Alcohol College Students Drink example essay topic

One Drink or Five This past weekend I went to my fair share of parties. I watched and studied several people at each party. What I noticed was an unusual amount of binge drinkers. Binge drinking is consuming five or more alcoholic drinks in the duration of the night. I used to drink all the time, but as I have developed into a grown up I realized that you really don't have to drink to be cool. I know that every single one of us has been to one of those parties: the music pounding the windows, the girls and guys having a wonderful time, and you standing there not knowing anyone.

What would you do? Have a couple drinks so that you will open up and meet new people? That is what everyone thinks happens when they drink more, but really it makes them act stupid. I watched and observed three people at these two parties that I went to, and in every case binge drinking occurred.

Her name is Kate Geoff, she is a girl who loves to have a good time. She is a regular at this house that the party was taking place at. She is a beautiful girl who almost everyone likes. I noticed this by the amount of people that came and talked to her during the course of the night.

She started off with a jack and Coke, and then proceeded to gulp down a few Coronas, following up with a couple more beers. This happened within a period of two hours. "The Jack and Coke was to loosen me up a little" said Kate. While consuming the beers during an avid game of drunk driver, which was a very popular card game at both these parties I ventured to, she had no idea how much she drank. By the end of the night she was passed out in the bathroom in a pile of throw-up.

She blacked out a couple times and had to be reminded the next day of what happened last night. The sad thing is, is that she will more than likely do it again the next night. She didn't know she was a binge drinker until the moment I told her. She didn't even know what a binge drinker was.

More than 40 percent of University students binge drink, according to a Penn State Pulse survey, and students younger than 21 are drinking an average of 4.4 drinks per occasion (Harris). Four drinks in a night doesn't seem like a lot, but think about it: a couple Jack and Cokes and beer to go with the card games will put you over the edge very quickly. Yes, it does also depend on the proof of the alcohol. Why is it that you have to drink to get drunk?

Why not be a casual drinker and enjoy yourself and your surroundings? All too often that can't be the case, and binge drinkers like to have fun and not sit around and wait for the fun to begin. The fun obviously begins when they start to drink and become incoherent. It all starts when you are young. Binge drinking often begins around 14 when you start to get into high school. Everyone tries to be cool while coming into more of a grown up school, and that's when drinking tends to start.

24.5% of those who start drinking at age 17 or younger develop alcohol dependence (In the zone). This means you are probably going to keep drinking throughout high school and carry it into college. If some of the people I went to high school with would have known that starting binge drinking early would hurt them for the later years, then I don't think they would have done it as much. Most high school students should wait until college for the binge drinking. I remember hearing about all the parties in high school which came hand-in-hand with the outrageous stories of a guy getting a pinky up the butt hole, a girl throwing up all over the room, and sexual activities in every corner.

I figured that if I started out doing these things, then I would never end up anywhere. Kate started out in high school hanging out with the older crowd with her sister, which is why she is still drinking to this day. She has been binge drinking for almost 6 years now. When all these binge drinkers sit down and really think about what they are doing to their bodies they will figure out that drinking excessively will hurt your body in the long run.

You may think that you are having fun and alcohol is the greatest thing in the world, but you are damaging your body. The binge drinking could also result in death. Alcohol is also especially dangerous for young people. Recent brain imaging studies in teens and young adults who drank heavily have shown shrinkage in an area of the brain that is responsible for memory and learning, which indicates that these young people's ability to learn and remember suffers. Alcohol can also prevent teens from growing to full-size. Heavy drinking in teens has been shown to interfere with muscle and bone growth.

In addition, people who drink as teenagers have a greater chance of osteoporosis later in life (In the Zone). Aren't students in college to pass school and get somewhere in life? Well, if you drink every weekend for the four years of college then you could decrease your memory a significant amount. I think that these college students, such as Josh and Kate, could really use their money and brain on something a little more important than alcohol.

The second party I went to with my friends they were enjoying themselves and drinking heavily. I would go up to them every hour or so and ask them to stop drinking, or at least slow down and they would tell me to have a good time. Having a good time and being the life of the party are two separate things. As time passed binge drinking occurred and my friends lost control of their bodies, blacked out, and even vomited all over. Is it really that cool to vomit? I didn't think so.

You can drink Red Bull and still be the life of the party without binge drinking and damaging your body. I sat and watched my friend's fork over $20 for more alcohol after all of the alcohol they already put in their body. Alcohol is expensive, but the binge drinking and drinking excessively costs a lot more. If you buy a case of beer and a bottle of alcohol every weekend that is $30-40 you could spend on something that will last a lifetime rather than a weekend of stupid mistakes. Imagine all the money you could save up for the next year of college or even take a vacation with that. That is more than books and tuition put together in one year.

Short term affects of alcohol include loss of consciousness, inability to make good decisions, behaving aggressively, choking to death on vomit, headaches, intense thirst, nausea, vomiting, blurry vision, and unsafe sexual activity. Everyone wakes up with hangovers after a rough night with alcohol, but when you are a binge drinker you can wake up with migraines and nausea. Kate is a drama queen and when the alcohol gets in her she starts fights with everyone and then has to figure out how to apologize to the people the next day. Some of the long term affects of binge drinking start after eight to ten years of drinking. So if you want to have premature aging then start drinking when you are a freshman in high school; that way when you are done with college you will look forty. It is proven that the excessive alcohol that you drink affects the memory part of your brain and you start to fall behind in school.

