Binge Drinking

Binge Drinking

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Binge Drinking And Your Health


Impact of Drinking on the Body

            We all know that a long night of drinking makes you feel like hell the next morning.  But even after the initial hangover, alcohol still has negative effects on the body, especially for a sleep-deprived college, binge drinking college student. 

            Partying is one thing most 18-25 year olds can relate to; heavy amounts of drinking, staying up all night and many other choices that are not beneficial to one’s health.  With this “heavy drinking” (around five drinks for guys and four for girls) comes many obvious health problems of which most people are aware of such as, but not limited to: alcohol poisoning, severe dehydration, and even respiratory depression (slowed down breathing).  Most people are aware of the potential problems mentioned above but there are even sexual health troubles which correlate with alcohol use, specifically binge drinking.

            Decision making is something that is easily affected when large amounts of alcohol are consumed.  When one’s mind is impaired by alcohol, they are more likely to consent to sexual activity, oftentimes without protection.  This leads to all kinds of diseases and many adolescent’s worst nightmare, teenage pregnancy.  Just imagine impregnating/being impregnated by a complete stranger whom you met drunkenly the night before; it is totally not worth that.  Another factor of bad decision making is death.  I read an interesting statistic while researching that said “the four leading injury-related causes of death among youths under the age of 20 are auto-accidents, homicides, suicides, and drowning” with alcohol being involved in a high amount of these.  So while there are known problems that come with binge drinking (manifest functionalism) there are also those problems that people rarely think of (latent functionalism).

            Death may be an extreme impact on the body because of alcohol but just because it is rare doesn’t mean it will not happen.  Always be aware of the number of drinks consumed and make sure to drink a glass of water after every few drinks.  Drinking in college may be the “in” thing to do, but it is always better if it is done in a responsible manor.
           

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