Students drink much more and at younger age

DRAMATIC changes in drinking habits among students have emerged, revealing Ireland’s brains of the future are consuming alcohol at much earlier ages and in more dangerous quantities.

Students on average begin drinking at the age of 15 and think downing more than 13 pints of beer a week is excessive. This is a far higher amount of alcohol compared to graduates, who say eight pints a week is over the top.

The University College Cork (UCC) study warns that the lower the starting age of drinking among students, the higher amounts they are likely to consume every week.

“This study shows that there has been a dramatic change in patterns of alcohol consumption in Ireland over the last two decades,” concludes the research by the college’s Department of General Practice. “Earlier exposure to alcohol consumption has been shown to be a risk factor for developing alcohol dependency later in life.”

Some 115 students and 133 graduates from UCC were questioned about their drinking habits and what they thought were risky amounts to consume. Both groups were drawn from students and graduates from arts, commerce, law, science, engineering and medicine.

According to World Health Organisation guidelines, women and men should not drink more than 14 and 21 units of alcohol a week respectively. Each unit of alcohol equates roughly to half a pint of ordinary-strength beer or a small glass of wine.

The average age of those who responded was 20 for students and 44 for graduates.

Almost a third of students were found to be risky drinkers, exceeding the WHO guidelines, compared to just 9% of graduates.

Students and graduates differ in the ages at which they began drinking.

“The younger cohort of students started drinking at an average age of 15.6 years compared to 19.1 years for the older cohort of graduates,” the research found.

When it comes to opinions about drinking, on average students felt that consumption of more than 26.5 units a week was excessive. The average opinion among graduates was 18 units a week.

Amongst both students and graduates men’s opinions of what constituted too much drink exceeded that of women.