Sometimes it’s okay to be a binge drinker

Binge drinking is the stereotypical student association – we work hard but play harder right?

On the one hand there are those who wear the binge drinking badge with pride, declaring with a slur of words and a lingering stench of beer pong, that they drink to get smashed or don’t drink at all.

But when you start stereotyping and assume that the only reason we drink is to cause trouble or rebel against controlling parents now we’re off at unay, you fail to understand the reasons why binge drinking occurs.

It’s only 14%…

The reason students actually go out clubbing so much is because we’ve got very limited slots in our daily schedule. Everything is centered around work – by the time you’re finished with lectures, reading, essays, cooked (or reheated tea), avoiding the washing up, arguing with your housemates and pretending to start reading again, it’s way past normal social hours.

The only thing you can realistically do now is drink.

It borders 10pm most days before any student can consider leaving their cave and the only facilities available at such an hour are the clubs and pubs and let’s face it it’s pretty hard to survive the majority of Lancaster’s bars sober.

Lancaster University’s Club Ruby Captain Sam Ackers defended their infamous drinking habitas. He said: “Binge drinking implies that there is no reason to be drinking, that excessive drinking is done for the sake of getting drunk.

“The social aspect of the club allows the team to develop into a tightly knit group based on our performance on the pitch. We don’t conform to the stereotypical definition of binge drinkers, the rugby team drink together for club development off the pitch rather than self-intoxication.”

Societies sponsors also play a huge role in encouraging student drinking, as to earn a bar’s sponsorship a certain amount has to be spent by that society in that bar each year.

So potentially it stands that the only way a society can be supported is if they start to stack up the shots.

I’ll have a…

Obviously we binge-drink. It happens, but it’s more important to note the reasons we do it.

Students have limited free time, serious reasons to need to de-stress, sponsorship’s to honour and celebrations (or commiserations) to get down to.

So yes, we do drink, but maybe it’s just another important element enabling us to survive student life.