SAFETY TIPS FOR YOUNG WOMEN WHO DRINK ALCOHOL
Jessica Faller-Berger, RN
The word is out. The number of college women who binge drink has more than tripled in the last decade. Meanwhile, alcohol kills over 360,000 undergraduates a year. So, when it comes to alcohol and your health, knowledge is power. If you choose to drink, there are some facts that can help you to stay safer and healthier. In this article, we’ll explore the medical consequences of drinking, and ways to protect yourself from these effects. In reality, no amount of strategizing around alcohol consumption will be completely foolproof. This is because alcohol’s effects upon the brain, and its direct impact upon your plans, are unpredictable. The safest choice regarding alcohol is total abstinence. In fact, the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence announced that one third of American adults don’t drink at all.
ACCIDENTAL ALCOHOL OVERDOSE
First of all, binge drinkers need to know that too much alcohol in one sitting can shut down the brain’s breathing centers. This is because alcohol is a drug which depresses the central nervous system. Without medical intervention, respiratory arrest will result in death. For young women, binge drinking is defined as 4 or more drinks in a single sitting. However, tolerance to alcohol varies from one person to the next. An individual may be able to consume more or less alcohol before poisoning becomes lethal.
Secondly, alcohol overdose may also lead to death through simple asphyxiation. When excessive drinking leaves a woman comatose, she becomes unable to dislodge vomit from her airway. This type of airway obstruction often ends in fatal suffocation. The drinker, paralyzed by the effects of alcohol, chokes to death upon her own vomit.
Finally, by maximizing heat loss, alcohol has been linked to severe hypothermia. Because of our physiology, women and girls become readily intoxicated. Girls who attempt to “keep up with the guys” at a bar can easily “pass out” walking home after last call. In this manner, women and girls have literally frozen to death after binge drinking in wintertime.
Perhaps the most important fact for young women to consider is that unlike most men, we can not metabolize alcohol before it reaches the bloodstream. The male gastrointestinal tract produces an enzyme called alcohol dehydrogenase. This enzyme initiates the breakdown of alcohol before it enters into circulation. Women’s inability to produce sufficient amounts of this substance leaves us completely vulnerable to the full effects of alcohol in the blood (Keltner, Bostrom, Schweke, 1995). Additionally, women’s smaller size intensifies alcohol’s anaesthetizing effects. These factors account for our comparatively low tolerance to alcohol.
You can prevent the life-threatening problems associated with alcohol overdose by limiting yourself to an absolute maximum of two drinks in a single sitting.
ALCOHOL AND PREGNANCY
This brings us to Fetal Alcohol Syndrome(FAS), a birth defect associated with maternal alcohol use. FAS engenders facial deformities, heart defects, and learning disabilities in children. It is the leading cause of mental retardation in the United States. Most mothers do not realize that any amount of alcohol is unsafe during pregnancy. But what if you did not mean to get pregnant? What if you didn’t even realize that you were pregnant while drinking?
It certainly is possible to drink without grave consequences such as unwanted pregnancy. However, the US Department of Health and Human Services reports that binge drinking seriously increases the likelihood of engaging in unprotected sex. This contributes to both unplanned pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases(STD’s). A realistic outcome to address is the risk of pregnancy complicated by HIV/AIDS infection. Importantly, poor decision making alone is not the only way that alcohol contributes to the transmission of HIV.
Alcohol dismantles the immune system by interfering with the activity of white blood cells. Just as a person who is drunk might babble incoherently, the “drunken” immune system is similarly incapacitated. This makes it very difficult to resist infections that you could otherwise avoid. Therein, drinking will increase your susceptibility to HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, hepatitis, and all STD’s. This same immunocompromise can result from snorting cocaine or shooting IV drugs. People who shoot drugs and drink also have higher rates of AIDS, TB, and Hepatitis.
ALCOHOL, ROHYPNOL, GHB & DATE RAPE
A gentleman would never take advantage of a young woman under any circumstances. However, by lowering your defenses and slowing your reflexes, alcohol makes girls easy prey for rapists. All young women should know that reports from the US Department of Health and Human Services indicate 55% of rape victims were using alcohol at the time of sexual assault.
If you have been the victim of sexual assault and were drinking before it happened, I want to stress that it was not your fault. Helen Clydesdale, Sexual Assault Counselor-Advocate for NELCWITT relays that “It doesn’t mean you will be sexually assaulted if you drink. But it does happen, so if you are going to drink, do it with girlfriends or someone who you completely trust.” Clydesdale emphasizes that girls who drink with unsafe people run a higher risk of being sexually assaulted. Becoming drunk and then passing out greatly amplifies this risk. Clydesdale strongly warns young women to never leave their drinks unattended. Furthermore, she advises you to only accept alcohol from someone who has your best interest in mind(H. Clydesdale, personal communication, May 16, 1999).
