Is Binge Drinking a Part of Student Culture?
What do statistics say?
Hypnotic lights are flashing before your eyes. You’re drifting through a sea of people like a plank of wood after a shipwreck. Somebody grabs your arm and you’re suddenly anchored. You look across to try figure out who this mystery person might be. It’s your best mate. You’re both 6 pints down (lads), he’s got his debit card out and through the ambience of endless chatter you hear him whisper those sweet, magic, words, “Round of Jäger bombs, on me.” Black out.
We’ve all been there right? Right? I’m pretty sure a majority of you reading this know what the routine is from there. You wake up the next morning in a bed — you’re fortunate if its yours — with your shoes still on and a splitting headache. You start your day off with a TC (tactical chunder, for all those not down with the lingo) in the nearest bathroom you can find — not that its your first time throwing up in the past 12 hours. You try to rumble through your memories in order to get some idea of what happened last night. They’re blank. After failing at that and not wanting to speak to anyone out of pure embarrassment you decide to sift through your Snapchat stories to see if anyone captured your forgotten activities. The new format might make this task nearly impossible but you power through and find your friends’ stories. There’s some dancing going on. You really should be doing less of that. Oh you got with someone. Yay? Ah, they’re butters. Unlucky. You do this for about 10 minutes but eventually you’re going to have to face the hangman’s noose and confront someone about what happened. You stick a message on the group-chat asking about last night and someone hits you back with, “Mate, I’ve got no idea lol.”
Now the question is, is this type of binge-drinking inherent in student culture? The National Union of Students researched student drinking habits across the UK in 2016 and it would appear the answer is yes, but not to the extent that we think. Interestingly enough, 55% of young people going to university thought that students get drunk most of the time and 85% of students agree that drinking and getting drunk is part of university culture… but 76% of students say they don’t have to drink to have a good night out. Nevertheless, let’s examine what some of the other statistics say.
How Often are Students Drinking?
I can imagine most of you are feeling quite tense right now. Have the beads of sweat started to form on your brow yet? I bet you can’t wait to find out if you have a drinking problem. Well, I’ll leave you in suspense no longer. According to research, students most commonly drink 2–3 times a week, with 29% of respondents agreeing on that statement. The second most common answer though, with 25% agreeing, is less than once a week. Shocking, right? If you’re a hard drinking student who’s on the ‘bevs’ every student night the news only gets worse for you as you may find out you’re a lot further from the norm than you previously thought. 39% of students responded that they only drink to get drunk less often than once a week. This is by far the most popular response to the question, with the second highest, 26%, stating they drink to get drunk once a week. In fact, more students, 19%, responded as to never drinking to get drunk than those who got drunk more than once a week, 15%.
Where Does the Myth Come From?
So after reading these statistics, one might be confused at where this notion of student drinking culture came from. There are a few key variations in the data that might explain this, however.
Difference in years of study
Oh you silly, silly, freshers. The study found that first year students are more likely to drink 2–3 times a week and get drunk more than once a week than any other year at university. This might not be surprising statistic to most of you. 72% of students agreed that students get drunk to fit in with their peers, and if there is any a time where someone desperately just wants to fit in, its first year. If you’re not a first year, you may be on your high horse now, but everyone still remembers when you passed out in a bush with penises drawn all over your face during fresher’s week.
Differences by interests and activities
I know you already know what this means. Those of you in sports clubs can already hear the sound of, “GET IT DOWN YOU ZULU WARRIOR,” ringing in your ears like Thomas Shelby’s nightmares of digging the tunnels in France. It will come to no surprise to anyone who has ever stepped foot on a university campus, ever, to find out that members of sports clubs drink significantly more than anyone else. Sports club members are more likely to drink 4–5 and 2–3 days in a week than members of any other activity, as well as being more likely to drink to get drunk once a week or more. Finally, they are more likely to agree that getting drunk means they’ll have a good night out than members of any other society. Thus, I would like us to take a brief moment of silence for all first-year sports students. They are going through a lot.
Although the statistics do not suggest an overwhelming drinking culture at universities, it is definitely significant. Despite the majority of students not getting drunk on a weekly basis, I would imagine that this idea of a drinking culture has formed due to prominent members of the student body, i.e. first years and sports member, consistently engaging in binge drinking to the extent that it has become normalised.
Dangers of Binge Drinking
That being said, although binge drinking may not be as common as it is perceived amongst students, it still poses a risk to many. Your drinking reaches binge level once you have consumed five or more beers for men or four or more for women in a two hour sitting. Although statistics drawn from surveys may be open to scrutiny, in this case it is more likely that respondents underplayed their drinking habits rather than exaggerated them. 84% of students don’t worry about how alcohol can damage their health, but in addition to the immediate effects of drinking too much, binge-drinking can have long term effects on your body and brain.
So I guess I’ll see you in the Student Union tonight.
You can have a look at the rest of the statistics here: http://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/nusdigital/document/documents/27249/9c439fd3a22644fee56ed771c584303a/NUS_Alcohol_Impact_Students_and_alcohol_2016.pdf
