CITIZENS RALLYING FOR CHANGE ON ALCOHOL

Beer for beer and shot for shot, when all 50 states belly up to the bar, few can hold their own with Wisconsin.

Binge drinking - we're No. 1; Percentage of drinkers in the population - No. 1;  Driving under the influence - No. 1.

We lag a few states in beer consumption, but we're near the top. With brandy, it's no contest. We put away more brandy per person than any other state. We have a strong claim on the vodka title, too.

And often we have no clue how drunk we are. Consider, for example, 75 drinkers who took a breath test for the Journal Sentinel. About half underestimated their blood-alcohol level, and when they did, they missed by a lot - falling short of their actual results by an average of 35%. Many who were over the legal limit for driving expressed full confidence in their ability to get behind the wheel.

Person for person, we have three times more taverns here than the rest of the country - and we spend twice as much money inside them.

AT&T's online telephone directory lists more bars in Appleton, population 70,000, than in Fort Worth, Texas; Memphis, Tenn. or Sacramento, Calif.

Wisconsin's abundant taverns are the setting for camaraderie and celebration, but at a cost: Research has shown that drinking in bars is strongly associated with drunken driving.

Study the data, read history or talk to tavern-goers. The message comes through clearly: Drinking isn't just something we do to pass time at the ballpark or Summerfest or a Halloween party. It is, for better and worse, an element that helps define Wisconsin as Wisconsin, part of our identity.

"It's who we are," said ___________, a 27-year-old supermarket manager from South Milwaukee, as he kicked off St. Patrick's Day at a bar. "It's almost like there's a drinking expectation, that we embrace it, that we can have a good time and it's part of our culture."

"I'm not saying it's anything to be proud of, but you've got to be good at something," added fellow St.-Patty's-Day-morning celebrant ___________ as he perched at the end of a bar, "I guess it's what we're good at."

Binge drinking - at least as the federal government defines it - is a cornerstone of the creed. No state observes the ritual more faithfully than Wisconsin. It's not even close.

Since 1995, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has conducted 10 surveys about binge drinking. Every time, Wisconsin led the nation. The state typically out-binged its nearest challenger, usually North Dakota, by more than 13%. It typically out-binged the country as a whole by more than 50%.

The surveys say nearly one in four Wisconsin adults had binged in the previous month, and surveys on drinking often understate the actual numbers.

To Wisconsinites, binging is no big deal. People here are less likely than the residents of almost any state to view such drinking as risky. And truth be told, the government's threshold for binging is low enough - five drinks for a man or four for a woman over an unspecified period - that a binge drinker could remain well within the legal limit for driving.

The number of people downing five or more drinks per occasion is a key indicator of alcohol-related problems such as drunken driving, said William C. Kerr, a senior scientist at the Alcohol Research Group in Emeryville, Calif.

And Wisconsin drivers involved in fatal crashes are significantly more likely to be drunk than are drivers across the country.

To keep things in perspective, the problem has eased over the last three decades both here and nationwide - because of a host of reasons, including relatively fewer young adults.

But Wisconsin lags the national trend.

Across the country, drunken-driving deaths are down about one-third from the early 1980s. In Wisconsin, they're down 20%.

Had Wisconsin merely kept pace with the U.S. pattern, nearly 250 lives would have been saved over the last five years.