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

Leave it to my college kid to enlighten me about the website, Texts from Last Night. I’m not sure why, but it seems that the website has a large following–enough that it has spawned a book with the same title–wholly devoted to the strange things people text as the night goes on. Not surprisingly, alcohol (and drugs) are involved in many a late night text.

For example, a random sampling from the website included the following texts:

“The best part about drinking boxed wine is you can blow up the bag and use it as a pillow.”

“Let the vodka take you where it will. Like Pocahontas, but wasted.”

“Its ok, the prom king gave me his crown to puke in.”

“Hurry up this bar wont let me order big pitchers of beer for just myself.”

“I just hope my dad was drunk enough to not remember the whole convo we had about anal.”

“The weed is temporarily burning the grammar section of my brain library.”

And my personal favorite: “Him being a republican bothers me way more than his coke problem.”

Perusing the site, I was able to search texts by area code and categories such as “Best,” “Worst,” and “Random.” Not surprisingly, the most common theme after booze/drugs is sex.

Here’s a bit on how the founders describe their mission:

Texts From Last Night (TFLN) was founded in February 2009 by two friends for reasons that may or may not include: the tendency to press send more easily as the night turns to morning, friends’ social habits, disgraced government officials, exes, law school, closing down bars and leaving tabs open, general debauchery and/or a common disgust for all the negativity surrounding the ‘sexting’ phenomenon.

We prefer texts, not conversations. We reserve the right to post portions of conversations without duplicating the entire thing. It’s not because the entire thing isn’t funny, but the funniest texts are those we can all relate to, so without the context of the conversation, they become really funny.

Our goal was to create a site that was revealing in nature while concealing the identity of everyone involved. This is why we only ask for an area code to accompany your text messages.

We don’t want texts that are offensive to the point of being viciously personal, racist, exceedingly profane, violent or excessively graphic in nature. It’s a very hard thing to judge, but we’ll do our best.

In this day and age, we know that little is sacred in the way of information. After reading through the texts posted in recent days on this website, I felt the need to warn our readers that booze, too, can burn the grammar section of your brain library. And even worse, your text–once intended for a specific recipient–may end up featured the following day in the “Best” or “Worst” sections of the Texts from Last Night.

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If you have a kid in college, chances are she’ll be all ears while watching the second presidential debate on October 16. She may be listening particularly closely to key words and phrases, such as “Obamacare” and “Al Qaeda.” Her focus, however, will not be intended for note taking or reporting back to her Poli Sci professor about diverging opinions on healthcare and homeland security. Rather, she’ll be listening for her cue to down a vodka shot or swig from a gin and tonic.

When I heard about the latest round of debate drinking games, my first thought was how my seventh grader likely came away from the first presidential showdown with more knowledge than my college sophomore. She just probably woke up with a hangover. And my second thought–I probably would’ve been doing the exact same thing back in 1980-something. Or maybe I did and just don’t remember.

In any event, there’s more debate drinking to be done with both the upcoming Vice Presidential debate and the next Obama v. Romney face-off at Hofstra University.

The College Humor site had a long list of potential drinking cues, and even a couple that involve abstaining. Here are some highlights:

• Take a sip every time Obama starts a sentence with “Look…”

• Take a sip every time Mitt Romney awkwardly chuckles.

• Take a sip every time a candidate refers to his wife.

• Politely refrain from drinking every time Mormonism is mentioned.

• Get your infrared goggles and chug in the dark every time the killing of Osama bin Laden is mentioned.

• Take two sips every time Romney mispronounces a black or Hispanic person’s name.

• Take a shot and then two more any time Mitt Romney makes a genuinely funny joke.

• If you agree with everything a particular candidate says, finish your Kool-Aid.

You get the picture. All I know is that come October 16th, I’ll likely be counting the number of times the candidates mention their wives or the term Mormonism, hoping my daughter is safely studying in the library rather than “watching” the debate.

