Bridget Callahan

ENC 1102
Workshop Draft 1
Binge Drinking and College Athletics

Being a student athlete at the University of Central Florida, I have personally witnessed
my fellow athletes participate in heavy episodic drinking. I have spent many nights having to
pick up my teammates from the bar, drive them home while they sit lifeless in the back seat, hold
their hair while they are puking, and explaining to them the next morning what went on a couple
of hours before. Its a very consistent situation that occurs and I am sure that if it happens to my
team extremely often, than I am positive it happens to others institutionally and nationally. Binge
drinking among college athletes is a big problem that has not been made a focus of collegiate
institutions because, although the athletic piece is a big part of universities, faculty and staff are
unaware of what goes on off of the practice and game fields, and outside of the locker room and
classroom. Research among college students indicates that individuals involved in athletics are
more likely to engage in a wide range of risky behaviors than nonathletes are (Hildebrand et al.,
2001; Leichliter et al., 1998; Nattiv et al., 1997; Wilson et al., 2004). Student-athletes are just
like normal students, besides having to handle a sport in the mix of it all.
Between the ages of eighteen and twenty-two, almost every college student has the same
mindset: to receive an education and graduate with a degree, but also to have the time of their
life while doing so. However, it becomes to be a game of balance. Like any other student,
student-athletes are tempted to experience things that they might not have ever experienced
before. In college, one of these experiences is going out, partying, and drinking with their peers

or teammates. The reoccurring issue is that student-athletes are more susceptible to participate in
the act of binge drinking rather than the majority of college students who moderately drink.
Over the course of the past decade, several national studies have reported that college student
athletes do drink, often drink heavily, and experience a range of associated negative
consequences (Tewksbury, Higgins, and Mustaine 278). Although the average student drinks
less increments of alcohol at a time, they do it more often; whereas student-athletes do not drink
as often, but drink excessively when given presented with the opportunity to do so. This can be
caused by multiple reasons due to constraints that athletes may face throughout their season such
as: they have less time to participate in activities, a competitive nature, and use it in an effort to
manage stress. Compared to the average student, college athletes typically have less time to
participate in normal college activities because of their sport participation and academic
expectations that the university holds upon them. Due to the fact that athletes are limited on their
time to participate in activities outside of sports and school, they use alcohol as a way to manage
the stress that comes along with being an student-athlete. Student athletes also have a more
competitive nature; therefore, they are likely to drink more heavily than the average student.
These are all problems that can result negatively for college athletes while they drink, and can
potentially ruin their future as student-athletes.
Alcohol is the most commonly used recreational drug in the world. For student-athletes,
it is easy to obtain, consume, and effects their bodies faster than non-athletes due to very little
consumption because of participation in activities. When consumed, alcohol can have many
negative effects on the body resulting in poor performances as a student-athlete. In the research
article, Alcohol: Impact on Sports Performance and Recovery in Male Athletes, the negative
effects of alcohol on athletic performances and recovery are talked about including muscle

development and recovery, your ability to learn new plays and strategies, your nutrition and
endurance, and much more.
Few athletes realize that consuming alcohol after a workout, game, practice, lift, or any
sort of competition can completely cancel out any sort of gain they had just previously received
from their strenuous activity. Long term alcohol use diminishes protein synthesis which results in
a decrease of muscle build-up; whereas, even short-term alcohol consumption results in
impediment of muscle growth. In order for ones body to build muscle to assist in better
performances, your body needs sleep or rest after a workout. Alcohol consumption effects your
sleep and your rest, resulting in deprivation of a chemical called HGH or human-growth
hormone. In Mary Anne Dunkins online article, Human Growth Hormone, she states HGH,
produced by the pituitary gland, spurs growth in children and adolescents. It also helps to
regulate body composition, body fluids, muscle and bone growth, sugar and fat metabolism, and
possibly heart function. That saying, HGH, or human growth hormone, plays a very big role in
the development of collegiate athletes. In an online article written by authors from the
McDonald Center for Student Well-Being, it states on HGH, Alcohol however can decrease the
secretion of HGH by as much as 70%. With this, the consumption of alcohol is a negative effect
in the development of your muscles. Along with a negative effect in your muscle recovery and
development, it also triggers production of the a negative substance counteracting with ATP, or
adenosine triphosphate, which is your muscles source of energy. Since ATP provides the energy
for your muscles to contract, consuming alcohol disrupts the water balance in your cells, which
alters the ability to produce adenosine triphosphate (ATP).
Not only does excessive drinking effect the muscles in your body, leading to a potentially
poor performance, it effects your ability to learn new plays and strategies as a student-athlete. In

