Heading back to campus can expose teens and young adults to many substance-related dangers, including alcohol poisoning.
It’s back-to-school time and that means new or returning dangers facing your kids. Binge drinking is at near epidemic proportions among college students, with drinking starting earlier and earlier. The National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (www.niaaa.nih.gov) defines binge drinking as a pattern of drinking that brings a person’s blood alcohol concentration (BAC) to .08 percent or above. This typically happens when men consume five or more drinks, and when women consume four or more drinks, in about two hours.
Most people who binge drink are not alcohol dependent, according to the Centers for Disease Control. They also report that 30 percent of binge drinking episodes involve college students, with twice as many men binge drinking as women. The most startling statistic may be that nearly 90 percent of the alcohol consumed in the U.S. by those under age 21 is in the form of binge drinks, a practice that carries very serious health risks.
Alcohol poisoning is the most life-threatening consequence of binge drinking, attacking the body’s involuntary reflexes like breathing and the gag reflex. While the latter may seem inconsequential, if your gag reflex isn’t working properly, you can choke on your own vomit and die.
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