Women On A Binge

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To public health officials, the most worrisome outgrowth of young women's shifting drinking patterns is a perceived shift in their sexual activities. Reliable statistics on sex are always hard to pin down, especially when the question is, "Did you get drunk and have a one-night stand?" But health educators at high schools are concerned by the stories they are hearing from students like Devon, a ninth-grader from Richmond, Va. Girls drink, she says, so they can "do stupid slutty things and hook up with as many guys as they want."

Then there is the obvious danger of disease. A study of high school alcohol-dependent students published this month by the Pittsburgh Adolescent Alcohol Research Center found that 1 in 5 girls was infected with the herpes virus. Drunken women also suffer disproportionately from rape and sexual assault. "[Women] walking back to campus intoxicated wear a neon sign on their back: Mug me. Victimize me," says Georgetown's Kilcarr. Packaged like that, the antidrinking message has some bite. But for much of the past decade, many colleges have aimed their prevention campaigns exclusively at men. One favorite strategy has been to hang antidrinking posters over urinals. Indeed, one of the most convincing explanations for the spike in women's reckless drinking is that many women have simply shrugged off the negative effects of drinking as a guy's problem.

Schools are beginning to see it as an equal-opportunity issue. The University of Colorado at Boulder now dispatches female cops to advise women how to have a safe night on the town. "When you're drunk, you'll have sex with someone you wouldn't have lunch with," went one pitch, "so bring condoms." To underscore the message, the university recently stationed the blown-out wreckage of a red Honda Prelude at the center of campus. It was once driven by Alisa Harden, killed at 16 when she drank and drove into a mail truck.

Syracuse University has opted for a more touchy-feely approach. The school sends young female health educators to brief sororities on the dangers of excessive drinking. Associate dean Bergen-Cico presided over a recent session for 40 members of Alpha Chi Omega. Among other things, she told them what many already knew from personal experience: weight-conscious women tend to skip meals before drinking, to conserve calories, making them more easily affected by alcohol. One simple solution: make sure they eat a hearty meal before they hit the bars. Patrick Kilcarr of Georgetown finds that nutrition information can be an effective tool. He asks the women he sees to tell him what they drink on a given night; then he pulls out a small chalkboard and crunches the numbers for them. "They are often flabbergasted to see they're drinking 3,000 calories in an evening," he says. "These are women who eat salads and starve themselves all week. Once they see it visually, they begin to shift the choices they're making."