by Ronna Benjamin

My friend Tammy had troubles, but it took me awhile to figure it out. She was a redhead who smoked menthols, loved music, dancing and beer.  Her father was a judge–a real one, but she herself was totally non-judgmental.

Tammy was the friend that held the ice to my ear Freshman year and then pierced a second hole in my left lobe, sterilizing the needle with the alcohol from our sloe gin fizzes.  She would drag me to frat parties,  grab a beer and start dancing, while I stood awkwardly in a corner complaining about the sticky floor.

I was one of the girls who left the party early, but Tammy always stayed and regaled us with great stories the next day. But as we got to be juniors and then seniors, the stories became increasingly uncomfortable to hear. There were times she slept with multiple men in one evening.  There were times when she blacked out.  There were times she woke up in places she did not want to be.

There was the time she came back to the dorm drunk at 3:00 am and burnt half her arm making popcorn.  There was the time she tearily told me she was pregnant, traces of gin on her breath, and pleaded with me to bring her to Planned Parenthood. I had driven halfway there the next day before she told me it wasn’t true–she wasn’t pregnant.  Never was.  It  was just her idea of a joke.  That almost ended our friendship, but I hung in there.

I knew there was something different about what happened when Tammy drank, but I wanted to be non judgmental too.  By day and on weeknights, Tammy was fine.  She studied, went to movies and plays, joined us for dinner, and did really well in her classes.  I thought once we graduated and she got a job, things would be different.  We were in college, after all.

In 1981, Tammy came to visit me at my apartment in Boston where I was in my first year of law school.  We went out on the town, but after a while, I wanted to go home.  She insisted I leave; told me she was having fun and would take a cab home.  Tammy got home safely in the early hours of the morning; but the next day she told me she had shared a bottle of vodka and slept with the cab driver.

And that is when I ended the friendship.

Telling Tammy that I thought she was an alcoholic was the hardest thing I ever did as a young woman, and amongst the hardest things that I have ever had to do.  I didn’t have the balls to tell her in person.  I called her from the safety of my bedroom, reading the words off a legal pad because I was so nervous. “Tammy, I think you have a problem with alcohol.  I think you are an alcoholic, and I cannot be friends with you until you get help.”  I described some of her behaviors that made me think so.  I described the hurt and worry she was causing me.  She said nothing, and hung up.

That was 32 years ago, and that was the last time I talked to Tammy, but it wasn’t the last time I thought about her.  As the years passed, I Googled her name.  Tammy was the first name I searched on Facebook.  One day, about a year ago, she “friended” me.  I barely recognized her picture, she had aged so. We had a brief FB exchange, but neither of us mentioned the alcohol.

A few months later, Tammy started a game with me on Words With Friends.  And I knew from those games that something wasn’t quite right.  She couldn’t get beyond 13 points.  She left spaces for triple words open.

I was waiting for Tammy to take her turn on Words With Friends when I read on Facebook that Tammy had died.  She was 53 and died “unexpectedly.”  I was not in her inner circle, so I don’t know the details of her death, and it was not my place to push. I was saddened, but to be honest, not shocked.

I had an alcoholic friend in college.  I told her the truth, abandoned her, and she died at 53.  I wonder now if I should have done something differently.

*This essay was originally published on Better After 50.com

My 11-year-old son watches a ton of sports on television. Weekday evenings (after his homework is done, of course) and weekend afternoons are often spent surfing from basketball to baseball and back again. If there’s a tennis match or horse racing on, he may watch that too. With all the game and tournament coverage, however, come a constant stream of commercials—a great number of which are for the likes of an ice cold Bud, Michelob, or Coors Light.

So do watching, singing along with and remembering these frequent beer and booze advertisements mean he is more likely to drink alcohol as an adolescent? Apparently, yes, that’s a distinct possibility, according to a new study reported in Science Daily.

In the study, conducted at the Children’s Hospital at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, researchers questioned more than 2,500 young people ranging from 15 to 20 years old about their exposure to alcohol, if they had a favorite alcohol ad, and if they owned alcohol-branded merchandise, among other behaviors.

After being shown 20 images from the most popular TV ads for alcohol, with the brand names removed, the participants were then asked if they remembered the ads, liked the ads and knew about the products being advertised.

The results showed that 59 percent of underage kids drank alcohol. Of those who drank, 49 percent had engaged in binge drinking (had more than six drinks in a row) at least once the previous year. Familiarity with TV alcohol advertising was much higher among the drinkers than nondrinkers, and having alcohol-branded merchandise or having a favorite alcohol ad was linked to more hazardous drinking.

