CITIZENS RALLYING FOR CHANGE ON ALCOHOL

Binge drinking rates were slightly (one percentage point) higher in 2009 than in 1993, a government study found. One reason binge drinking rates have stayed steady may be because the public doesn't see binge drinking as a major public health concern.

The high levels of binge drinking among young people and the adverse consequences which includes increased risk of alcoholism as an adult and liver disease make binge drinking a major public health issue.

Recent research has found that young adult binge drinkers who drank 4 to 5 drinks on more than 3 occasions in the past 2 weeks were more likely to develop alcoholism than non-binge drinkers.

Approximately 40 percent of alcoholics report heavy drinking during adolescence. 

Several researchers have found that starting drinking before the age of 15 is associated with a fourfold increased risk for developing alcoholism compared to people who delay drinking until age 20 or later.

It has been estimated by some that if the age at which people started drinking could be delayed to age 20, there would be a 50 percent reduction in the number of cases of alcohol use disorder.

The main cause of death among adolescents as a result of binge drinking is road traffic accidents; a third of all fatal road traffic accidents among 15- to 20-year-olds are associated with drinking alcohol.

It has been found that 50 percent of all head injuries in adolescents in the USA are associated with alcohol consumption.

Violence and suicide combine to become the third-most-common cause of death associated with binge drinking among adolescents. The suicide risk in adolescents is more than 4 times higher among binge drinkers than non-binge drinking adolescents.

Earlier sexual activity, increased changing of sexual partners, higher rate of unwanted (teenage) pregnancy, higher rate of sexually transmitted diseases, infertility, alcohol-related damage to the fetus is associated with binge drinking.

Female binge drinkers are three times more likely to be victims of sexual assault; 50 percent of adolescent girls reporting sexual assault were under the influence of alcohol or another psychotropic substance at the time.

Adolescents who regularly participated in binge drinking for several years show a smaller hippocampus brain region, particularly those who began drinking in early adolescence.

Heavy binge drinking is associated with neurocognitive deficits of frontal lobe processing and impaired working memory as well as delayed auditory and verbal memory deficits. Animal studies suggest that the neurodegenerative effects of alcohol abuse during adolescence can be permanent.