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Decades before Miley Cyrus revealed to college-age women everywhere that the hookah, or water pipe, is the latest must-have accessory, I found one prominently placed in my childhood home. I was 15 and had just returned from a summer at sleepaway camp. In my absence, my parents had traveled to Turkey where they purchased said hookah and displayed it proudly in our home’s lower level, not far from the billiard table. I suppose they thought it was a cool visual—I honestly don’t believe it was ever used for anything other than viewing.

Fast forward 30 years, and now it’s me, my husband and our children walking the streets of Istanbul. Hookahs are sold and smoked everywhere—as a matter of fact it’s not a strange sight to see people of all ages smoking the tobacco (much of it is flavored–pineapple? vanilla anyone?) from a hookah while playing chess in outdoor cafes.

It never occurred to me to smoke from a hookah, and I never imagined my kids would want to–or even have the opportunity. But obviously, I wasn’t keeping up with the times. According to new research from the Miriam Hospital’s Center for Behavioral and Preventive Medicine, almost one quarter of college women try smoking tobacco from a hookah for the first time during their freshman year. Did I mention my daughter just finished her first year of college?

The study, which was published online by the Psychology of Addictive Behaviors journal, revealed a potential link between hookah smoking and alcohol and marijuana use. An article from Science Daily reported that “researchers found the more alcohol women consumed, the more likely they were to experiment with hookah smoking, while women who used marijuana engaged in hookah smoking more frequently than their peers.”

The problem is that many college students believe mistakenly that smoking from a hookah is safer than cigarettes. Hookahs, however, have been linked to lung cancer and other diseases similar to those brought on by cigarette smoking.

“The popularity and social nature of hookah smoking, combined with the fact that college freshmen are more likely to experiment with risky behavior, could set the stage for a potential public health issue, given what we know about the health risks of hookah smoking,” said lead author Robyn L. Fielder, M.S., a research intern at The Miriam Hospital’s Centers for Behavioral and Preventive Medicine, in the article on Science Daily. Fielder says the findings corroborate prior research showing strong correlations between hookah and other substance use, but their research is the first to show that alcohol and marijuana use are prospectively related to hookah initiation.

The study, which was funded by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), consisted of a survey of 483 first-year female college students and asked about their hookah use before college, followed by 12 monthly online surveys about their experience with hookah smoking. Of the 343 participants who did not report precollege hookah use, 79 students (or 23 percent) tried smoking a hookah during their freshman year.

As a parent, the concern is naturally that your kid is going to try this or that because that’s what other kids are trying. Hookah smoking seems a lot more enticing, I imagine, to many students who see cigarettes as outdated–and practically verboten in every public place anyway. But if they do a little research, they’ll learn that hookah smoking is not exactly a new phenomenon and originated in ancient Persia and India.

I have not asked my daughter yet if she’s come across any hookah-smoking parties at school. But with this new research, I’m inclined to ask. I’m not sure I’ll bring her to my parents’ house anytime soon, however, for fear that she’ll see their imported hookah and ask if she can bring it back to school for her sophomore year.

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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.

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It seems that the Lehigh University Women’s Center  is taking an important stand, opening up a much-needed conversation about the pressures college-aged women sometimes feel surrounding alcohol, according to an article on the Lehigh Valley Live website.

A part of the university’s Women and Health Speakers & Events Series–and as a follow-up to the screening of the documentary Miss Representation, which addressed the pressures surrounding the ideal of successful women–the event focused on issues such as body image, the prominence of alcohol on campus, and why women are now choosing to consume hard liquor instead of beer.

Rita Jones, the Director of the Women’s Center, said the event was meant to offer a space for conversation, and that it did, as students and faculty in attendance spoke candidly about the pressures and effects of alcohol on women in Lehigh’s community.

Apparently, many women are opting to drink hard liquor because it has fewer calories, validating that body image and calorie counting are affecting women’s choices. Most students at the event agreed that the “loudest social voice on campus is often one advocating partying,” and that alcohol has become a “social crutch since ”there’s there is nothing to do at a party but drink.”

Some students suggested they’d like to see more non-alcohol activities on campus and explained that when libraries closes early, “it practically encourages students to go out and consume alcohol on the weekends.”

For student-athletes, those at the event said that their team’s longest meetings focused on discussions of dry policies, which determine the times athletes cannot consume alcohol before and after sporting events.

