Reduce Your Risk

Important Information to Know

Quick Links

• What Are the Short-Term and Long-Term Risks?
• MAPP Strategy, Having Fun, and Playing It Safe
• Tolerance

What Are the Short-Term and Long-Term Risks?

Remember: alcohol is never an excuse for your behavior. You are still held accountable for what you do under the influence. Here you can find information outlining both long and short term effects of alcohol usage. 

Short-Term Health Effects, or "Co-Risks"

• Mood swings
• Accidents and injuries
• Hangovers
• Diminished academic performance
• Legal trouble
• Stong correlation between alcohol misuse and mental health diagnoses - there is a bi-directional relationship between substance use and mental health. Use of substances shifts brain chemistry temporarily and over time can permanently shift one’s baseline. Conversely, sometimes people use substances in an attempt to self medicate and feel better, even if only for a temporary period of time.

Long-Term Health Effects

Frequent binge drinking can result in dependency and/or chronic health problems such as cirrhosis of the liver, pancreatitis, damage to heart, liver and brain, impairments in cognitive functioning, stomach/esophagus/mouth ulcers, and various cancers. Recent research on brain development indicates that binge drinking can damage brain tissues and over time impair typical emotional and social development.

MAPP Strategy, Having Fun and Playing It Safe

Many Stanford students like to go out with friends and have a good time, which may involve alcohol. While most students drink in moderation, sometimes a night out can lead to an assortment of preventable negative consequences related to high-risk drinking and other substance use. 

The NIAAA Reports Nationally

• 1,825 college students between the ages of 18 and 24 die from alcohol-related unintentional injuries, including motor vehicle crashes.
• 696,000 students between the ages of 18 and 24 are assaulted by another student who has been drinking.
• Roughly 20 percent of college students meet the criteria for an Alcohol Use Disorder.
• About 1 in 4 college students report academic consequences from drinking, including missing class, falling behind in class, doing poorly on exams or papers, and receiving lower grades overall.

Playing It Safe: Avoiding Alcohol/Drug-Related Problems

Setting a few guidelines will help you and your friends to avoid problems that may have a lasting impact on your life and that of your friends. The goal is to reduce the likelihood of harm to yourself or others by:

• Thinking and planning ahead.
• Setting low to moderate drinking and other drug use limits.
• Eliminating avoidable or high level risks where possible.

Your MAPP to Safe Drinking

Stanford students use a variety of simple techniques to reduce the risk and potential harm associated with drinking. Research shows that the more techniques a person uses, the less likely he or she will experience negative consequences (e.g., hangovers, vomiting, memory loss, etc.). There are many risk reducing strategies. One easy way to remember a few is through the acronym "MAPP".

• Measure: Measure and pour your own drinks whenever possible. This also means counting how many STANDARD drinks you have had. 
• Alternate: Alternate between alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages. Every registered party should have EANABS available. 
• Pace: As a general rule, 1 alcoholic beverage per hour is a safe bet. More importantly, track your personal BAC to know how you should pace out your drinking. 
• Plan: Before you start drinking, make a plan for how you are going to get there and back safely, decide on a designated driver, how much you plan to drink that night etc. 

Ways to Reduce Drinking

There are many other ways to reduce risk while drinking. Take a look at these below: 

• Choose safe and familiar settings in which to drink.
• Drink with people you know and trust who can remind you of your limits.
• Add extra ice to your drink to water it down.
• Pay attention to alcohol by volume (ABV). Natty light is not the same as a Lagunitas IPA.
• Use a designated driver and if on campus call 5-SURE to get you home!
• Know the Bacchus Maneuver.
• Learn how to say "No thanks" and "No more."
• Avoid all drinking games.
• Eat something before and while you drink -- preferably within 4 hours of when you plan to have a drink
• Avoid drinking while taking medications and ALWAYS check with your doctor about the risks of drinking on your medications.

Tolerance

You may hear some people claim that they have a "high tolerance" and can handle more alcohol than others. There are two distinct things to consider in order to understand what tolerance IS and what it IS NOT.

Many Factors Impact Our Bodies Ability to Absorb and Metabolize Alcohol

These include weight, hormone levels, body composition, enzyme levels, etc. Other factors can include how much a person has eaten, in what time period, and how hydrated they are. All of these differences can make two people who have had the exact same amount of alcohol in the exact same period of time have very different Blood Alcohol Concentrations (BAC). Sometimes when people say they can handle more alcohol than others, this is what they mean. If this is what they are describing as "tolerance" then this simply means that their body is processing alcohol at a different rate than others due to physiological differences and the dosage and corresponding effect of alcohol should be consistent over time for them. However, "tolerance" is actually something quite different.

If you or someone you know finds that it takes more and more alcohol to FEEL intoxicated, it is important that you seek further education and resources and know if this is a time to get help.

More About Tolerance

Tolerance is a physical and mental acclimation to alcohol, developed after habitual use. This means that while the person may have the same BAC level that they have had before, it may FEEL like their BAC is lower than it is. Unfortunately this is one of the early signs of physiological dependency. This means that the body has adjusted to certain intoxication levels and it now takes more for the person to feel the same physiological response, but the damage and risks to the body remain the same. In other words, just because a person is acclimated to being drunk doesn’t mean that they process alcohol any more efficiently or that they y can make good judgments, make good decisions or have good motor skills and reaction times. Learn about BAC here.