HALT Recovery Central's Addiction Blog

Binge drinking is a common pattern of excessive alcohol use in the United States. The National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism defines binge drinking as a pattern of drinking that brings a person’s blood alcohol concentration (BAC) to 0.08 grams percent or above. This typically happens when men consume 5 or more drinks, and when women consume 4 or more drinks, in about 2 hours.

Most people who binge drink are not alcohol dependent.

According to national surveys

• Approximately 92% of U.S. adults who drink excessively report binge drinking in the past 30 days.
• Although college students commonly binge drink, 70% of binge drinking episodes involve adults over age 25 years.
• The prevalence of binge drinking among men is 2 times the prevalence among women.
• Binge drinkers are 14 times more likely to report alcohol-impaired driving than non-binge drinkers.
• About 90% of the alcohol consumed by youth under the age of 21 years in the United States is in the form of binge drinks.
• About 75% of the alcohol consumed by adults in the United States is in the form of binge drinks.
• The proportion of current drinkers that binge is highest in the 18- to 20-year-old group (51%).

Binge drinking is associated with many health problems, including but not limited to:

• Unintentional injuries (e.g., car crashes, falls, burns, drowning).
• Intentional injuries (e.g., firearm injuries, sexual assault, domestic violence).
• Alcohol poisoning.
• Sexually transmitted diseases.
• Unintended pregnancy.
• Children born with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders.
• High blood pressure, stroke, and other cardiovascular diseases.
• Liver disease.
• Neurological damage.
• Sexual dysfunction.
• Poor control of diabetes.

Evidence-based interventions to prevent binge drinking and related harms6,7,8,9,10 include:

• Increasing alcoholic beverage costs and excise taxes.
• Limiting the number of retail alcohol outlets that sell alcoholic beverages in a given area.
• Consistent enforcement of laws against underage drinking and alcohol-impaired driving.
• Screening and counseling for alcohol misuse.
   

Older adults who are socially active, have friends who approve of drinking and have more money are more likely to be heavy drinkers in their senior years. At the same time, heavy drinking may influence whether older adults are engaged in more social activities and who they choose as their friends.

A 20-year study of 719 adults as found the social factors both predict and sustain heavy drinking among older adults.

A study conducted by the Department of Veterans Affairs Health Care System in Palo Alto, California examined the link between heavy drinking in older adults and their social and financial resources.

Social Factors and Drinking

The study found that adults are more likely to engage in high-risk drinking if:

• Have more financial resources.
• Engage in more social activities.
• Have friends who approve of drinking.

For the sake of the study, heavy drinking was defined as more than three drinks per day or more than 14 drinks per week, otherwise known as high risk drinking.

Choosing Friends Who Drink

“Our findings show that, one, certain social factors may enhance the chances of an individual engaging in high-risk drinking and, two, once high-risk drinking has developed, social choices may be made to facilitate continuing this behavior,” said lead author Rudolf H. Moos in a news release.

But the research also found that older adults who engage in high-risk drinking tend to choose friends who are more likely to drink and approve of drinking.

The study also found that men may be more susceptible to social factors than women, when it comes to heavy drinking. Having more money and friends who drink were more closely linked to men than women who were older heavy drinkers.

Problem Does Not Go Away

Another finding of the research was that alcohol problems do not go away as people grow older. When the researchers completed their 20-year study the people in the group were 75 to 85 years old and 20% of them still engaged in high-risk alcohol consumption.

If you are an older adults and are concerned about your level of drinking, avoiding certain social activities and your friends who drink, may help you in trying to cut down or moderate your drinking.

If you try to cut down on your drinking and find that you cannot do so, you may need to quit altogether. If so, there are many resources available to help you quit and maintain abstinence.

If you are 60 years old or older and drink more than the recommended guidelines for moderate alcohol consumption, you could run the risk of losing memory and other cognitive functions, especially if you are a female. A new study has found that cognitive function declines more rapidly for heavy drinkers even compared with light-to-moderate drinkers.
For women, heavy drinking is four drinks or more during a day or more than seven drinks a week. For men, five or more drinks during any one drinking session, or more than 14 drinks a week, is considered heavy.

There is not a lot of scientific research regarding alcohol use and cognition among the elderly. In fact, such studies are rare. A new study conducted in Brazil focused specifically on cognitive problems caused by heavy alcohol use among 1,145 people who were 60 years old or older.

Heavy Alcohol Use Among Elderly

The first surprising finding of the study was the high rate of heavy alcohol use among the group. They found that 8.2 percent of the 419 men and 726 women studied were heavy drinkers, or drinking at levels that are considered high risk.

“We found that heavy alcohol use among the elderly people we investigated was high at 8.2 percent and affected principally men from low socioeconomic levels,” said corresponding author of the study, Marcos Antonio Lopes in a news release.

But the real surprise of the study was the finding that heavy drinking affect the cognitive function of women more than men. The relationship between heavy drinking and cognitive function lost in men was not statistically significant.

Cognitive Loss Greater for Women

“However, the effects of heavy alcohol use on memory and other cognitive functions were more evident in women,” said Lopes. “Our findings suggest that alcohol use does not have a linear relationship with cognitive decline.”

In other words, women who continue to drink heavily into their senior years run the risks of losing cognitive function and are more prone therefore to falls and significant memory loss.

Source: Lopes, M.L., et al. “Prevalence of Alcohol-Related Problems in an Elderly Population and Their Association With Cognitive Impairment and Dementia.” Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research. 26 Jan 2010

When you decide to enter a professional alcohol and drug treatment program, you will begin a journey through four distinct stages of rehab recovery as you learn to develop a clean and sober lifestyle.

The four stages of rehab described here – treatment initiation, early abstinence, maintaining abstinence and advanced recovery – were developed by the National Institute on Drug Abuse for its “Principles of Drug Addiction Treatment: A Research Based Guide” resource for healthcare providers.

Click here for the complete story.

At any given time there are an estimated 1.2 million people receiving substance abuse treatment from more than 13,000 professional treatment and rehabilitation facilities throughout the United States, according to the latest research from the National Survey of Substance Abuse Treatment Services. Of those receiving alcohol and drug abuse treatment, 39% are also being treated for mental health disorders.

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) takes a periodic census of substance abuse treatment facilities in the U.S. The survey provides information on the scope and nature of the services offered by the facilities.

At the time of the latest census, March 31, 2008, 13,688 facilities responded to the N-SSATS survey. That means the number of facilities has remained about the same since 2004 – 13,454 compared to 13,688. But the number of people receiving services at any point in time has increased from 1,072,251 to 1,192,490.

Of the 13,688 facilities, 58% are private, non-profit programs, 29% are for-profit programs and the remaining 13% are operated by local, state or federal government agencies.

The survey also showed that 7% of those 1.2 million people in treatment were under the age of 18.