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No drinking problem here (We drink, we fall down, no problem)

A recently released study by Harvard University researchers caused all sorts of shorts to bunch up as school officials and students alike rushed to defend themselves against charges of binge drinking. Although some of the conclusions of the study are broad, the amount of energy invested in countering its assertions points to the ambivalent role of alcohol at the UA.

Alcohol has always served some sort of function in college life. From raccoon-coated dandies bootlegging flasks of gin to Bluto chugging down Jack Daniels in a single gulp, a nip here and there has been the traditional mode of taking the edge off the scholastic experience. But over the years, the nip here and there has lost popularity to the binge here and there. These days, a weekend is not a weekend until someone loses track of how many drinks they've had.

The Harvard study tracks this particular manner of indulgence. It tracked students over a two-week period and argued that students who had four or more drinks in one sitting at some point in that period were binge drinkers. A student who had five beers once in that time frame ranks with a student who had five beers five times in the same period. The study also leaves body weight out of its calculations.

Criticism of the study has focused on this elastic definition of binge drinking. The criticism is valid. Considering all alcohol consumption equivalent regardless of the physical make-up of the consumer ignores some basic metabolic facts. A 220-lb. linebacker most likely will be more able to handle five beers in one sitting than a 98-lb. graduate student would.

On the other hand, criticism that four or more beers in one sitting shouldn't constitute binge drinking or isn't a source for concern, paints potentially dangerous behavior as harmless recreation. Having four or more drinks at one time is binge drinking. Four beers is a lot to have. Having a lot of anything at one time is bingeing by definition. Ergo, having four or more beers in one sitting is binge drinking.

Bingeing on anything is a bad idea; bingeing on alcohol can be lethal. A variety of maladies, from projectile vomiting to fall-related injuries to central nervous system shutdown, can result.

At universities across the nation, students have paid the price for binge drinking. Over the past few years, students at MIT, Penn and Duke have died from alcohol poisoning or alcohol-related maladies.

Clearly, the majority of students who ingest vast quantities of alcohol don't wind up dead or even in the hospital. Not all wind up spewing their guts or tripping down stairwells. But habitual binge drinking still demonstrates a perilous relationship with alcohol. Students who binge use alcohol as a means to obliterate the world around them and lose control of themselves.

Losing control and somehow "finding" yourself through alcohol and drugs continue to be popular features of our cultural definition of the college experience. Actual academic work is almost an afterthought for many students, who prefer a social education to the scholastic variety. Drunken and potentially dangerous behavior is not only appropriate, but expected.

That's why schools with reputations for a party atmosphere continue to attract students. Few Florida State students are renowned for their enduring scholarship. The ease with which alcohol can be procured acts as an underground recruiting tool.

Of course, if parents knew how freely the booze flows at these universities, they might not want to send their children to them. So the administration of these universities scramble to assure parents studies like Harvard's are flawed, or at least not representative of their students. Universities thus find themselves in a hard position: that which encourages students to select them might also dissuade parents from approving the choice.

So whether or not the study has validity - it does to some extent - it does show how central alcohol is to university life. It provides the education students want, parents oppose and administrators would like to pretend doesn't exist.