Binge Drinking the National Institute

Binge Drinking

The National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism defines binge drinking as a pattern of drinking alcohol that brings blood alcohol concentration to 0.08 or above. This translates into five-plus drinks in two hours for men and four-plus drinks for women; a drink is defined as a half ounce of alcohol. Many may believe that the problem of binge drinking is limited to a few problem students. However, according to research from the Harvard School of Public Health, binge drinking occurs among two out of every five U.S. college students; half of them did so multiple times. The researchers, caution, "While the heaviest drinkers are at greatest risk for harm, they are relatively few and generate proportionately small amounts of all drinking-harms. The risk of harms is not zero among lower level drinkers in college. Because they are numerous, they account for the majority of harms." Unfortunately, not only is the problem not confined to a small group, the harm is significant.