What To Do About Binge Drinking?

There’s always that one person at a party who always has a drink in their hand. Constantly taking another sip from their cup, they soon grow loud and obnoxious and no one wants to be around them. They say that they just like to have a good time, but you know it’s more than that. Five drinks later, they’re passed out and you realize that you should help them realize what they are doing to themselves… but how?

Art Steinmann (pictured above), VSB Project Coordinator for the School-Age Children and Youth substance abuse prevention program (SACY) shares his advice for teens who have a drinking problem or who know someone that abuses alcohol.

YT: What are the signs of binge drinking?
AS: Well, binge drinking is defined as four or five drinks or more in a single setting, I don’t know that there are certain signs of binge drinking, but there are with alcohol in general and those are things like isolation, their drinking starts to interfere with school, with friendships, family money, there may be violence involved, fights and arguments.

YT: Where can one go for help?
AS: I would recommend that high-school kids contact someone at their school… talk to their school counsellor or I run a program called SACY and we have youth engagement workers in a number of the schools. If they want to find help anonymously, they can go to Alcohol and Drug Information and Referral Service.

YT: What should you do when you know someone with this problem?
AS: Not very many people react very well if you say to them, “You have a problem: you drink too much.” I think one thing you might try doing is saying to them, if you’re going out to a party or a dinner where you know there is going to be heavy drinking, that you don’t want to go if there’s going to be a lot of drinking. That may have the effect that eventually they will opt to go and do things with you that don’t involve any drinking.

If you notice problems in their lives that are related to drinking, you can ask them about that. For instance you can say, “I’ve noticed that your marks in school have really dropped, are you ok with that?” If you focus on what some of the issues are that alcohol is creating for them in their life then perhaps you can say, “It seems to me that some of this is related to your drinking.” And if they are still listening, you could ask if they would be willing to talk to the counsellor or see somebody about it. You should have some resources available that you could direct them towards or maybe even have some literature or fact sheets lying around where they can read them.

YT: How do binge drinkers affect those around them?
AS: It varies a little bit, but again, often binge drinking can lead to confrontations and even physical fights. Drinkers often isolate themselves and relationships between friends and family are affected. Also sexual behaviours that they have can be harmful to others.”

YT: What are the risks of binge drinking?
AS: Alcohol is still the most commonly used drug for date-rape situations; so people using alcohol to get someone drunk so they can take advantage of them. It is also toxic, it is a poison and if you drink too much too quickly, you can kill yourself. Every year, many high school kids are rushed to the hospital as a result of heavy binge drinking and they don’t always pull through.

Unfortunately, a lot of kids and a lot of adults drink heavily to cope with life or difficulties and the alcohol seems to be helping them but actually, of course, it’s not in the long run. It makes the pain go away, but it doesn’t solve any of the problems. Depending on the age of the person and the usage of the drug, it is more likely that the person will become dependent on alcohol and the more likely that they may progress to other drugs.

Young people are at particular risk and a lot of what we do with kids is urge them to delay regular use or even any use until they’re older. The brain is not fully developed until you’re in your twenties and your liver isn’t fully developed until about nineteen, so you don’t process alcohol as well as an adult. Socially and emotionally, you’re growing and developing through the teen years and if you’re sober and alert you can learn all kinds of strategies and things that will help you all your life.

If you’re drunk every time you have stress or want to talk to someone of the opposite sex, you don’t learn how to get along with the opposite sex when you’re sober. So then we see people who are in their late 20’s, 30’s, and 40’s and they started to drink heavily in their teens and in recovery many years later, they’re still mentally and emotionally thirteen and fourteen years old because they never learned how to develop in those areas.

YT: How can you help someone who is in denial of this disorder?
AS: Well, it’s very difficult. A lot of people don’t feel that it’s a problem for them, but I think one thing that helps sometimes is to not talk about the drinking directly, but about what you see happening as a result of the drinking problem. So, whether it’s getting sick, losing a job, failing in school. Try to bring it up and hopefully they will realize what a problem they actually do have.

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If you or someone close to you has a drinking problem, here are some resources you can use to find help:

Alcohol and Drug Information and Referral Service
604-660-9382, or
toll free in B.C. 1-800-663-1441

SACY organization
604-876-4507

For more information about alcohol and teen drinking visit these sites:
www.xperiment.ca
www.alcoholreality.ca
www.watari.org
www.heretohelp.bc.ca
www.ccsa.ca