“Underage drinking remains an important health risk in the U.S.,” said lead author Susanne E. Tanski, MD, MPH, FAAP, assistant professor in the Department of Pediatrics at Children’s Hospital at Dartmouth, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center. “In this study, we have shown a link between recognition of nationally televised alcohol advertisements and underage drinking initiation and heavier use patterns.”

I have to admit, I’ve never paid much attention to the product when my son calls me over to watch his favorite commercial of-the-moment. It’s usually the witty tune or humor that he’s urging me to notice. But after learning about this study and its results, I may encourage him to take a bathroom break or go grab a snack when the game on the screen is interrupted for a commercial break.

photo source 1

photo source 2

A couple of weeks ago, I received a letter from the dean at my daughter’s university. It wasn’t an update on the blooming cherry blossoms or the latest award-winning professors, but rather a serious warning.

In an effort to prevent any alcohol-related disasters, the dean’s letter asked parents to discuss the dangers of an event that takes place on campus each spring called the “Tour de Franzia.” I read on.

Apparently, the event involves teams of students drinking a box of Franzia—a 5-liter box holds the equivalent of 42 drinks—while going to various campus locations. Sounds like an intense, drunken scavenger hunt to me.

The dean urged parents to discourage students’ participation in this Springtime tradition, only three years old. Needless to say, the worries are many—from intoxicated students crossing busy streets to alcohol poisoning.

And the consequences go beyond the college campus and into the surrounding community. He writes: ”A dramatic number of students required hospitalization for acute intoxication or injuries, flooding the emergency room at [the local] hospital and disrupting its normal operation.  Many of these students had potentially lethal blood alcohol levels.  Although our principal concern is the safety and well-being of students, we were also dismayed by significant damage and vandalism, numerous complaints from neighbors living adjacent to campus, and disrespectful treatment of the Public Safety officers and other staff who attempted to monitor and address concerns that arose during the event.”

Does the dean really believe that parents have that kind of influence with their college age children?

When my daughter returned home for Spring Break, I mentioned the letter—a warning e-mail was also sent to students—and asked her what she thought about it. Let’s just say that her reply made it clear she is indeed looking forward to the upcoming Tour.

But what so many college kids don’t realize is not only how dangerous these extreme drinking events can be, but also that binge drinking costs the health care system half a million dollars in blackout-related emergency room visits each year at the average large university, according to newly published research reported in U.S. News on msnbc.com.

In a report published in the  journal Health Affairs, Marlon P. Mundt and Larissa I. Zakletskaia surveyed nearly a thousand students at five universities. During a two-year study, 30 percent of the men and 27 percent of the women visited the emergency department at least once, some with major injuries like broken bones and head or brain trauma. Of the 404 emergency visits reported by 954 participants in the study, about one in eight were associated with blackout drinking, the researchers found.

Mundt and Zakletskaia called binge drinking that can lead to a blackout–usually defined as drinking five or more alcoholic drinks by men or four by women during one occasion–”a pervasive public health problem” among college students.

“Fifty percent of college students who drink report alcohol-induced blackouts, and alcohol abusers in general put a heavy burden on the medical care system,” they wrote.

So while I imagine the Tour de Franzia will carry on as it has in recent years–despite the warnings and urging of the college administration–I imagine that every parent will pray it goes without the serious incident that these statistics suggest.

Photo source 1

Photo source 2 

“One Step at a Time” is a series of original essays by writer and mom Patty N.  who has been chronicling her first year of sobriety.

by Patty N.

The day after tomorrow, my handy 12-Step iPhone app – the one with the sobriety calculator that I compulsively check every day – will finally read, “You’ve been sober for one year / 12 months / 365 days / 8,760 hours.”  Yes!

Needless to say, I will not be celebrating with champagne, like I did after drying out in 2008.  That was the year I set out to prove to myself that I wasn’t an alcoholic. So I quit drinking – except at my 25th high school reunion when, in my whiskey-impaired state, I got into a car driven by an inebriated classmate and, thankfully, didn’t die on the way to Denny’s.  I also drank on New Year’s Eve and blacked out after only a few glasses of champagne.  Then there were the prescription drugs – which I took not exactly as prescribed but, hey, at least they weren’t alcohol.

After my year “on the wagon,” I bought myself a big bottle of bubbly and picked up where I left off.  But it became very clear, very fast, that I shouldn’t drink and that I couldn’t stop.  Embarrassed and ashamed, I started counting days in AA.  At first, I felt like I was being punished. I’m the good kid, the hard worker, the hands-on mom, I thought to myself.  How did I end up here?  And, every time I said, “My name is Patty and I’m an alcoholic,” I would think to myself, But I quit for a year! I didn’t drink everyday! I was high-functioning! I can’t be an alcoholic!”

