Binge-Drinking

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Binge-drinking means willfully getting drunk; that is to say, drinking enough that your blood alcohol concentration (BAC) reaches .08 percent or more. It doesn’t necessarily mean you’re an alcoholic. Most binge-drinkers aren’t. It still does a lot of damage over time, however.

It may or may not surprise you to know that according to a CDC study done in 2015, one in six American adults binge-drinks about once a week. That’s 37 million adults.
A standard drink is one 12-ounce beer, 5 oz. wine, or 1.5 oz. of distilled spirits. At the rate of five standard drinks in a two-hour period—four if you’re a woman—you will have consumed the equivalent of 3 oz. of ethanol.
Cumulatively, that adds up to 17 billion standard drinks consumed by adults each year; or to bring it down to a human level, 467 standard drinks per binge drinker.
The adults most likely to binge-drink are between 18 and 34. Binge drinking is more common among people with higher education levels and incomes north of $75,000/year. But binge-drinkers with less education engage in the behavior more often.
People binge-drink in situations where it’s more or less accepted and expected. Wedding receptions, for example, which are the most common events that I work as a bartender. An open bar and social cues to take full advantage of it is a potent combination (pun intended).
For the details of what binge-drinking does to your body, I refer you to this article. But as you surely expect, they ain’t good, and they’re worse than you probably imagine.
On my "Professor of Cocktail Studies" Facebook Page, I enjoy posting memes about social drinking. Quite a few of them could be interpreted as normalizing binge-drinking: Hey, getting drunk is a hoot!
That doesn’t deter me—I’ll keep posting funny memes—but the subtle hypocrisy involved isn’t lost on me.
Bottom line: if you want to enjoy funny memes about binge-drinking, knock yourself out. But leave it at that.

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