toni's normal sized glass empties a bottle of wine in 3 glass fulls, she's also got her special glass that empties the bottle in 1.

[Timon]

Originally Posted by Trev

Toni's normal sized glass empties a bottle of wine in 3 glass fulls, she's also got her special glass that empties the bottle in 1.

that's an abomination.

[Lyndress]

If you are this wasted that you don't even realize your buddies have wrapped your drunk ass in plastic wrap. BINGER! hahaa! Gotta love it.