Binge Drinking: On the rise in America and Abroad - Drug Rehab and Alcohol Treatment

A new U.S. government survey has found that 1 out of 3 adults and 2 out of 3 high school students binge drink. The definition of binge drinking is having 5 or more drinks on a single occasion. TIME magazine quotes Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), from a press conference saying, "Binge drinking as a problem has been largely unrecognized."

This may be the case in the United States, but in Europe binge drinking has been a problem that governments have continually struggled to manage. Among young people in Europe, binge drinking has been on the rise since 1995.

Here is one public service announcement was created for English teens this summer: (Does gross out factor equal prevention?)

The poster below is possibly one of the funniest public service announcements developed by London’s Drug and Alcohol Service. The message came out in 2008 and was aimed at young adult women. The message reads: ‘If you drink like a man you might end up looking like one.'

Photo courtesy of dailymail.co.uk

From previous studies, the statistics seems to indicate that binge drinking is a problem among pre-teens and teens, while adults have a more more consistent heavy consumption of alcohol. A survey by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism noted several statistics about alcohol consumption among teens including:

• Alcohol is the drug of choice among teens in the United States.
• The amount of alcohol consumed among teenagers increases with age. 11% of 8^th graders have reported binge drinking, followed by 22% of 10^th graders, followed by 29% of 12^th graders.
• Adolescents drink less frequently than adults, but drink more per occasion.

The NIAA has surveyed the percentage of adults who reported binge drinking beginning 1984 to 2008. Organized by state and gender, these numbers show that, while there have been gradual increases and declines in binge drinking in different states, rarely has there been an increased by over 5% in one year. It is more likely that there is a 1 or 2% increase or a small to large decrease in binge drinking. Also, binge drinking percentages are higher among men than women.