2024-08-12 04:00:07
By Mickael Naassila – University of Picardy Jules Verne (UPJV)
Binge drinking is always characterized by a significant consumption of alcohol, in a very short time and frequently. Cirrhosis, stroke, traffic accidents… the consequences on the physical and mental health of “binge drinkers” can be very serious. An online test allows you to take stock of your consumption.
The expression binge drinking has entered common language to refer to excessive and ultra-rapid consumption ofalcoholsupposed to represent a behavior characteristic of youth. Young people drink much less regularly but much more occasionally. We often talk about “binge drinking” or express drinking, “getting drunk” or “getting drunk”. The brain of an adolescent (up to 25 years old) is in full maturation and is hit hard by “paroxysmal alcoholism” at the time of life when the brain is most sensitive to the euphoric effects of alcohol and least sensitive to its aversive effects (sedative, hypnotic effects)…
In all French surveys, the term “heavy occasional drinking” is chosen. It corresponds to at least 6 glasses for adults, or about a bottle of wine, and to 5 glasses or more for teenagers. But it doesn’t really fit a definition you binge drinking.
Cirrhosis, stroke, road accidents… and other health and social consequences
Binge drinking is alarming from a public health point of view. It is associated with physical and psychological health problems. It leads to risks of road accidents, fights, loss of memory (“blackouts”), rapes, alcoholic comas, deaths, academic failure…
It also increases byabout 3 times the risk of becoming alcohol dependent and develop certain diseases (cirrhosis of the liver, AVC, heart rhythm disordersetc.) or cognitive impairment.
Alcohol-related liver disease is reaching a critical level and even though alcohol consumption has decreased in 60 yearsthe rise in binge drinking is bringing with it mortality due to liver diseases.
A single episode of rapid drinking can leave long-term traces in the brain. One study found that just one night of “speed drinking” can change the volume of certain parts of the corpus callosumthat is, nerve fibers that connect our two cerebral hemispheres, up to 5 weeks later.
A animal study suggests that two episodes of drinking may be sufficient to induce deficits in memorizationEpigenetic and inflammatory mechanisms would be involved.
A behavior that is not new
The English term binge drinking first appeared in 1854 in a Miss Anne E. Baker’s Glossary of Words from the county of Northamptonshire, in the sentence: “A man goes to the alehouse to get a good binge or to binge himself”. Binge would come from the word bungthe opening through which a barrel is filled.
At the end of the 60s, this term was found in the National surveys on drinking behavior in the USA to mean 5 doses of alcohol.
Binge drinking is therefore not a new phenomenon, as can be seen, for example, in a lithograph by William Hogarth from 1733 illustrating a drinking scene in a drawing room.
A Midnight Modern Conversation – W. Hogarth – 1733.
When do we become a binge drinker ?
The definition of binge drinking varies greatly between countries and you should be very careful because standard glasses in different countries do not all contain the same quantity of pure ethanol (10 g in France, 8 g in the United Kingdom or 14 g in the USA).
It’s in a newsletter published in 2004 that the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse &Alcoholism The American National Institutes of Health (NIAAA) defines binge drinking as the consumption of at least 7 drinks for men and 4 drinks for women (transformed here into equivalents of standard French drinks) in less than two hours, reaching a blood alcohol level of at least 0.8 g/L.
Binge drinking corresponds to the episode of consumption. On the other hand, it is the intensity, frequency and consequences of this consumption that will define the person concerned, that is to say the binge drinker.
To be considered a binge drinkerthis excessive alcohol consumption must have occurred during the past month, completes the SAMHSA agency (pour Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration) in charge of public health in the United States.
In other studies, the period considered to define the binge drinker varies: the excessive and rapid drinking behavior must have occurred once in the last two weeks, once a week in the last 3 months, or once in the last year.
Researchers have proposed the calculation of a score of binge by adding the consumption rate – the number of glasses drunk per hour (which occupies the most important weight in the formula) – to the percentage corresponding to the number of times one is drunk (out of a total number of drinking occasions) and the number of times one has been drunk in the last 6 months.
Test yourself online and evaluate your consumption
The BDCT or Binge Drinking Classification Tool is a binge drinking classification tool available online which has been recently developed to fit within this behavior which is actually a continuum.
High or even very high intensity binge drinking
Consuming 6 to 7 glasses of alcohol in 2 hours to reach a blood alcohol level of 0.8g/L (level I) can actually be a fairly low threshold. Indeed, it is not uncommon to have episodes of much more intense consumption of twice (level II), three times (level III) or even four times this threshold. This is called “extreme” binge drinking.
This has led researchers to define high-intensity and very high-intensity binge drinking. The short-term and long-term consequences as well as the profile of binge drinkers can therefore be completely different.
An American study For example, level I binge drinking increases the risk of ending up in the emergency room by 13 times. Levels II and III increase this risk by 10 and 93 times, respectively.
We recently offered objective criteria with operational measures of binge drinking and binge drinkers:
– Binge drinking episodes must cause frequent physiological (significant blood alcohol level) and psychological (drunkenness) effects (at least twice a month during the last 12 months)
– Consumption must be rapid.
– Binge drinking episodes must be interspersed with periods of no drinking.
– It is necessary to determine whether the binge drinker is already alcohol dependent, if he has parents who are themselves affected by alcohol dependence and if he does not have fetal alcohol syndrome
– Finally, we need to know if the binge drinker suffers from other addictions and psychiatric illnesses.
Also take into account individual profiles and the social environment
We conducted a study which shows that patients seen in emergency rooms do not present the same characteristics, depending on whether we base ourselves on the definition ofOrganisation World Health Organization or WHO (6 drinks per occasion) or that of the American NIAAA institute (6 to 7 drinks in 2 hours and a blood alcohol level of 0.8g/L).
Binge drinking as defined by the NIAAA identifies patients who have a more serious alcohol consumption problem and, above all, more severe after-effects linked to this consumption.
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