Study finds students binge drink on big 2-1

College students today celebrate 21st birthdays with an average of 12 drinks for men and nine for women, according to the most in-depth picture yet of the consequences of extreme partying.

The University of Texas-Austin research found 78 percent of students cited ill effects, including hangovers (54 percent). Of 44 percent who had blackouts, 22 percent found out later that they had sex; 22 percent got in a fight or argument. And 39 percent didn’t know how they got home.

Although this study focused on just one campus, researchers say this new level of extreme drinking goes way beyond “bingeing” – four or five drinks in one sitting. And it’s a phenomenon likely being repeated at schools across the country, researchers say. Studying 21st birthday celebrations is a new area of research and no national studies have been done, but studies on a handful of other campuses have found similar extremes.

Of more than 2,200 students in the four-year drinking study that began in 2004, Texas researchers randomly selected 152 students for an in-depth analysis focused on 21st birthday drinking, including in-person interviews. All but two said they drank to celebrate.

Consumption varies by region; a recent review by Harvard researchers found more binge drinking at campuses with a strong drinking culture and easy access to alcohol. In Austin, 12 of the 152 students reported 21 or more birthday drinks. At the University of Missouri, a study of 2,518 students published in June found 34 percent of men and 24 percent of women had 21 or more.

Psychology professor Kenneth Sher, co-author of the Missouri study, said the Texas research is novel. “It’s a drink-by-drink reconstruction of the evening,” with bartender input on contents and size of each drink.

Texas’ larger study of 2,200 also looked at drinking in the two weeks before and after the 21st birthday and found frequency of drinking increases after 21, but quantity decreases.

Psychology professor Kim Fromme, who directed the Texas study, said turning 21 decreases the risk associated with heavy episodic drinking. Overall, the research found most students drank twice a week or less; 19-year-olds drank the most.

Of the 2,200 students, 40 percent of those age 21 reported driving after drinking in the past three months. Fromme said drinking and driving increased 6 percent in the two weeks after turning 21.

Such data gives new insight into issues surrounding underage drinking, binge drinking, drunken driving and other issues related to alcohol use.

“One of the things that really struck us is not only that they’re drinking a hell of a lot but about half of participants were drinking not only more on that night, but they’re drinking more than ever in their lifetime. They’re putting in their lifetime maximum number of drinks in that 24-hour period of their birthday celebration,” Sher said of the Missouri findings.

He served on a National Institutes of Health advisory panel that defined the term “binge” as consuming 5 or more drinks in two hours for men and four or more drinks for women. He and Fromme say binge doesn’t quite cover what seems to be happening now. They use a non-scientific term called “extreme drinking.”

“Binge drinking sets a lower threshold than what we’re talking about,” Sher said.

“We’re saying this is more than four or five drinks. Here it’s people having 10 or 20 drinks. Obviously, binge is a bad thing, but it’s not capturing the high end of drinking we’re interested in characterizing here.”