Binge Drinking Dangers. (Unit 2: Alcohol).

In the fall of 1997, Benjamin Wynne, a 20-year-old college student, received his college fraternity pledge pin. To celebrate, he went out drinking with fellow pledges and upperclassmen. The evening began with "funneling," in which a rubber hose was used to pour alcohol down the drinker's throat. Then the group went to a nearby bar.

When they left the bar, Benjamin and his friends were so drunk, the upperclassmen put them in shopping carts and pushed them back to the frat house. That's where campus police later found two dozen young men unconscious on the floor. All of them recovered except Benjamin Wynne, who died that night of acute alcohol poisoning.

An average of 50 students a year die from "binge drinking"--the kind of drinking that killed Benjamin Wynne.

For men, binge drinking is defined as consuming five or more drinks in a row. For women, it's four or more drinks, one after the other. The purpose of binge drinking is usually to drink as much alcohol as possible in a short period of time in order to get drunk. And it's very dangerous.

As a result of Wynne's death, the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges initiated a campaign to decrease campus drinking. "Too many students come to us as problem drinkers," says the president of the association. "Nearly one-third of college students who binge drink start as binge drinkers in high school."

When alcohol is consumed, the liver recognizes it as a poison and starts to remove it from the blood, but it can only process a small amount at a time. The rest continues to circulate in the bloodstream. The amount of alcohol in the blood is measured in milligrams per milliliter of blood and expressed as "blood alcohol concentration," or BAC.

Binge drinking kills by causing a rapid and dramatic increase in BAC, but death from alcohol poisoning isn't the only danger binge drinkers face. Because they lose the ability to make clear judgments, lack coordination, and develop slower reflexes, binge drinkers die in dangerous activities they never would attempt while sober, such as climbing towers. Some try to drive while intoxicated or ride in cars driven by someone who is drunk. Underage drinkers are four times more likely to develop alcohol dependence than those who delay drinking until after the legal age of 21.