Study: Binge drinking continues long after college

1 in 6 Americans binged about once per week in 2015, CDC study says.

Visit almost any college campus and you’ll find widespread binge drinking at football tailgatin g, f raternity parties and even inside dormitories. But a new stud ybytheCenters for Disease Control and Prevention finds heavy drinking continues long after the college years and well into adulthood.

More than 37 million Americans, or 1 in 6, reported binge drinking about once per week in 2015, according to the recently released CDC study. Binge drinking is defined as consuming f ourormoredrinks in one setting for women, or five or more for men.

But the study found binge drinkers, on average, down even more: seven drinks per episode. This all adds up to about 17.5 billion total binge drinks consumed by U.S. adults in 2015, or about 470 binge drinks per binge drinker.

And although binge drinking is more common among adults between 18 and 34, half of the total binge drinks were consumed by adults 35 and older.

“This (study) tells us adults are consuming a huge amount of binge drinks per year,” said Dr. Robert Brewer, lead researcher in the Alcohol Program at the CDC, and one of the co-authors of the study about binge drinking published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. “And from a public health standpoint, the total number of binge drinks is of concern because the risk of harm goes up with the amount (of alcohol) binge drinkers consume.”

Moms, dads, working professionals. Seniors. Excessive drinking is taking place at neighborhood pools,dinner parties, restaurants, and yes, b arsand clubs, but also in liv ing rooms and backy ard decks across the country. American culture often portrays alcohol as harmless fun, and sends a message that’s it OK, maybe even funny for moms to turn to wine to get through the day.

NBC News’ “Megyn Kel lyTOD AY” recently featured two mothers, now more than four years sober, who opened up about dealing with “mommy burnout” by drinking and howafewgla sses of wine evolved into binge drinking, mental health issues and even driving while intoxicated.

“My kids say they like mom better without alcohol,” said mother and psychotherapist Kelley Kitley, who was joined by writer and mother Laura McKowen.

On her blog, McKowen shares her own experiences with binge drinking and puts a spotlight on cultural norms encouraging heavy drinking. In one blog post, she p ointsto a tagline for a wine festival aimed at moms: “Baby on the hips, wine on the lips.”

“I saw alcohol as an exciting, fun, basically innocent part of life for a long time. It was a right and a privilege of being an adult. Sure, you could get sick if you had too much, but wasn’t that kind of the point sometimes (wink, wink)? … It’s what you did in college,” writes McKowen, who lives in the Boston area.

“Andwhat youo bviously needed to get through parenting. Especially as a mom. Why else would th ey make ‘Mommy’s Tim e Out’ wine? Finally, we’re all in on how craz-a ythis2 1st-century parenting thing is — so let’s just let er’ rip! … Maybe, just maybe, we’ve all been duped. Maybe, our belo vedbooze is as good times and benign as we thought smoking was b ackwhen it wa s promoted by doctors and splayed all over ads with taglines like ‘Be happy, go Lucky!’”

While the CDC has examined binge drinking in the past, this new study more deeply captures the scope of the problem, exactly how many drinks are consumed in binges, and what that adds up to over a year.

Here are some other key findings:

■ Socioeconomic factors play a role. Binge drinking is more prevalent among college graduates with household incomes above $75,000. But those with lower income who binge tend to drink more heavily.

■ T hereweres ome geographic differences. Total annual binge drinks per bing ed rinker were generally higher in the Mississippi River Valley than in other regions. The

highest annual number of personal binge drinks was reported by drinkers in Arkansas, Mississippi, Kentucky and Hawaii.

■ Georgia is just shy of the national average of binge drinkers (16 percent for Georgia compared to 17 percent nationally). But those who binge drink in Georgia tend to imbibe more often, 58 times a year compared with 53 nationally).

■ Binge drinking is about twice as prevalent among men than it is among women.

■ Binge drinking accounts for more than half of the 88,000 U.S. deaths that result annually from excessive drinking.

Drinking too much carries short-term and long-term health risks. When you drink heavily, you increase your risk of injuries and death from motor vehicle accidents, drowning and falls. Over time, excessive alcohol use can lead to serious health problems including high blood pressure, heart and liver disease.

So are binge drinkers alcoholics? For the most part, no. The CDC estimates 9 in 10 binge drinkers are not alcohol dependent or alcoholics. And while many factors influence binge drinking, Brewer said binge drinkers tend to be influenced by their environment and social settings.

Alcohol is also readily available and relatively cheap. It makes sense: If you are at a neighborhood gathering to watch a football game and everyone around you is downing drinks, you are more likely to join in.

While Brewer said people should not be “binge drinking at all, period,” he also stressed the CDC is not telling all adults who drink to necessarily stop drinking altogether. Instead, he said, if alcohol is consumed it should be in moderation and in line with dietary guidelines — up to one drink per day for women and two drinks per day for men. However, some groups — youth under age 21, women who are pregnant or might be pregnant, and people with medical problems that could be made worse by drinking — shouldn’t drink at all, he said.