{"id":1651,"date":"2014-11-17T20:38:39","date_gmt":"2014-11-18T01:38:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/?p=1651"},"modified":"2014-12-14T11:45:47","modified_gmt":"2014-12-14T16:45:47","slug":"does-binge-drinking-exclusively-affect-college-students","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/2014\/11\/17\/does-binge-drinking-exclusively-affect-college-students\/","title":{"rendered":"Heavy Drinking After College"},"content":{"rendered":"

When one thinks of heavy drinking, one usually jumps straight to college students, due to popular culture references and stereotypes that paint\u00a0college as a breeding ground for excessive alcohol consumption. Despite their stereotypical nature, these assumptions do hold some weight. The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) reports that approximately 80% of college students engage in alcohol consumption. This statistic can be seen playing out on the weekends here at Colby College, as well as at many other colleges around the country, when students put down their textbooks and start to drink. Many of them drink a lot<\/em>, with approximately 50% of students who drink alcohol also engaging in binge drinking (NIAAA). Binge drinking is defined as four alcoholic drinks in two hours for women, and five alcoholic drinks in two hours for men (NIAAA). Heavy drinking, then, is when a person\u00a0engages in binge drinking more than five times in a month. At Colby, it is not uncommon to hear of girls drinking over ten drinks in a night; boys, up to twenty. The effects of such risky behavior<\/a> are often cited as being responsible for bad grades, poor social relationships and general unhappiness (NIAAA). Despite the repercussions of excessive drinking, many students laugh it off as \u201cjust a college thing,\u201d and expect that they will go back to a normal, generally sober, life after graduation. But what if they don\u2019t stop? Will the alcohol have a similar effect later in life?<\/p>\n

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Because college is such a hotbed of heavy drinking, little research has been done on the effects of heavy drinking on adult populations. Houston et al. (2014) decided to investigate the effects of alcohol consumption on a population of participants in their mid-thirties, thus solidly out of their college years. Specifically, they were interested in the effects of drinking on cognitive functioning \u2013 one\u2019s ability to respond to others, think, and perform tasks efficiently. Are older adults, generally thought to be over their days of heavy drinking, also negatively\u00a0affected by excessive alcohol consumption?<\/p>\n

It is already known that Alcohol Use Disorders (AUD), such as alcoholism or other instances where alcohol usage impedes the quality of one\u2019s daily life, result in executive cognitive functioning deficits (Houston et al., 2004). People often do not perform daily tasks as well immediately after drinking or prolonged excessive alcohol consumption. But what about those who do not drink to the point of a disorder? Does alcohol still have a negative effect on cognitive functioning?<\/p>\n

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First it is necessary to define cognitive function, because it is obviously a rather important component of our daily lives. Executive cognitive functioning affects our response inhibition, cognitive flexibility, and working memory:<\/p>\n