Brother Suspended, Need Advice!

mini
Thu, 25 Jan 2007 12:58:20 +0000

0.40 - 0.45 will usually kill you. 0.08 is the legal limit for drivers (the data actually suggest that 0.06 or above usually impairs driving, but political compromises and all.) 0.146 is pretty high - if he is 160 pounds and average metabolism, likely 7 beers or 7 standard drinks (college kids almost never drink “standard drinks”) in less than two hours. Of course, he was obviously not tested at peak concentration. So, for sake of argument, figure 9-11 (again, depending on weight and metabolism).

It is extremely, extremely unlikely that a 9-11-drink drinker did it only once in the past two weeks (it happens among freshmen who puke, but that’s about it), and that there is isn’t a larger drinking pattern involved. Could be, but it just isn’t very likely.

Now let’s put this in perspective. Roughly half the students at my alma mater drank this much in the previous two weeks; at Duke a little higher, and where 9.4% of the student body had an alcohol blackout in the past two weeks, and 29% in the previous year. Roughly 75% of these student bodies drank in the past two weeks, though a third of those a bit more moderately (though we know from experimental data that both the amount actually drunk and the number of drinks is consistently underestimated by those doing the drinking.)

However, as noted, binge drinking itself is not an indicator of an underlying alcohol “problem” (other than a campus that is out of control, and a college administration that cares little about the future lives of its students.) It is heavy drinking (bingeing 3-4 times within two weeks, or near daily drinking) that is more likely an indicator of a problem, and associated (roughly 60%) with current or future alcoholism. This is where an alcohol assessment might be useful.