Are Student Athletes At Risk of Binge Drinking?

Alcohol is one of the most abused substances by teens, but could teen athletes be at higher risk of abusing alcohol?  In this short video, John Hamilton, Chief Clinical Outreach Officer, discusses the relationship between teens, drinking, and sports.

Transcript

Everything now has been focused on the opiate epidemic and sadly that’s overshadowed some of the risk that our youth and young adults are experiencing every day, particularly issues around binge drinking. Binge drinking is still a more pervasive problem than the opiate epidemic and anything else for our young adults. There’s a lot that we need to know about that binge drinking. For instance, kids in high school that participate in high school team sports are at greatest risk for binge drinking in college and a lot of families don’t know that. So, they really are happy to know that their kids are playing field hockey and lacrosse and staying out of trouble, but unless they play Division 1 ball in college they’re going to have a loss of a sense of identity, loss of camaraderie, loss of a team connection, loss of social competence and confidence, and that could lead to trouble.