Facts on Adolescent Binge Drinking

Jeff recalls drinking “way too many” beers, tequila shots and whisky and stumbling out of a friend’s party last year at age 17, vomiting in the bushes and then crawling into the back seat of a car. He awoke to the glaring probe of a flashlight from a police officer who called his dismayed parents to take the inebriated teen home.

Evan, a 17-year-old student, was the designated driver at a friend’s party one night when someone shoved an incoherent, drunken 9th-grade girl into his car with the request to “take her home.” With no idea who she was or where she belonged, and worried that she may be close to alcohol poisoning, he and a friend put the semiconscious girl in a wheelchair inside the doors of the local hospital and drove away. “She was so drunk we thought she might die, but we didn’t stay because we thought we’d get in trouble,” says Evan, who later learned the girl spent the night in hospital, sobering up under the watchful eyes of emergency staff.

These stories all feature good kids who were involved in binge drinking. They were lucky—none died or drove drunk or had any of the many calamities that can arise from a night of heavy drinking.

Nevertheless, the repercussions for youth of binge drinking, both in the present and the future, are serious.  This topic will be explored through the following questions as you navigate these pages:

• What is adolescent binge drinking?
• How common is it both in California and across the United States?
• What are some of the consequences, both short- and long-term, of binge drinking during one’s teenage years?