Kudos to Lehigh for bringing these issues about women and alcohol to light and offering students a chance to speak out. Let’s hope that other colleges and universities follow suit.

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In less than a week, my daughter will be off to college. Sitting on a beach chair a few weeks ago, her eyes glanced at her computer screen under the glare of the sun and the ocean only steps away. I assumed she was watching some incredibly gripping movie from which she couldn’t tear herself away. But when I inquired, she rolled her eyes and explained that she was watching an alcohol awareness video—a mandatory assignment for her university.

Despite the efforts made by educational institutions, new psychological research suggests that the pitfalls from all those jello shots and games of beer pong aren’t bad enough to make students stop drinking.

On the USA Today website, an article, “College Drinking is Liberating, and a Good Excuse,” reports on why the efforts to raise awareness are not working.

“We thought if we could demonstrate to students that their performance deteriorated under alcohol, they would be convinced that their alcohol consumption has put them at risk,” says psychologis E. Scott Geller, director of the Center for Applied Behavior Systems at Virginia Tech. But “knowing that one is impaired, physically and even emotionally, did not seem to reduce alcohol consumption.”

Geller, who’s been studying alcohol awareness since the mid-1980s, states clearly that the alcohol education hasn’t worked. “We have shown in several studies that their intentions influence their behavior. If they intend to get drunk, it’s difficult to stop that.”

Going for the effects is what it’s all about. One student, Brandie Pugh, a senior at Ohio University, says in the article: “I think everybody’s aim is to get drunk on the weekend. It’s not about the taste of the alcohol. It’s about the effects of it. It’s about the lowered inhibitions.”

In another study, researcher Laina Bay-Cheng, an associate professor of social work at the University at Buffalo-State University of New York, found that when teenagers drink, they think they can use their intoxicated state as an excuse for their actions. Students in her focus groups–there were 97 teens ranging in age from 14 to 17–described alcohol as emboldening and said it offers “liquid courage,” a phrase other researchers also have cited. Colleges, she says, need to “acknowledge and reckon with” alcohol’s appeal.

According to Bay Cheng, another result of drinking is that it can be an excuse for young women to “act out being sexually assertive, carefree, liberated,” she explains. ”If you have sex, you’re a slut, and if you don’t, you’re a prude — but drinking allows you to do both. You can go out, get drunk, have sex and the next day say, ‘I’m still a good girl.’”

In the USA Today article, Pugh goes on to say that she has seen this scenario play out on her campus repeatedly: “‘I was drunk so I hooked up with that guy.’ ‘I was drunk so I missed my class this morning.’ ‘I was drunk so I got in a fight.’ If it’s something they’re not proud of, it gives them an excuse.”

After next Wednesday, I’ll hope from afar that my daughter doesn’t ever feel that she needs to use alcohol as an excuse for anything.

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By Annabelle Kathryn

“I don’t drink.” It’s a phrase I’ve imagined myself saying for the past two years, especially the morning after a particularly bad night, when I wonder if giving up drinking would ever be something I could actually do. Sometimes, I’d even practice it out loud, trying to get just the right inflection so it conveys just the right combination of aloof nonchalance and hard-earned knowledge. With those few words, I wanted anyone I’d met to know I wasn’t someone who’d never touched alcohol, or had gotten scared straight from just one night spent puking in the communal dorms at college. With that phrase, I wanted people to hear all the inherent subtext: that I wasn’t naïve. I’d had experiences.

But I always just sounded young and dumb, or self-conscious, so I’d shrug and head off to the bar and drink, where I’d usually black out, wonder if I had a problem, practice saying I don’t drink a few times, then start the whole cycle all over again.

It wasn’t until this year that I realized my drinking had moved past “kind of out of control” and towards “seriously fucked up.” I was drinking every night, blacking out at least once a week, and, on a few occasions, sneaking vodka into Sprite at work. And while I tried to justify it by all the mitigating factors that had recently occurred up in my life—in the past six months, I broke up with my boyfriend, had an abortion, sat by my mom’s hospital bed as she died of cancer, and, just two months after that, had to do the same for my grandmother—the fact was, I had a problem.