Slowly, though, the veil of self-criticism and harsh judgement receded and a gentle, clear-headed, self-compassion took its place.  I started wondering:  Would I hate myself for having asthma?  Would I attack myself if I had diabetes? Would I be terrified of running into someone I knew at the dentist office if I had gingivitis?  No!!  So why didn’t I view my alcoholism in the same, straightforward manner?  As Dr. Drew says (I can’t help it, I love him), alcoholism is about chemistry, not character. So why would I be ashamed about a condition over which I have no control?

Looking back, I’ve spent a lot of time this year regretting the past and, oftentimes, wishing to shut the door on it.  I realize that’s part of the process. But as I mark this significant milestone, I’d like to quit mourning my old life and start celebrating my new one.  On Sunday, I will go to my regular AA meeting and announce that I have one year of continuous sobriety.  I’ll collect my special anniversary coin and an amazing group of people, whose last names I may never know, will greet me with applause and hugs and flowers from the corner deli.  And I will call myself an alcoholic, without reservation, without judgement, without shame, and with enough strength to finally bust through that cocoon of self-hatred and fly like a beautiful liberated butterfly.

Photo Source

by Katherine, college student

It’s true that alcohol is a part of college for many people.  Whether you attend a wet campus or a dry one, it doesn’t really matter—most students will have had experience with alcohol by the time they graduate. As a college student myself, the thing I look forward to each week is going out on the weekends with my roommates and friends. It’s the social aspect I value, not the alcohol, but alcohol generally accompanies our evenings.

Throughout college, I’ve always considered my immediate group of friends to be a pretty healthy, responsible bunch. We drink socially, but in moderation. We all value our grades, health and jobs, so finding a balance is important. I remember being nervous freshman year about the decision to join a sorority because of the media stereotypes of dumb and skinny “sorority girls” who meticulously count calories and drink heavily. The group of friends I found, however, seemed to be just like me and valued the same things I did.

My senior year of college, I grew closer with a few girls who had previously only been friends of friends. I started to notice some strange behaviors among them. Thursday night was always the big night out, and we would often eat lunch at the sorority house together.  One particular young woman’s eating habits stood out to me. She would nibble on a few fries or maybe a salad, but that’s it. Later at night, while we were all getting ready to go out and eating dinner or munching on snacks to make sure we all had something in our system, she would take four or five shots instead.  By the time she got to the bar, she was wasted because there were no nutrients or calories in her body to sustain her. That didn’t stop her from drinking more. Blacking out seemed to be a typical occurrence for her.  I wasn’t surprised if I heard in the morning that she had lost her wallet, phone or some other valuable.

Our friends had hushed conversations about it, because we didn’t really understand what she was doing. Generally, anorexics are so worried about calories that they don’t even drink alcohol. She would eat, technically, but not enough to sustain her for a night of drinking. So what could she be doing? There were also whispers that laxatives were a daily part of her diet. Still, though, no one ever really addressed her about it. Personally, I didn’t feel close enough to her to say anything about it.

Spring break was the point where I realized this was truly disordered eating. Her suitemates and close friends were worried about her because she barely ate anything the whole week. Our resort was all-inclusive, which meant that we had meal service available at almost any time of the day. As hearty eaters and lovers of all things food, my immediate friends and I took full advantage of the all-inclusive dining. However, I rarely saw her sit down to eat a meal. When she did, she would pick at the food on her plate, saying she wasn’t hungry. She did, however, take advantage of the all-inclusive drinking, which was available from morning to night. The only time I really saw her eat anything the whole week was near the pool, where there was a buffet of snack foods for guests.  She would pick at chicken fingers or wings only after she had been drinking heavily all day and didn’t have as much control over her inhibitions.

When I saw a video a few weeks ago on Newsy.com about “drunkorexia,” it was like a light bulb went on. I realized this behavior was exactly what my friend was doing. I find this extremely sad because I have a hard time believing that the behavior will end once she is out of the binge-drinking days of college.  There must be deeper psychological issues rooted in this than just calorie counting. Aside from the mental effects, the combination of drinking and not eating is horrible for your body, stomach and liver.  Not all calories were created equal, and booze calories should not equate the calories you get from food and nutrients.  It’s one thing to skip the extra cookie if you want to have a glass of wine later, but skipping all your meals to make up for all the alcohol you’re planning to drink is a severe problem.

