The social impact of binge drinking
Excessive alcohol consumption can have a wide range of adverse effects - medical, personal and social. These depend on both the overall amount of alcohol consumed and on the pattern of consumption.There is no consensus on the definition of binge drinking. In the past, ‘binge drinking’ was often used to refer to an extended period of time, usually two days or more, during which a person repeatedly drank to intoxication, giving up usual activities and obligations.
In common usage, binge drinking is now usually used to refer to heavy drinking over an evening or similar time span - sometimes also referred to as heavy episodic drinking. Binge drinking is often associated with drinking with the intention of becoming intoxicated and, sometimes, with drinking in large groups. Even within this general definition, there is no consensus as to what level of intake constitutes binge drinking.
It has been suggested that researchers tend to employ the most commonly used definition from previous work without giving an accompanying explanation for their choice of definition
Some researchers have chosen to define binge drinking as consuming over half the government’s recommended number of units for a week in one session
In the past, Alcohol Concern have defined binge drinking as consuming more than five drinks on a single occasion This is the definition used by the BMA in its 2003 report Adolescent health and also by the European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs (ESPAD).
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) definition of ‘heavy’ drinking is eight or more units for men and six or more units for women on at least one day in the week. This has been used as a proxy for binge drinking in lieu of more nuanced data.
Alcohol Concern suggest that this could serve as an approximation of binge drinking, as it is in line with sensible drinking guidelines using daily benchmarks. In addition, ‘consuming this quantity of alcohol on one occasion could reasonably be expected to lead to intoxication which is a key feature of this type of drinking and places the individual at risk of harm’. The ONS definition is also read more