So I knew that I needed to eventually give up drinking for real, but didn’t feel any impetus from within to stop, which terrified me. If losing my wallet and my shoes and my jewelry and my iPhone all in one night hadn’t stopped me, if spraining my wrist hadn’t stopped me, if having unprotected sex that resulted in an unplanned pregnancy hadn’t stopped me—what would? Every time I’d go out, I’d feel an anticipatory sense of dread. Sometimes I went out almost hoping I’d wake up in a hospital, because then, at least the answer would be obvious.

But I didn’t. And as it was, the night I realized I needed to go to A.A. was pretty tame. I went to a friend’s house and drank a bottle of wine before meeting a guy who I desperately wanted to be my boyfriend for a third date at a bar.

I concentrated on acting sober. But from tripping on the step into the bar to talking too loudly to drinking two and a half vodka sodas before he even finished his first drink, I knew it wasn’t working. I realized he knew I was hammered, but I thought I had a shot with him, especially when he suggested we leave. I assumed that meant he wanted me to come home with him and when he didn’t, saying he had to get up early the next morning, I started sobbing. I felt rejected, alone. Drunk. I cried my way to the subway, took the wrong train and ended up in Queens instead of Brooklyn, where I lived and finally got home at four AM.

The next morning, I woke up, disappointed and exhausted and embarrassed and just done. It wasn’t the specifics so much as the utter, been there done that blaseness I felt from the core of my being. For the first time, I truly realized that this would keep happening and happening and happening unless I did something.

So I decided to go to a meeting, spending more time figuring out what to wear than I usually do when I’m going on a date. I decided I wanted to look very Mary Louise Parker in Weeds—a tough and sexy woman who always ends up in situations just beyond her control. I wore skinny jeans, an oversized white T-shirt with a nautical-striped scarf. Lots of leather bracelets. Leather jacket. Pink sunglasses. Marc Jacobs bag. Extra-large iced latte as a prop. I knew my posturing was both ridiculous and the only thing that would get me out the door.

I chose one that was far away from my neighborhood, arrived 15 minutes early, and froze at the door. I was terrified. I’ve interviewed A-list celebrities, traveled abroad on my own with just a plane ticket and a backpack, and have shown up on strangers doorsteps to exchange sex for coke, but a meeting in a church basement terrified me.

So I left, frantically searching for another meeting on my iPhone. I found one a few blocks down, and the same thing happened. I just couldn’t make myself go in. Which is why finally, on my third try, I ended up at a lesbian, transgender, and bisexual focus meeting. I’m none of those things, but, frustrated with my fear and the fact I’d wasted almost two hours, I forced myself to walk in and sit the fuck down.

And it was fine. It wasn’t earth shattering and it was mostly like how I’d imagined. Some hand-holding. A lot of gratitude. Coffee. I sat in the back and didn’t speak, but did listen.

And then I went to another meeting, and another. And it’s just the first week, only five meetings in—so I know I don’t know anything yet, not really. But the only thing I know is that I’m going to try to keep going—even if at first it takes a few outfit changes to actually get out the door.

This piece originally appeared on The Fix, a website about addiction and recovery. Annabelle Kathryn is the pseudonym for a writer living in New York City.

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For those of us who have watched–and enjoyed–the epic frat party film, Animal House, it’s easy to see that these boys are having one good, drunken time throughout. According to a recent study, the alcohol-induced male elation is not purely fictional.

The study, published in Biological Psychology, shows that men experience greater pleasure form drinking alcohol than women do. Apparently, liquor triggers the male brain to release a higher amount of dopamine, a neurotransmitter that causes euphoria and pleasure.

When the high subsides, however, it’s not all fun and beer pong. Researchers say that the additional dopamine may help expain why men, especially those who can hold their liquor, are twice as likely as women to become alcoholics.

“It’s not just that people who release more dopamine like it better,” says John H. Krystal, chair of the Yale University psychiatrity department and one of 11 authors of the study. “They also learn to want it more.”

