Binge Drinking Among Young Women

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JOAN LEISHMAN: Getting ready for another night on the town—19-year-old university friends, party girls on their way to Toronto's bar scene.

MICHELLE COOPER: Yeah. We like to go out usually Thursday, Friday, Saturday, but—

BRIANNA SHIELDS: Maybe Sunday, if we're feeling crazy. I just went to that 8:00 AM morning class on Monday.

JOAN LEISHMAN: Michelle Cooper, Simone Sheen, and Brianna Shields already have a head start on things. Having a few drinks before heading out is pretty typical for 18 to 25-year-olds on a budget.

BRIANNA SHIELDS: Who goes out sober?

MICHELLE COOPER: We have little parties, and we pre-drink before. So it's like an entire event before we go out.

BRIANNA SHIELDS: It's pre-drink at so-and-so's place.

SIMONE SHEEN: Pre-drinking is almost pretty much better than going there.

JOAN LEISHMAN: And as a bartender at StrangeLove, Paul Peterson has seen a lot of young women stumble into his club.

PAUL PETERSON: They're already coming in with some alcohol in them. And then when they come here, they go for that binge because they want to catch up. They want to feel that effect of the alcohol.

They're having three, four, five shots within the course of an hour, hour and a half. Then when it's hitting them, it hits them like a ton of bricks.

JOAN LEISHMAN: Binge drinking isn't new, but the numbers for young women are astonishing. According to Health Canada, 40% of them are binging. That's almost up there with the guys at 46%.

KATHLEEN PARKS: Binge drinking is drinking, for women, four or more drinks in probably about a two-hour period of time on one drinking occasion. If you kept up that pace over any amount of time, you'd be pretty intoxicated pretty quickly.

JOAN LEISHMAN: Kathleen Parks is with the Research Institute on Addictions at the University of Buffalo in New York. She set up a study that found that women who binge can have a dangerously distorted perception of what's going on around them.

KATHLEEN PARKS: We had men compliment the woman. We had the man, after a very short period of time, actually touch the woman, touch her on the arm. We had him also whisper in her ear and touch her hair.

Now, most women, after they've only met a man for about 20 minutes or half an hour, would find it kind of unnerving to have a man touch their hair, from what I've heard. And it was quite interesting that the higher alcohol group actually didn't notice these what we called "probe behaviors."

JOAN LEISHMAN: In other words, they're missing critical signals.

KATHLEEN PARKS: If somebody's in a situation that could potentially be dangerous or threatening, they're not going to notice the cues that set off that little warning bell, uh, oh, I might be in trouble, as early.

JOAN LEISHMAN: Warning bells or not, four drinks every couple of hours is fairly typical.

MICHELLE COOPER: Over a five-hour period in there, I'd probably have about eight shots. It can range. It depends on the person but anywhere from seven to 11.

BRIANNA SHIELDS: And how much you've eaten that day and how upset you are.

MICHELLE COOPER: I wouldn't say I try to binge drink, but it's just kind of what we do.

SIMONE SHEEN: It's kind of the society we've grown up in, in that sense. We're doing what we've known.

JOAN LEISHMAN: And there's something new in the clubs that gives binging a whole new feeling, mixing caffeine-loaded energy drinks like Red Bull with alcohol.

PAUL PETERSON: Popular drinks now are Jagerbombs—very popular—Jager with a shot of the energy drink, either Red Bull would be the energy drink of choice.

MAN: Whoo!

PAUL PETERSON: They like that feeling of the stimulant, of the coffee, of the jolt. And throughout the night, if it's a party atmosphere, they want every energy they can get.

KATE MILLER: You're drunk, but you don't feel drunk. You're a wide-awake drunk, a wide-awake, energetic, alert drunk who's going to dance all night and then go out and wrap your car around a tree because you didn't realize that you weren't safe to drive.

JOAN LEISHMAN: Kate Miller is also with Buffalo's Research Institute on Addictions and studies energy drinks.

KATE MILLER: You don't compensate the same way. That's one of the risks.

JOAN LEISHMAN: So that could lead to physical dangers.

KATE MILLER: Oh, absolutely. This can lead to physical danger, in terms of motor vehicle accidents—alcohol poisoning. You're at increased likelihood, increased risk, of sexual victimization. When you add an energy drink to your alcohol, not only is your judgment impaired. But you don't realize that it's impaired.

SIMONE SHEEN: One, two, three. Ready?

MICHELLE COOPER: Oh, no.

JOAN LEISHMAN: Binge drinking with or without a caffeinated energy drink is a dangerous game.

KATHLEEN PARKS: We found that on days when women were binge drinking, their odds of experiencing sexual victimization were 19 times higher than on days when they didn't drink at all. And—

JOAN LEISHMAN: That's extraordinary.

KATHLEEN PARKS: It is extraordinary.

JOAN LEISHMAN: There's research, and then there's the party scene. And these women are supremely confident that they can look after themselves.

SIMONE SHEEN: We're all pretty good, in the sense that we look out for each other and make sure that we see each other quite frequently and that if we are going to leave, we're going to tell someone and make sure we're going with someone else. We try not to get in situations where we are vulnerable.

MICHELLE COOPER: Usually, if you go out with a group of 10 girls, there's always that one girl that's kind of sober or not—

SIMONE SHEEN: As drunk as anyone else.

MICHELLE COOPER: It's not like 10 girls go out and they're all completely bombed, and they can't take care of themselves.

BRIANNA SHIELDS: I don't think it's planned. I just think that's how group dynamics work.

MICHELLE COOPER: Yeah. Just there's somehow one person that stays kind of sober. And they kind of watch over everyone to make sure nothing bad happens.

JOAN LEISHMAN: From where he stands, bartender Paul often sees things turn out differently.

PAUL PETERSON: More groups of girls are together, instead of like a guy/girl, boyfriend/girlfriend, where guys would take care of the girls that they're with. Now I see more groups of four, five, six, seven girls together. The girls really have to rely on each other for support throughout the night because I see a lot of tragic times.

JOAN LEISHMAN: Brianna, Simone, and Michelle are in for another wild night. But they won't likely always party this hard. Research shows that after 25, binge drinking tapers off dramatically. Joan Leishman, CBC News, Toronto.