many sports, the preparation for the contest, such as learning new plays, strategy and certain
skills, is an essential ingredient to a high caliber performance. In Clive Harpers research article,
The Neuropathology of Alcohol-Related Brain Damage, he talks about the damage alcohol and
excessive drinking has on your brain. He states, Excessive alcohol use can cause structural and
functional abnormalities of the brain and this has significant health, social and economic
implications for most countries in the world. Even heavy social drinkers who have no specific
neurological or hepatic problems show signs of regional brain damage and cognitive
dysfunction. When alcohol is in your system, it impairs the brains ability to perform certain
everyday tasks that one should have no problem doing. It reduces the ability to retain
information. Excessive drinking compromises the hippocampus, a structure very deep inside of
you brain which is vital to remember and form new memories. The article, Alcohol and Athletes,
taken from the McDonald Center for Student Well-Being, provided me some facts on the effects
of alcohol on the brain. It states:
1. Consuming five or more alcoholic beverages in one night can affect brain and body
activities for up to three days
2. Two consecutive nights of drinking five or more alcoholic beverages can affect brain
and body activities for up to five days.
3. Attention span is shorter for periods up to forty-eight hours after drinking.
4. Even small amounts of alcohol BAC of .03 can persist for a substantial period of time
after the acute effects of alcohol impairment disappear.
From these four facts, it is easy to say that alcohol and binge drinking plays a big role on
your brain development, negatively impacting your retention of new plays, strategies, and most
importantly your performance.

Lastly, alcohol and binge drinking negatively affects your nutrition and endurance. I
interviewed a team nutritionist at the University of Central Florida she provided me with
important information for my research on the effects of binge-drinking in college athletics. She
stated,
Alcohol has little to nutritional value at all. The high calories have no positive effect on
your body and we treat alcohol as fat, converting it into fatty acids. Excessive bingedrinking and alcohol produces NADH, which reduces the production of muscle
fueling

and source of energy, ATP. This then results in a loss of endurance and a

high lack of

energy. Alcohol also absorbs very important nutrients and vitamins such as

vitamin B12,

zinc, folic acid, and thiamin. Each of these have their own specific job to

keep the body

functioning. Vitamin B12 maintains healthy nerve cells and red blood

cells, zinc is key in

metabolic processing, which if depleted can have a negative effect

on your endurance,

folic acid helps in the production of new cells, and thiamin is

involved in the breaking

down of carbs, proteins, and fats, and also the formation of

hemoglobin.
Each of these nutrients play a very important role in both student-athlete and non-athletes
bodies. However, in order for athletes to perform at their peak, they cannot be lacking in the
nutrition aspect of their lives. These nutrients are all essentials in performing to the best of their
abilities on and off the field, however, with the consumption of alcohol in large quantities in a
short period of time when given the opportunity to do so, performing would be out of reach.
Body paragraph 2: Alcohol and how it does not effect the student-athlete (AKA a student
athlete viewpoint)

Body paragraph 3: Alcohol and how it neither hurts nor helps and how we should just let
a student be what they want to be
Conclusion

Work Cited
Notre Dame, University Of. "Alcohol and Athletes." // OADE // University of Notre
Dame. McDonald Center for Student Well Being, 2008. Web. <http://oade.nd.edu/educateyourself-alcohol/alcohol-and-athletes/>.

Harper, C. "The Neuropathology of Alcohol-Related Brain Damage." Alcohol and

Alcoholism 44.2 (2009): 136-40. Web.

Alert, Alcohol. "ALCOHOL'S DAMAGING EFFECTS ON THE BRAIN." ALCOHOL'S

DAMAGING EFFECTS ON THE BRAIN. NIAAA, Oct. 2004. Web.
<http://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/aa63/aa63.htm>.