What's the point of binge drinking?

[IronBrig4]

This is an offshoot of the necroposted thread on drunk driving.

Why do people binge drink? I lived in a college dorm for four years, and three semesters of that were spent as an RA. Most of the residents who got in trouble did so during, after, or in the pursuit of binge drinking.

I just don't understand why people do it. They never drink the GOOD stuff. They invariably choose drinks that give you the worst hangover for the lowest price. A gastronomical equivalent would be stuffing oneself with pork rinds and day-old donuts. Filling? Eventually. Appetizing? Hardly. Unhealthy? Hell yes.

When I drink outside the home, I usually find myself a cigar lounge. Those establishments have good music, leather-bound books, and a somewhat classier clientele. They also don't serve Pabst or Bud Light. I prefer my well-aged scotch, thank you very much. Such an excursion can be pricey, which is why I don't do it very often. In my experience, binge drinkers stagger into dilapidated, tawdry dives every weekend.

I'm currently teaching in South Korea. Most of my coworkers (they're Westerners) love to get themselves trashed at those run-down bars. They typically drink the local soju, which is a disgusting drink. Seriously, it has a chemical aftertaste and is probably better as an industrial cleaner. I've seen them get drunker and drunker until they reach the point of nausea. That's pointless right there, but then they drink MORE. Their drinking doesn't end until sunup, when they stumble out of the bar, get blinded by the sun, and then pass out on the sidewalk.

Meanwhile, me and the few sensible drinkers usually share a bottle of Johnnie Walker. We might get tipsy, but not so inebriated that we can't enjoy some good conversation. We'll come home at about one or two o'clock in the morning, have a good night's sleep, and then be ready to do something productive the next day.

So what's the point in binge drinking? There's no taste to enjoy. Any flavor that mass-produced beer once had is diluted by the constant pounding. They waste the entire evening in a drunken stupor, and they waste the next day hung over. It seems like such a waste of time, money, and potential.

[★Bandiera Rossa☭]

Well I know for many high school kids it is because they cannot get access to alcohol very often so they go overboard when they do get it..

[KoS]

Well I know for many high school kids it is because they cannot get access to alcohol very often so they go overboard when they do get it..

I've noticed that in my experience as well.

[Nikos]

I also never understood why people feel the urge to binge drink. I guess some people are just ignorant.

[Imperator Romani]

@ Slurricane
Alot of people in my high school have access to any kind of alcohol(me included, but if I do drink I don't get drunk). In Mississippi, it is extremely easy to get alcohol. Some of our parents will buy us alcohol if we drink in a safe environment. Just go down to the liquor store a town away(live in a dry county), and ask. They don't even ask for ID.
@ everyone
Every Friday you hear this walkin out of school(Lets get ed Up!!!) Now I know this isn't good at all. But to prove how ignorant they are, when the most popular guy in our school died in a car wreck(from being drunk), people kept drinking! They even went and poured beer on his grave...it disgusts me.

[Yosemite]

Every Friday you hear this walkin out of school(Lets get ed Up!!!) Now I know this isn't good at all. But to prove how ignorant they are, when the most popular guy in our school died in a car wreck(from being drunk), people kept drinking! They even went and poured beer on his grave...it disgusts me.

they say "you can die anytime of the day, by anything, better enjoy life at full force!"

but their following comportement is just death wish

I

and a pussy by others because I don't drink as much as they do when we do go out.

what kind of friend is that

[Ciabhán]

This is an offshoot of the necroposted thread on drunk driving.

Why do people binge drink? I lived in a college dorm for four years, and three semesters of that were spent as an RA. Most of the residents who got in trouble did so during, after, or in the pursuit of binge drinking.

I just don't understand why people do it. They never drink the GOOD stuff. They invariably choose drinks that give you the worst hangover for the lowest price. A gastronomical equivalent would be stuffing oneself with pork rinds and day-old donuts. Filling? Eventually. Appetizing? Hardly. Unhealthy? Hell yes.