I found the Newsy video to be extremely insightful on what drunkorexia is and what sort of debate surrounds the issue.  It raises the question if swapping food for booze is a reasonable way to count calories, or if this is a serious problem. It includes clips from interviews with students who engage in the behavior as well as experts talking about drunkorexia’s dangerous effects.

Photo Source 1

Photo Source 2

The latest estimates to come out of a survey conducted by the Centers of Disease Control reveal that binge drinking–defined as four or more alcoholic drinks per occasion for women and five or more for men–is highest in wealthier adults (with annual household incomes of $75,000 or more) and among high school students. About 33 million Americans are binge drinkers. Most are not alcoholics.

In an NPR.org piece on these latest findings, Scott Hensley writes, “Now, it’s probably obvious that binge drinking isn’t so good for your health. In the short run drinking like that contributes to accidents and sexual transmission of disease. Keep it up, and there’s liver damage and a higher risk for heart disease and stroke.”

Naturally, these numbers are not to be taken lightly. According to the CDC, binge drinking was the third leading preventable cause of death in the United States and it annually accounted for, on average, approximately 79,000 deaths per year during 2001 and 2005.

The problem, though bad, isn’t much worse than it’s been in recent years. In 1993, the CDC says, about 14 percent of adults had gone on drinking binges. But as Dr. Thomas Frieden, head of the CDC put it, “Because binge drinking is not recognized as a problem, it has not decreased in 15 years.”

Photo Source 1

Sad but true. A growing number of college-age women are starving themselves, not necessarily to lose weight, but to save calories for drinking alcohol and beer.

According to a recent article on HerCampus.com, a website started by three female Harvard students, the trend of late is Drunkorexia– a hybrid between anorexia, bulimia, and alcoholism. It was only a matter of time, say experts, before substance abuse and eating disorders merged.

Statistics from the National Eating Disorder Association (NEDA) suggest that 30 percent of women ages 18-24 skip meals in order to drink more, while an estimated up to 10 percent of college women suffer from some form of an eating disorder. And a 2002 study from the Journal of Studies on Alcohol suggested that 31 percent of college students met criteria for alcohol abuse, while another 6 percent met the criteria for alcohol dependence.

In the HerCampus.com piece, Nancy Mucciarone gets the inside scoop from a variety of college students who are on the front lines of the Drunkorexia craze.

One student described it like this: “One of my friends wouldn’t eat at all before she went out, then would get super drunk, and drunk eat a lot—pizza, macaroni and cheese, whatever she could get her hands on and would make herself throw it up. She’d claim she was so drunk and didn’t mean to throw up but it was clearly intentional.”

Photo Source

Quick question: Which would you expect to have the highest binge-drinking rates: dry counties, where you can’t buy alcohol, or “wet” counties, where alcohol is easily accessible? Seems obvious that the wet counties would win, hands-down. Easy access = more drinking. Right?

Whereas I, who grew up in a “health food house,” thought about those “forbidden foods” all the time. When they were offered to me, I took as much as I could, because I didn’t know when I’d get junk food again. I didn’t know how to moderate. Seems it’s the same with drinking.

A new survey by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation found that binge drinking is highest in dry Alabama counties.

Why? One reason, according to Peggy Batey, executive director of the Alabama chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, is that people in dry counties have to drive long distances to buy booze. When people drive long distances, they tend to buy in bulk. And if you buy in bulk, you’re more likely to binge drink. Another factor is that people in dry counties may be closer to wet states with lower prices. For example, the people in “dry” Cherokee County can take a short drive and save up to 40 percent by buying in Georgia.

Finally, dry counties with military bases have higher rates of drinking, perhaps because of all the young men, crammed into one area.

State by state results of binge-drinking were not so surprising. As expected, Utah ranked lowest in national binge-drinking rates. Wisconsin, a known party state, ranked highest (See the chart below).

And on a more global scale, according to the Social Issues Research Center: “Societies with generally positive beliefs and expectancies about alcohol (variously defined as ‘non-Temperance’, ‘wet’, ‘Mediterranean’ or ‘integrated’ drinking-cultures) experience significantly fewer alcohol-related problems; negative or inconsistent beliefs and expectancies (found mainly in ‘Temperance’, ‘dry’, ‘Nordic’ or ‘ambivalent’ drinking-cultures) are associated with higher levels of alcohol-related problems.”

On the morning after that spectacular Yankees World Series win (sorry, Phillies fans), I was wondering: Do sports fans, in general, drink more than non sports fans?

