Binge drinking on the increase

By Scott Deininger
SPECIAL TO THE HERALD NEWS

From 1993 to 2001, binge drinking among adults age 26-55 rose 25 percent while the same study found that underage binge drinking increased an incredible 56 percent.

So why all the alcohol consumption?

"Binge drinking has been steadily on the rise in both high school and college students in recent times," said Dr. Abhin Singla, the medical director of chemical dependency at Silver Cross Hospital.

"Then those same people get into their late 20s and early 30s and bring their drinking habits along. Essentially, the patterns and behaviors you develop as a teen carry over into your adult life."

Another factor attributed to the rise in binge drinking was the state of the country's economy in the late 1990s.

"When the economy was prosperous and the unemployment rate was low, there wasn't a major concern about drinking," said Singla. "If you drank during the week and had it affect your job to the point of getting fired, you could easily find another job. You could basically afford to drink, both in terms of having money and opportunities."

Different today
 

Such a carefree mentality doesn't exist today. The economy is struggling and unemployment has risen.

"People today don't have the luxury of drinking and having it adversely affect their job performance," said Singla. "I have many patients in treatment who are weekend drinkers. They can't drink during the week and risk losing their job."

So why was there a decline in binge drinking, which is having five or more alcoholic beverages in one sitting, in the early 1990s?

"The decrease in binge drinking was the result of Nancy Reagan's 'Just Say No' campaign of the 1980s," said Singla. "The kids of the '80s became teens in the '90s and adhered to the anti-drug and anti-drinking ads."

Since a generation often tends to mirror the one before them, according to Singla, the rise in binge drinking can also be linked to a copycat effect. Unfortunately, such wasn't the case when the generation after the Reagan Administration began to binge drink, as the study indicates.

Other findings in the study were that men accounted for 81 percent of binge drinking episodes.

"That is a direct correlation to competitive athletics and the advertisements and commercials that go along with them," said Todd W. Garrison, substance counselor at Provena Saint Joseph Medical Center.

"As a whole, men play considerably more sports while also watching more live or televised sporting events. There's been more emphasis placed on the notion that consuming alcohol will result in fun while watching or even playing a sport."

The study indicated that some major contributing factors to the rise in binge drinking are linked to societal perspectives. Alcohol intoxication is often considered either humorous or a rite of passage, according to study researcher Dr. Timothy S. Naimi and colleagues.

Public perception
 

"Public perception and acceptance make people think of their drinking as normal," said Singla. "It's generally viewed as OK to have times of over indulgence in alcohol. And in most frat houses and sororities, it's even encouraged and treated as part of a ritual."

Another area of focus has been on personal perception. Some binge drinkers deny it as such and consider themselves anything but a binge drinker. Nearly 73 percent of binge drinkers thought of themselves as simply moderate drinkers, which is regularly having one to two, drinks a day.

Other concerns would be the question: how many of those binge drinkers in their 20s and 30s would go on to become alcoholics in there 40s and 50s?

"Chances are likely that many of them will become alcoholics," Singla answered. "The pattern developed in high school is maintained through life even into later adulthood."

The study, published in "The Journal of The American Medical Association," says that alcohol abuse is the third largest preventable cause of death in the U.S., responsible for killing more than 100,000 people annually, largely due to driving accidents. Binge drinking plays a key role here because binge drinkers are 14 times more likely to drive drunk.

The socio-economic factor is key in the binge-drinking rise.

"The divorce rate has gotten progressively higher," said Garrison. "And people have a tendency to drink to relieve stress brought on by troubled marriages, whether it's the parents or the children doing the drinking."

Certain ethnicities and cultures embrace drinking alcohol as a part of celebrations. Binge drinking is most common with Hispanics and the lowest with African Americans.

The study concluded that a preventative measure to stifle binge drinking and alcohol abuse as a whole would be to find more effective ways to screen potential alcohol abusers.

01/29/03