When I drink outside the home, I usually find myself a cigar lounge. Those establishments have good music, leather-bound books, and a somewhat classier clientele. They also don't serve Pabst or Bud Light. I prefer my well-aged scotch, thank you very much. Such an excursion can be pricey, which is why I don't do it very often. In my experience, binge drinkers stagger into dilapidated, tawdry dives every weekend.

I'm currently teaching in South Korea. Most of my coworkers (they're Westerners) love to get themselves trashed at those run-down bars. They typically drink the local soju, which is a disgusting drink. Seriously, it has a chemical aftertaste and is probably better as an industrial cleaner. I've seen them get drunker and drunker until they reach the point of nausea. That's pointless right there, but then they drink MORE. Their drinking doesn't end until sunup, when they stumble out of the bar, get blinded by the sun, and then pass out on the sidewalk.

Meanwhile, me and the few sensible drinkers usually share a bottle of Johnnie Walker. We might get tipsy, but not so inebriated that we can't enjoy some good conversation. We'll come home at about one or two o'clock in the morning, have a good night's sleep, and then be ready to do something productive the next day.

So what's the point in binge drinking? There's no taste to enjoy. Any flavor that mass-produced beer once had is diluted by the constant pounding. They waste the entire evening in a drunken stupor, and they waste the next day hung over. It seems like such a waste of time, money, and potential.

To each his own. I don't drink often but I do a bloody good job of it when I do.

[★Bandiera Rossa☭]

Well what I mean is that many people especially the lower classes (freshmen mostly) cannot easily get it around here (stores are pretty strict about ids here) And few weeks or so there is a party were everyone goes overboard and many people get arrested.

[Imperator Romani]

Yea I know what you mean, I was just showing it's not the same everywhere.

[Viking Prince]

I would suggest that the phrase 'binge drinking' does not mean cheap without flavor and just to get drunk types of drinking. Many people binge drink. Going out after work on Friday and having enough to be intoxicated but not stinking drunk in the gutter is still binge drinking. There is intent to become at least mildly intoxicated. It happens on occasion and not an everyday happening.

Why do people do it? Well, they like to be intoxicated on occasion and still function normally and productively the rest of the time. Asking why people binge drink is like asking why people shoot up or smoke drugs. Disorientation and forgetting about the here and now for a period of time is popular. This is not just with young people. We nearly all do it to some degree every now and then.

This is not to deny that there are some people who do it to the point of destruuctive behavior. This is not to suggest that some people are harmed by the process. To do an activity to excess can often be harmful.

[finsternis]

I roommate last semester always got drunk during Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays night: every single weekend, not exaggerating (so did a lot of people in my floor). I asked myself the same thing "why do they do it? What's the point? All they do is get drunk and high? How can they enjoy doing the same thing every week?" and I think it is simply because of the idea: the idea of being a "cool college person who is accepted by everyone". Acceptance, they did it in High School so now they have to do it in college too (or, they didn't have it in High School so now they want to have it in college).

I guess also the idea of "this is what college is all about" or "this is what you do in college". Pretty much a lack of a larger scope on society and civilization.

[IronBrig4]

What I REALLY don't get are the people who make a habit of getting stinking drunk in the gutter every weekend. They'll tell their friends, "Never let me drink like that again." but then go straight back to wrecking themselves the next weekend (or sometimes the very next night). I am also completely astounded when they brag about how drunk they got the night before. They killed God knows how many brain cells, wasted the whole night, and spent most of the next day in a stupor. How is that anything to be proud of?

[mrcrusty]

What I REALLY don't get are the people who make a habit of getting stinking drunk in the gutter every weekend. They'll tell their friends, "Never let me drink like that again." but then go straight back to wrecking themselves the next weekend (or sometimes the very next night). I am also completely astounded when they brag about how drunk they got the night before. They killed God knows how many brain cells, wasted the whole night, and spent most of the next day in a stupor. How is that anything to be proud of?

It's about pushing the limits, and blurring reality, it's basically comes down to the more drunk you get, the more fun you had because you're at the most inebriated possible point.
So much so, you pass out, or simply don't remember what happened.