Apparently, college sports fans do. A Harvard study from several years ago – the first national study of the drinking habits of college sports fans — says that more college student sports fans binge drink and have alcohol-related problems than non-fan students, and that targeted marketing and advertising by the alcohol industry is a huge influence. The study also concluded that schools with higher proportions of fans are more likely to have high rates of binge drinking.

The study, which appeared in the 2003 journal Addictive Behaviors, compared the responses of nearly 3,500 student sports fans (those who indicated in a survey that attending sports events was “important” or “very important” to them) to those of over 8,000 non-fan students. “We know that student athletes binge drink more than non-athletes…it turns out that fans are similar to athletes in their extreme drinking behavior,” said Toben Nelson, the study’s lead author.

So what about you? Does rooting for a team inspire you to drink, and drink more? Does watching a sporting event live make you drink more than you would if you watched it on TV?

P.S. A random twitter search of Yankees and drinking returned plenty of women drinking something (free beers, wine, etc.) while watching last night’s game, though some were just drinking lattes!

Like it or not, college life and drinking often go hand in hand. So what do you do, or think, or say when your own baby is soon to enter that four-year phase of alcohol meets academia? I guess I’ve got a year and a half to come up with answers before my daughter leaves our cozy nest.

When I think back to my own college experience, the images that come to mind include lush green quads and the boundless energy of the students walking across them, the classes filled with youthful, eager faces (okay, not all were so eager) and most certainly, the rousing football games with pitchers of bloody marys, the games of quarters and cheap beer, and the colorful jello shots that were a main attraction at many a late-night party.

Do I tell my daughter that nearly every night of the week, starting on tuesday, my crew of friends and I had a different bar we’d frequent once our studies were put to bed?

Times are different now. The legal drinking age isn’t 18, like it was when I was in college, and it seems that any level of moderation went out the window with the younger drinking age. Binge drinking is up. So are incidents of sexual abuse, drunk driving, assault and death. (For a more elaborate list, check out A Snapshot of Annual High-Risk College Drinking Consequences.)

“On average, college students in the U.S. purchase an estimated 430 million gallons of alcoholic beverages, including 4 billion cans of beer annually,” reports an article titled, How Much Drinking is too Much for Students? in Marshall University’s newspaper.

Those are pretty astounding numbers.

So I’ll just have to hope that when my kid goes off to school, she’ll use her brain both in class and at parties. It’d be naive to think that her college experience will be alcohol-free. And that’s okay. I hope.

by Jacquelyn Mitchard

1. Start drinking early in the afternoon on Christmas Eve. Come out of the bedroom in a Santa Claus bikini at midnight. After you pass out, forget Santa. Send the kids back into their rooms until noon and tell them Santa was hung over. Laugh. When the kids beg you to stop, tell them to grow up.

2. Pretend it never happened. None of it – the weeping-clown eyes, the shouts and fights, the makeout sessions on the coats in the bedroom with the lady from down the street – never happened. At all.

3. Go out on New Year’s Eve – for three days. There are plenty of Good Humor bars in the refrigerator. And Grandma and Grandpa didn’t leave for Florida yet? Or did they?

4. Nuzzle a waitress’ boobs, even after your friend, the owner of the place, asks you to stop, until your wife and kids get up and walk home. Six miles.

5. Tell your kid he better start on the team. When he does, show up for one game.

6. Talk about how much you drank on vacation the way other people talk about vacation.

7. When your son asks what you’re going to do tonight , say, “I’m going to drink. And you’re going to stay home.”

8. When your daughter, who’s 11, calls you at a dinner party from home to say that someone has broken into the apartment building, tell her to call the cops.

9. When your best friend suggests you slow down, on the night of your birthday, wait until he’s facing the other way and kick him through the TV.

10. Show up at eighth grade graduation, drunk. Show up at high school graduation drunk. Explain that you can’t make it to college graduation.

11. Shout out your requests for Trini Lopez songs so loudly that the bandleader refers to you as “Lawrence Welk and Mrs. Robinson.”

12. When one of the kids is seventeen and gets drunk for the first of three times in her life, throwing up until she’s weak and sobbing, tell her not to worry – everyone feels this way.

13. Be beautiful and charming and funny and complex and inquisitive when you’re sober. Be diminishing, surly, humiliating and cruel when you’re drunk.

14. Die young.

Jacquelyn Mitchard is the author of the number one New York Times bestselling novel, The Deep End of the Ocean, chosen as the first book for Oprah’s Book Club and named by USA Today the second most influential novel of the past 25 years. She has written four other bestsellers and is a contributing editor for Wondertime magazine as well as the author of four novels for young adults. Her new novel, No Time to Wave Goodbye, comes out this week.