The Dangers of Binge Drinking During Spring Break

The Dangers of Binge Drinking During Spring Break Dr. Travis Stork: Today, we’re talking about your child’s safety while they are away on spring break, and you think you know what you're kids are doing during that week on a long vacation. If you’d think you do, think again because check out what these kids are willing to admit even on camera. Female: Hi mom! Doesn’t know what I'm doing but I'm doing cake stand and beer mug in South--. Female: My goal for spring break is to get wasted. Male: Everyone here is drinking. Female: The drinking and the partying, it’s just crazy here. There’s like hundreds of millions of kids here. Jasmine: Well, we have the time of our lives. We’re just getting really, really bond, getting lost on the beach that’s like the best. Kelsey: I don’t think I've had any waters since I got here, anything not alcohol. Andrea: I plan on drinking, partying, having some fun. Kelsey: I don’t think I've seen anybody not drinking out there even the underage. Everyone I met who’s been underage and everybody drinks and felt like you didn’t have to get caught. That’s right. I get really sick from drinking and ended up throwing up in a trash can. Female: And they threw up and that’s not the best because I was mixing like Captain Morgan and Malibu and then Jager. Female: One of our friends went to the hospital the other night. I guess they found her at the beach, take her to the hospital. Her alcohol content, it was poor time and then we go -- Jasmine: And she ripped the ID out of my arms. Dr. Travis Stork: That video was part of the Spring Break investigation by Momlogic.com. It offers a first hand look at what’s really going on during spring break and of course, the alcohol, the drugs, risky sex, even peer pressure. And joining us to help us out in this discussion is a psychiatrist and medical contributor to Momlogic.com, Janet Taylor. Thank you Janet for joining us. Janet Taylor: Thank you. Dr. Travis Stork: I'm sure there are a lot of culprits as to why kids binge drink to the point where it becomes dangerous. What do you see is those major problems in culprits? Janet Taylor: Well, you know it really begins in high school, and what we’re finding is that there is this expectation that kids will drink in high school and that continues to college. So, our students are going to college not only expecting to drink but expecting to drink a lot. And when you go with any expectations of drinking, you increase consumption and the likelihood is more that you will binge drink. Dr. Travis Stork: And, the reason that binge drinking can cause problems -- if you look at this animation, she’s drunk and every sip of alcohol she takes enters directly into your bloodstream from your GI tract passes through the liver those little swirly things are the alcohol molecule, which they -- then gets into your brain, causes altered behavior, sedation amongst other problems, and I think the problem is kids at that age oftentimes don’t know when to say when. Janet Taylor: Absolutely, and the fact is there is dangerous drinking. If we’d look at college statistics, 1,600 kids die a year of college, over 500,000 have dangerous injuries, sexual assaults, and 70,000 so there really are a lot of dangerous drinking that are beyond fun and games.