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A BBC article reports that 15% of UK women binge drink each week, a figure that has nearly doubled from the 7% documented in the 1990s. In contrast, weekly binge drinking among men was only up a percentage point from the 1990s, from 22% to 23%. The study cited in the article also found that non-binge drinking was also up among UK men and women.
In case you’re wondering what this study considers “binge drinking,” you’re out of luck. Bizarrely, the article doesn’t specify, so as I sit here nursing my Brooklyn Lager, I’m left to wonder whether I’m part of the problem. Just as a reference point, according to the “Binge Drinking” Wikipedia article (pulling out the big guns here, I know):
There is currently no international consensus on how many drinks constitute a “binge,” but the term is often taken to mean consuming 5 or more standard drinks (male), or 4 or more drinks (female), in about two hours for a typical adult.
Alright, so two drinks per hour over two hours. I’ve done that yesterday before. But what’s a “standard drink”? A beer? A stiff martini? A highball with rail alcohol? Nobody seems to know. Sounds to me kind of like the wishy-washy reasoning used by the Supreme Court to determine what constitutes pornography: “I’ll know it when I see it.”
Researchers in the study theorized that increased binge drinking in women “was likely to be linked to greater financial security and the influence of advertising.” I haven’t seen a copy of the study, but those explanations seem hokey and baseless. Researchers conduct entire studies attempting to link upticks in binge drinking with any number of factors, and it is irresponsible of scientists to project that vague concepts such as “financial security” and “the influence of advertising” (without even specifying what sort of advertising) are to blame. In fact, given this economy, blaming increased “financial security” as a reason people are pounding drinks is pretty laughable.
Whenever I see reports that include “bad news” statistics about how everyone is drinking more, doing more drugs, having sex younger, etc and then blaming it on somewhat ridiculous targets, it reminds me of medical knowledge in the middle ages. Bubonic Plague was blamed on, among other things, Jews, well poisoning and God’s wrath. Replace “well poisoning” with video games, celebrity culture and movies and you have modern day sociology studies. Times have changed, but the absurd reasoning and lack of evidence remains the same.
Binge drinking can be a serious problem, but it helps no one to publish stark statistics produced by nebulous studies. You simply can’t publish articles about the downfall of modern society if the science behind it is bunk. So until someone can tell me exactly what binge drinking entails, how it will negatively affect my life and what’s causing me to do it, I will continue drinking my 3pm Brooklyn Lager as I pen pieces of Zelda Lily. You can’t stop me.
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I must admit that I binge drink at least once a week, when I go out with my University friends. I am Spanish, and back in Spain I would never EVER do it, but right now I am living in Manchester, England, and around 90% of the people I know binge drinks – it is completely accepted by society (getting drunk at family gatherings is almost compulsory!), and most of my mates have seen their parents drunk – somethink unthinkable in Spain and which would bring to shame to anyone calling themselves “parent”.
A standard drink is well defined. http://www.alcohol.org.nz/WhatsInAStandardDrink.aspx
Binge drinking is lame.
yeah “standard drink” has a definite definition. Wow, definite definition. That sounds stupid.
I had to learn all this alcohol stuff at an ABC class when I was a bartender. ‘Standard drink’ is just a way to measure the amount of actual alcohol content in any given drink (like, hard alcohol vs beer vs wine). I think binge drinking is usually defined when you have more than 4-5 standard drinks in 2 hours or so. So, like 4-5 12 oz beers, 4-5 shots, or 20-25 oz of wine. Give or take.
Binge drinking is the kind that makes you…. well… drunk. Just having a beer in the afternoon? Definitely not binge drinking.
the moooooreeee yooouuu knoooww
Our school used to be so debauched and drunk all the time that we now have to take a similar extensive alcohol education class as freshmen. Well, it still is debauched, but not as much as four years ago when three drunk people got run over in front of a bar by three other drunk people who then crashed into the courthouse, killing themselves and starting a fire in the historic town center. Since then, there’s been all this flack about college kids drinking so much. Stupid prudish old folks.
you have to take a class like that (online) when you go to Berkeley. I transferred in this year @ 24, and kept writing in all the comment boxes “I AM 24!! I AM A BARTENDER! I KNOW THIS STUFF”
I live in the UK- and went to the doctor’s the other day for an ear problem- and before they can treat you they have to ask a set of questions (are you a victim of domestic abuse, are you pregnant, do you binge drink…?) etc. And I asked what qualified as a binge drink, and the GP said that 14 Units of Alcohol was the maximum a woman was allowed a week, and therefore more than two a night counted as a binge. Thats two large 250ml glasses of wine and your way over and into a binge.
So it’s easy to hype up statistics like this… I don’t know many people my age (uni student) who (would/could) limit themselves to a glass a night on nights out anyway…!
p.s. uk government standard measurements are
25ml- single measurement of spirit
125ml – standard wine
(pubs tend to give 35ml of spirits as standard and 175ml of wine as standard)