What is Adolescent Binge Drinking?

Teenagers have been drinking alcohol for centuries. In pre-Revolutionary America, young apprentices were handed buckets of ale by their masters as a reward at the end of long and arduous workdays. In the 1890's, at the age of 15, the writer Jack London regularly drank grown sailors under the table.

For almost as long as teenagers have been drinking alcohol, concerned adults have tried to limit teen alcohol consumption. In the 1830's temperance societies subscribed schoolchildren to lifelong abstinence pledges. Today, public health experts regularly warn that teenage drinkers run greatly increased risks of involvement in car accidents, fights, and unwanted/unsafe sexual activity.

Throughout this site, we consider adolescent binge drinking to be any type of heavy drinking done by youth under the legal drinking age of 21 years.