Binge Drinking

The article "1 in 4 Students, Young Adults Binge Drink", by Reuters, brought to attention some alarming facts. According to US government researchers, one in four high school students and adults between the ages of 19 and 34 have binge drank in the past month. Also, among high school students that drink, 60 percent of them binge drink. In other words, a quarter of young people engage in binge drinking or have done so recently. These statistics raise one question in my mind: Why do people binge drink? In my opinion, it's unnecessary.

Binge drinking is stupid. Excessive drinking, which includes binge drinking, kills more than 79,000 people each year. This is the third leading cause of death in the United States. So why do people do it? It harms your body and can harm the people around you as well. It also impairs your ability to make decisions. Some people may argue that getting drunk is fun and won't hurt anyone. They're wrong. You can die from binge drinking or, worse, kill someone else. Who could be so careless that they would threaten their own lives and the lives of other people? The only way I can gather that somebody would do something so dangerous is if they don't know the risks. Perhaps if people were more aware of the effects of binge drinking, they would be less likely to engage in it. Either way, binge drinking is highly dangerous, and I will never understand people's reasons as to why they do it.