Having a few too many drinks can mean more than just a blackout or a bad hangover. People who engage in binge drinking are courting danger, experts warn.
Binge drinking is most common at colleges and universities, where many adults treat drinking to excess as a rite of passage. A 1997 study from the Harvard School of Public Health reports that 42. 7 % of all college students engage in binge drinking. The well-publicized deaths of several college students from binge drinking in 1997 highlights the risks.
An 18-year-old freshman at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology drank himself into a coma and died. A 20-year-old fraternity pledge at Louisiana State University died from alcohol poisoning.
“Alcohol is always toxic. It’s really a poison，”said Steven Schandler，professor of psychology at Chapman University and chief of addiction research at the Long Beach Veterans Affairs Health Care System, who added that binge drinking can lead to alcohol poisoning. “Because it’s a poison, like any other poison, if you take in a little bit, you might tolerate it, but if you take in a lot, you might die.
Administrators and doctors say that college freshmen are especially at risk for alcohol poisoning, in part because they often lack the maturity to refrain or stop. And for some who may be new to drinking, their bodies have a relatively low tolerance for alcohol.
But problems with alcohol aren’t limited to teenagers and young adults. A 39-year-old Buena Park man recently recalled that two days of steady imbibing on a trip to Las Vegas several years ago left him in bad shape.
Doctors say blood alcohol levels of about 4 %—five times the legal intoxication limit of 0. 8%—can induce potentially lethal side effects in most people. Alcoholics have higher limits. Although not well understood，enzymes that break down and expel alcohol in the liver and kidneys do so more effectively in seasoned drinkers, allowing them to tolerate more, Schandler said.
Regardless of a person’s tolerance, alcohol exerts its influence when the amount of alcohol taken in exceeds the amount that the body can digest. At that point, alcohol passes from the bloodstream into the brain and begins its attack. Alcohol first affects the brain’ s cortex，which controls more sophisticated thought processes. That’ s why people generally become less inhibited under the influence of alcohol，and some are more willing to try things that could be dangerous to themselves or others.
Coordination, mainly controlled by the cerebellum, is the next to go, leading to slurred speech and difficulty walking in a straight line. As excessive drinking continues, alcohol moves deeper into the brain until “it gets to the very basic structure of the brain stem that affects things like respiration and heart beat,” said Dr. Bret Ginther, an assistant clinical professor of emergency medicine at UC Irvine.
At that point, people may pass out or fall into a coma. Their vital signs may weaken. “The most common cause of death from alcohol poisoning is respiratory arrest，” said Ginther. Eventually, the heart simply stops. Getting to that point is fairly unusual. But Ginther said that at least once or twice a month, patients are brought into the emergency room at UCI Medical Center in Orange suffering from alcohol poisoning.
College officials say they are always on the lookout for alcohol abuse but say there is no fail-safe method to keep students from drinking. Many colleges try to educate students, especially those caught drinking illegally or causing disruptions. The Higher Education Center for Alcohol and Other Drug Prevention in Newton, Mass，advocates a community-based approach that includes administrators, faculty, police and businesses in the fight to curb binge drinking, in part by being on alert for people abusing alcohol. The center also stresses the importance of parental guidance and urges parents to have frank discussions with their children about excessive drinking.
1.From the passage，we can learn that “binge drinking” is ______.
2.Why are college freshmen especially at risk for alcohol poisoning according to administrators and doctors?
3.What can enzymes do when one is drunk?
4.Which of the following is TRUE?
5.Binge drinking may most seriously lead to__________.