On two separate days, the researchers tested how the brains of 21 young social drinkers reacted to alcohol. On one day, the men and women were given juice mixed with a tiny amount of alcohol. Then the researchers used PET scanners to measure the dopamine release in the subjects’ brain. They expected the effect to be minimal, Krystal says, and it was. But they wanted to control for the possibility that people would feel euphoric just because they thought they were getting drunk. On the second day, when the subjects were given stronger drinks, dopamine levels were higher–and the men’s brains released more than twice as much dopamine as the women’s.

The researchers’ goal is to develop ways to “damp down” dopamine release in the brains of people predisposed to alcoholism. With the use of medications and other treatments, young drinkers with a family history of alcoholism may be able to lessen their chances of becoming problem drinkers.

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This past weekend, I went back to my college with my husband and my three kids, who range in age from 7 to 13. I wasn’t coming for a reunion—just a vacation–but after the weekend was over, I understood why I had chosen to go to my twentieth college reunion (a year or two before) with friends rather than family.

At my 20^th reunion, I happily threw myself back into the spirit of camaraderie and drinks at my favorite dive bars. Going back with my family was a different matter.  I was cringingly aware of how on a college campus, alcohol is, seemingly, everywhere. Suddenly, Collegetown seemed to be just a collection of bars with a few stores sprinkled between them.

We went to a popular lunch spot on Friday before noon, and sat at a counter near the cash register. My 13 and 10-year-old daughters watched, wide-eyed, as fresh-faced girls who looked like they could be in high school ordered beer and sangria, waiting with sparkly-eyed anticipation for their drinks. The guys behind them, proudly wearing their Greek-lettered sweatshirts, ordered pitchers from the tap. “Are they allowed to drink?” my daughter asked. “What’s a growler?” my 7-year-old son asked.  I had no idea, but then I realized that it had something to do with the beers and taps and pitchers arrayed before us.

Um, see, I know we’ve been talking about this thing called the drinking age, but all that goes out the window in college. We went to visit a relative of ours at a neighboring college, who proudly showed us her fake id. Woops.

Sometimes, these issues just hit us in the face, whether we’re ready to talk to our kids or not. How can I talk about college drinking to my kids? How can I expain that sometimes, the drinking was fun. But for me, it got out of hand. Out of proportion. It became too central; too key.

I looked at that girl at the counter, waiting for her Friday-before-12 sangria, with a sparkle in her eye, and I saw myself at her age, saw the absurdity of letting life constrict down to a liquid in a bottle of a glass—as if that magic elixir could take away the doubts and uncertainties that go with approaching adulthood.

“Mom, that girl said the d word and the a word,” my son said. Later, in a parking lot, a guy let out a loud burp, much to my kids’ delight. Students clustered outside the downtown bars, smoking.

Smoking. Drinking. Burping. Cursing. After all those years of living at home, some of these kids are tasting freedom for the first time. Part of that is freedom to make bad decisions. These may be the only four years in a person’s life that they can really let loose. I didn’t say these things, but I will, when they’re older.

All these years later, as I explored the campus and the town with my children in search of wholesome activities, I realized there were plenty. The outdoor pursuits were endless—hiking, biking, kayaking, canoeing, running.  I dabbled in some. But why had I never ventured out to the Plantations, after my brief stint on the crew team freshman year. Why hadn’t I gone to the bird sanctuary, Sapsucker Woods? What peace I could have found there. I could have hiked to one of the many gorges and waterfalls when I felt anxious, instead of heading over to the campus pub.

“Dad; did you drink a lot in college?” the kids asked in the car, on the way home. I was relieved they didn’t ask me, because I’m not sure what I would have said. Should I have told them that I regret placing so much importance on drinking and serve myself up as a cautionary tale?  But what good are regrets? And, my warring mind says, I was learning important lessons–testing the boundaries as I never did in adolescence, experimenting, learning my limits.

Or should I have fudged the truth and said I really didn’t drink that much at all?

For now, I’m choosing a middle path. We talk about what we see, alcohol-wise, and we talk about peoples’ choices and how those choices determine the course of their lives. The truth is, I don’t think I would have earned a spot at such a great university if drinking had been central to my high school life.

