Isn't college drinking just a normal part of college life?
Many aspects of popular culture—including movies, alcohol advertising, and popular music—
convey the impression that drinking (and often heavy drinking) is a normal part of life, especially
for young people in college. In fact, a large majority of Americans either do not drink or drink
infrequently. According to the National Household Survey on Drug Abuse, about 48 percent of
adults report that they did not consume any alcohol in the past month (SAMHSA, 2012).
Binge drinking is always risky and is more common among college students than among others in
the same age group. It is usually defined as five or more drinks at one time for males and four or
more for females, but sometimes binge drinking can be even more extreme.
10 percent of all college drinkers may have 12 or more drinks at least one time in a month
(20 percent of males).
1 percent of all college drinkers may have 24 or more drinks at least one time in a month (5
percent of males).
These extremely heavy drinking events may seem rare, but on a campus with 10,000 male college
drinkers, there will be 500 or more occasions on which more than 24 drinks may be consumed.
These are levels of drinking at which most people will have passed out or become comatose. With
these very heavy drinking incidents, it is not surprising that alcohol poisonings occur or that
students are injured or killed in accidents as simple as falling out of a dormitory window
(Gruenewald, et al., 2003a).
Why should we be concerned about "normal" drinking?