Happy hours, $0.25 wells, BoGo drinks. In a college town, it’s easy to drink a lot for very little money. Binge drinking is a staple of life in a college town, but when does it go from a social norm to a serious problem?
Experts say that you don’t have a ‘drinking problem’ until you experience physical signs of addiction. I am inclined to agree with them, but I think it may also be worth mentioning the psychological reasons behind binge drinking. Why are you going out every night and getting plastered?
For Kelly Fitzgerald, drinking was a lifestyle. A self-titled party girl, she drank alcohol as much and as often as she could. She realized that her heavy drinking was taking a toll on her as well as those around her. She tried drinking in moderation, but found it to be ineffective. So, on May 6, 2013, she decided to try life sans buzz. She stopped drinking alcohol cold turkey. What she found was that her life was better without alcohol than it was with it.
Via: telegraph.co.uk
She said she has learned several things since beginning her year-long sobriety: heightened senses, self-awareness, likes and dislikes, how to lead a productive life, and self-worth. It’s great that she found all this clarity during her sober experiment, but what about those of us who do still participate in binge drinking? Do we still have a drinking problem?
One of the first steps in recognizing a drinking problem is understanding how to define your drinking. Binge drinking is defined as drinking five or more alcoholic drinks in a short span of time, and it becomes alcohol dependency if you start to experience physical signs of addiction.
So, occasionally participating in binge drinking at a party or when you’re out at Midtown with some friends does not mean you have a problem. Only when that becomes your only drinking method does it become an issue.
Studies have shown that most binge drinkers are between the ages of 16-24 and are more likely to be male, but that doesn’t mean that other people shouldn’t worry about developing a problem. Alcohol dependence actually rewires the brain into thinking that you need alcohol to survive. Once that rewiring has occurred, it is very difficult to undo, so it is important to recognize if you have a problem when it comes to drinking.
I want to be clear: Drinking alcohol is not inherently bad; it is the motivation behind binge drinking that can lead to more serious problems. Drinking to forget or to make yourself feel better is using alcohol as a sort of crutch to help get you through your tough times. It is unhealthy, and can lead to dependence. You need to learn to cope with things on your own.
Drinking an abundance alcohol won’t solve your problems. Rather, it will create new ones and exacerbate the ones you already have. Binge drinking is fun to do every now and then, but just make sure you’re doing it to have fun and not to forget your problems.
Featured photo courtesy of: lifeprinciples.com
