Binge Drinking Among College Students

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As young people enter the culture of the college campus, they are confronted with many challenges and opportunities: the opportunity to be independent of parental control; the need to conform; and the insecurity of a new social setting. While national surveys have documented a significant decline in the use of other drugs by high school seniors and college-age youths, there have been only modest declines in the numbers. Binge drinking has become a nationwide problem among young adults. While college students engage in these activities where the goal is to drink as much alcohol possible in a short period of time they don’t realize the risk they are putting themselves at. Binge drinking is an action where large amounts of alcohol are consumed …show more content…
Alcohol abuse is at a higher rate of student death than drugs, either legal or illegal. I first began drinking when I was 18. I remember I’d go out to a party with a couple of cans, only two or three and sit back, chat or dance the night away. At the start it never bothered me if I didn’t have a drink because there was always someone who wasn’t …show more content…
Where I was from, drinking seemed to be socially accepted. So my cans turned into a quarter, then a half, and then a bottle of alcohol a night, straight from the bottle without any non-alcohol drinks between or to mix it with. For some reason it was cool to be carrying a bottle in your hand, not a can but a bottle. I’d go out once or twice a weekend and soon the amount of alcohol I was drinking was paying a price on my body. While I never passed out, or violently vomited everywhere (although I did vomit a few times here and there) I did get my fair share of hangovers. Most of my weekends I had to work so I’d turn up to work with the worst hang over, unable to complete my job to my full ability. On days where I didn’t have to work, the night before I would go all out, and spend the next day in bed, unable to get out because I was suffering from a killer hangover. Some day’s people would remind me of things that I did throughout the night; things that I wouldn’t do normally and I can’t remember them. It scared me, what if something happened and I had no control over it because I was too pissed to notice or even care. One night I went out with all my friends and I didn’t drink, it was a real eye opener watching my friends get drunk, do things they wouldn’t do sober, vomit, pass out. I wondered if I was like this when I was drinking. About one year ago, I got really sick and developed