I don't know, I've drunk to that level before (throwing up, mega hangover, I was told that I once yelled at my mailbox when the cab took me home from a particular late night) but honestly I don't get the big deal with excess drinking. I have no idea why everybody goes out to get as wasted as possible.

I do drink, not too often, but probably more then what is healthy (around 3 times a month) and always drink until I'm tipsy enough to recognise that drinking more would be too much, then I stop.
It's quite funny though because I'm considered an "alco" by some friends I have that don't/rarely drink, and a pussy by others because I don't drink as much as they do when we do go out.

But I really don't understand what's so great about it. All I can say is that, in your inebriated state, while talking with friends or having a good time, it is very very easy to loose count of the amount of alcohol you consume and you go from having 5-6 shots of alcohol, to over 10 without even noticing until you feel the effects.

[Imperator Romani]

What I REALLY don't get are the people who make a habit of getting stinking drunk in the gutter every weekend. They'll tell their friends, "Never let me drink like that again." but then go straight back to wrecking themselves the next weekend (or sometimes the very next night). I am also completely astounded when they brag about how drunk they got the night before. They killed God knows how many brain cells, wasted the whole night, and spent most of the next day in a stupor. How is that anything to be proud of?

Isn't it proven that before you get to 21, or around 21(depends on rate of development), that every time you get drunk it keeps your brain a little further from further developing(instead of ::::::: it's :::

[Lord of Lost Socks]

::::::: it's :::

latter one seems happier

[Hounf of Culan]

I will offer my perspective as a college student who binge drinks. For me I find it very awkard to simply socialize and converse with people I don't see regularly. Thus at parties and the like I prefer to drink copious amounts of alcohol which through magical scientific like processes does stuff to my brain that lets me be more relaxed and talkative with strangers. To me alcohol really has no purpose but to get you dunk, if you want a tasty drink you have sodas or juices.

[mrcrusty]

I will offer my perspective as a college student who binge drinks. For me I find it very awkard to simply socialize and converse with people I don't see regularly. Thus at parties and the like I prefer to drink copious amounts of alcohol which through magical scientific like processes does stuff to my brain that lets me be more relaxed and talkative with strangers. To me alcohol really has no purpose but to get you dunk, if you want a tasty drink you have sodas or juices.

I agree with this, but the problem is that once you drink too much, you reach a certain point where the "social skills" that the alcohol gave you just go away, you become clumsy, unbalanced and generally unaware of most of your surroundings.

You try to initiate conversation, but you can't read body language, don't really take into account what they say/do and are really just slow on the ball.

I also believe that the OP isn't talking about that level of alcohol, where you can still essentially have self control. He's talking about the kind of drinking, where you drink nonstop for the entire night.
(Let's say 20+ shots of something like jim bean or more then 8-10 beers or more then 2 full bottles of vodka or 12+ bottles of bacardi cruisers)

The key, at least in my case is to get "tipsy", become inebriated enough to be a more sociable person, but not enough so as to lose self awareness.

[Trey]

It's fun if you handle it right. You're mistaking binge drinking with drinking to the point of blackout. The official term of binge drinking is 5 drinks per hour for a male. That's enough to get a buzz on. Now I'd say for an average American college male at a party would consider binge drinking 8 or 10+ drinks in a night. It's a way to have fun, go wild. Everyone will give you a different reason why they do it.
Most of that "pressure" and drinking to forget troubles is mainly for the college age partier.

[Lord of Lost Socks]

It's fun. Some people like it, so just let them do it.

Done it a couple of times, always end up with a hangover, so nowadays I do it more rarely and try to stick with vodka or something so I don't have to drink as much

[Biggreenfellow]

It's fun. Some people like it, so just let them do it.

Done it a couple of times, always end up with a hangover, so nowadays I do it more rarely and try to stick with vodka or something so I don't have to drink as much

What exactly is the fun part? The puking? The lying in the gutter? The hangover? The not remembering what you did exactly, and getting strange looks and funny smiles from people that apparently know you, but you can't remember who they are, and why they suddenly stop talking when you walk to them?

Cuz I've been there, done that, and I didn't think it that fun. In fact, I have more fun now, when I drink just enough to get over the limits of my somewhat lacking social skills