This precaution follows on the heels of nationwide reports implicating the use of three new drugs associated with sexual assault. Since the 1990’s, the illicit “date rape drug”(Rohypnol) and “grievous bodily harm”(GHB) have gained alarming notoriety. For two dollars, rapists purchase a colorless, odorless liquid or pill to drop into their unsuspecting victim’s drink. The National Institute on Drug Abuse(NIDA) explains that Rohypnol( flunitrazepam) “acts synergistically with alcohol, overcoming the victim. She then becomes powerless to resist assault”. The incapacitating effects of Rohypnol include muscle relaxation, hypnosis, sedation, and amnesia. This drug can be lethal when given with alcohol or other depressants. Popular names for Rohypnol include “rophies”, “roofies”, “ roach”, and “rope”. Rohypnol has invaded nightclubs, high schools, colleges, and gangs.
GHB emerges as yet another nefarious monstrosity in the sexual offender’s arsenal. Victims of sexual assault are unwittingly drugged by rapists, whose sins have motivated the passage of a bill in Congress called the “Drug Induced Rape Prevention Punishment Act of 1996”. This legislation mandates strong penalties against anyone who “uses a controlled substance to aid sexual assault”(NIDA, 1999). Street names for GHB include “liquid ecstasy”, “somatomax”, “scoop”, and “Georgia Home Boy”. Its use as a date rape drug is well documented. Additional harm caused by GHB includes coma, seizures, nausea and difficulty breathing(NIDA, 1999). The legal prescription drug clonazapam doubles as yet another chemical weapon in the crime of sexual assault.
If you are going to drink, then drinking with girlfriends in the privacy of your own home affords you the best protection against drug induced date rape. However, if you should find yourself drinking in public, carefully guard your drink. A stranger can easily slip one of these life-altering substances into your cocktail. (NIDA Infofax; National Institute on Drug Abuse, National Institute of Health,1999)
SAFER ALCOHOL USE
1. Before going out, plan who you will be with, how you will get home, how much you will drink, and who you can call for help.
2. To facilitate #1, form a safety pact with a good friend or responsible adult. Ask them to help you home safely in the future if you’ve had too much to drink. Go ahead and call this person in an emergency. Someday you’ll do the same thing for another young woman.
3. The safest way to use alcohol is to stop at one or two drinks. Don’t light candles or start fires of any kind. Use your safety pact(#2) to avoid both drunk driving and getting in the car with an intoxicated driver.
4. If you do drink at a party, nightclub, or bar, please stick with your girlfriends. There is safety in numbers: predators pick on young women who are alone.
5. Do you have trouble limiting your alcoholic intake during a night on the town? Then try this game plan: At a bar, make your first drink a soda or juice with a twist. No one needs to know what’s in your glass. Make your second drink a “half-measure”. For instance, purchase a regular Screwdriver with a half-shot of vodka. For drink #3 order another soda. By the time everyone else has had three drinks, your intake will total 1/2 a shot. The fourth drink you order will be your second “half measure”. Your fifth drink will be another soda. Continue to alternate half measures of alcohol with soft drinks.
After finishing five full drinks, you will have consumed just one total alcoholic beverage. By the time you reach your ninth “drink”, your alcohol intake will total two shots.
6. Here is a party trick. Once your first beer is finished, fill the empty bottle with water, and implement plan #5.
7. Accept the compliment of a male stranger buying you a drink, but not the drink itself. The guy may think “she owes me something now”. There are some men who expect sex in exchange for drinks. Your body and soul are not to be bartered for booze.
8. Never leave a bar, nightclub or party with a stranger. This is a formula for disaster. Exchange phone numbers instead. If he’s genuinely interested in you, he’ll call. Help your girlfriends to carry this out, no matter how cute the guy is.
9. Get to know a date or new boyfriend before you drink with him. Don’t get into a car alone with a guy you do not trust completely, especially if you have been drinking. These steps will help to prevent date rape.
10. There are at least 150 medications that are dangerous when taken with alcohol. Before you drink, ask your pharmacist about drug-alcohol interactions. Absolutely avoid all downers, valium, xanax, ativan, phenobarbital and antihistamines(benadryl) when drinking. These drugs compound the effects of alcohol. Taken together in sufficient quantities, they can stop your breathing. Never take aspirin, ibuprofen, or aleve for a hangover. The result could be gastrointestinal bleeding. Prevent liver damage by avoiding tylenol and rifampin(TB medications) with alcohol. (www.health.org/pubs/qdocs/alcohol/what.htm)
11. The US Department of State Bureau of Consular Affairs recommends that you should not drink in public when you travel overseas. Public intoxication has resulted in the arrest and detention of several vacationing US citizens.
12. AGAIN- NEVER LEAVE YOUR DRINK UNATTENDED, AND ONLY ACCEPT DRINKS FROM TRUSTWORTHY PEOPLE
May you drink safely and live long!
©
2010 Jessica Faller Berger. All rights reserved. Any use
of these files electronically or otherwise is strictly
prohibited. |