Frequent binge drinkers were eight times more likely than non-binge drinkers to miss a class, fall behind in schoolwork, get hurt or injured, and damage property (Wechsler). That would explain why the GPA for freshman start out so high, then by their sophomore year it has decreased significantly. The next party that I ventured into was a fraternity party. This is a key place for binge drinking. I walk up to my friend Josh Huff and ask how many he's had to drink, and he replies with a slurred "Two". This means in sober terms that he has had more than five.

I watch everyone pour more drinks from the bar. Everyone seems happy, well right now; wait until later when they are throwing-up. The Tenacious D song comes on and they belt out the words drinking after every sentence. They have a fraternity song that they sing to brothers who aren't drinking enough. They walk around the room looking for a sober victim and scream out the words, and after the song they are required to drink until they stop saying "Drink, Drink, Drink... ".

. I feel sorry for Josh who has to put up with this almost every weekend. I don't think it should be necessary for the brothers to drink until they say stop. That is pushing the drinking far over into the binge drinking.

I am asked him why he started drinking and his response while he laughed was "Everyone was doing it, and it is just something to do in college and have fun". He also responded with the fact that he doesn't have to drink, but then he's left out of the fun. One way to stop binge drinking is to never start. I look at all these people who are in the fraternity and wonder if they really joined to be a brother or just be around parties all the time. These people should have self control over what they drink and learn when the time to stop drinking is right. You should stop when you are starting to get the buzz, not continuing to drink.

I can guarantee you that you will be accepted into any group of people if you don't drink. You think you might be an outsider, but it is possible that there are other people at a party that don't drink also. Military also help in the binge drinking. My cousin, Derek, is in the Air Force and he has been in Japan for the past year. They are not permitted to drink alcohol while being over there. He has recently returned home, and the first night he got completely trashed.

Then it continued to the next night, and has been going on for the last week. He just tells me that he has to catch up on what he has been missing for the past year. He feels that he must consume alcohol every night for the three weeks that he is going to be here. He was overly intoxicated on Easter, a holiday even. Excessive alcohol consumption accounts for 75,000 deaths and $184 billion in economic costs in the U. S each year. As for its effect on college students, alcohol is a factor in the deaths of 1400 college students each year.

College students currently spend $5.5 billion a year on alcohol, more than they spend on textbooks, soft drinks, tea, milk, juice and coffee combined (Harvard). Binge drinkers spend this much money plus more, since they drink more. You could be rich, if you stopped binge drinking. I know from personal experience that you drive around to the store with the cheapest beer. You think you are saving money by buying more, but you " re just buying more to get drunk off of. The only common place that I saw binge drinking going on was at a party.

I am sure that it happens in bars, but I am not old enough to go into one. I would suppose that at a bar they cut you off from drinking after a while. If there were sober people at a party then I don't think there would be as many binge drinkers. Binge drinkers should be cut off after they throw-up. I sat and watched a girl walk over to the trash can in the kitchen, empty her stomach of all the she ate and drank in the past couple hours, and pick up her beer and continue drinking.

I watched her all night and she had 8 beers in three hours. She passed out on the table before the party was even over. She woke up the next morning asking what happened to her last night. Frequent binge drinkers consume over two-thirds of all the alcohol college students' drink. They also account for more than three-fifths of the most serious alcohol-related problems on campus, such as vandalism, driving after drinking, getting into trouble with the campus police, and becoming hurt or injured (National). I know that drinking and driving is a frequent occurrence that takes place at the first party I went to where Kate was at.

If you binge drink, then you think that you didn't drink too much because it was fast; well that is wrong, of you drink don't drive. Some of the precautions you can take so that you don't become a binge drinker are watch what you drink, watch the amount you drink, don't double fist it, don't participate in the drinking games or songs, and mostly drink responsibly. You can be cool without having to drink so much. Kate, Josh, and Derek are all in the subgroup of binge drinkers, and they really don't even know it. So, if you think you have consumed five or more alcoholic drinks in one night for two consecutive nights, then you are a binge drinker.

Welcome to the group.

Bibliography

Geoff, Kate. Personal Interview. 23 March 2005.
Harris, Aimee. The Digital Collegian. 9 Oct. 1997.
PSU. 23 Mar. 2005.
Harvard School of Public Health. 22 Feb. 2005.
Harvard University. 23 Mar. 2005.
Huff, Josh. Personal Interview. 23 March 2005.
In the Zone. National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. 24 Mar. 2005.
National College Alcohol Study Finds Significant Increase In Frequent Binge Drinkers. 14 Mar. 2000.
Simpson, Derek. Personal Interview. 24 March 2005.
Wechsler, Henry, Dowd all, George, Manner, Gretchen, Gledhill-Hoyt, Jean a, and Hang Lee, Changes in binge drinking and related problems among American college students between 1993 and 1997: Results of the Harvard School of Public Health College Alcohol Study, Journal of American College Health, Volume 47, 1998.