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Last week, my daughter went to a frat party while visiting a friend at college. When I asked her the following morning what people were drinking, she told me that they’d been drinking Four Lokos, also known as “blackout in a can.”

It seemed like only minutes after she told me, Four Loko and the other companies that have been producing alcoholic beverages combining alcohol and caffeine were plastered all over the headlines.

In his “Tipsy Diaries” column, Frank Bruni described the beverage as a “flavored malt liquor that has caffeine as well as alcohol: a double whammy that permits its consumers — users might be a more felicitous term — to keep drinking longer and later than they would normally be able to in their inebriated states.”

Explained that way, it doesn’t sound so bad. But in actuality, Four Loko and its similar “cousins” revealed their dangerous impact when they caused several incidents in which “dozens of college students have been treated for alcohol poisoning after overindulging in Four Loko and similar products, and several states and universities then banned the drinks,” according to a piece in the Washington Post.

New York State Senator Chuck Schumer described the drinks as “dangerous and toxic brews.” And subsequently, the Food and Drug Administration deemed the alcoholic energy drinks unsafe and illegal.

I don’t know about you, but I’d say that caffeine has its role, and alcohol another. And now it seems that never the two shall meet–legally, anyway.

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“Red red wine, go to my head, make me forget…”

There are drinking songs—songs that make you want to drink—and then there are songs that remind you of certain nights, certain drinks.

Every time I hear UB40’s song, “Red Red Wine,” I’m transported back to a night, freshman year of college, when the guy who lived across the hall from me and I decided to play “drinking” Trivial Pursuit (yes, this was back in the 80s).  Our drink of choice: a gallon jug of Ernest & Julio Gallo red.

I was pretty good at Trivial Pursuit, but there were still lots of stumpers like: Name the dancers on the Jackie Gleason show (Answer: The June Taylor dancers).

By the end of a few hours or so, my roommate walked in and found four legs, twined together. Turns out we were under the bed, making out while “Red Red Wine” looped over and over on the record player (yes, that’s how old I am).

We want to know…what’s your favorite drinking song? A literal drinking song, or a song that makes you think about drinking.

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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.

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When I got to college, I was totally ready for the academics, more than a bit cowed by dorm life (as any introvert would be), but mostly–I was completely unprepared for the drinking life that dominated my Ivy League campus. I say Ivy League, because my university did not fit the stereotypical bill of a “party” school, yet it was. Oh yes, it was. Most schools are.

As I mentioned in an essay for Drinking Diaries, my dorm hosted a “rooms party,” that first week of college. We served gin and tonics, I passed out that night, and I’ve never been able to even smell a gin and tonic since. That, dear readers, was the start of my college drinking career, which included many near-comatose Saturdays and Sundays, times where I woke up with a guy whose name I wasn’t sure I knew, drinks in the shower before parties, pitchers of beer mid-week, while studying for finals, drinks, drinks, drinks!

I’d like to think it was just me, that maybe things have changed drastically now that the drinking age is no longer eighteen (as it was when I was a freshman). We even had a Campus Pub, where they served kamikaze shots in little plastic shot glasses. Has it all changed? Or are students just crafting better fake IDs? Perhaps I’m hopelessly out of touch.

Also–maybe I was just extra hard hit since my high school drinking career was practically nil. But does that mean I should encourage my kids to drink before college so they get a drinking education? Hmmm. That sounds dubious.

It would be great if they came to college armed with some information about alcohol, though. Would that help them moderate themselves through all those temptations? I’m not sure, but maybe.

While browsing an interesting site called College Drinking–Changing the Culture, I discovered that some colleges offer mandatory alcohol education courses, which incoming freshmen can take online. That’s a start, but it seems a bit impersonal.  It may have helped me more if college students had visited my high school during senior year for a frank and private (meaning no parents or teachers) round table on college drinking.

Readers: I’d love to hear your thoughts on college drinking. Should students get some practice by drinking in high school, or do you think that’s absurd, given that: A) underage drinking is illegal; B) the earlier kids start drinking, the more likely it is that drinking will be woven into the fabric of their lives; and C) drinking isn’t healthy for the developing body and brain.

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.”

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