To generalize the social college norm, turning twenty-one in college is a big milestone for a lot of people. It could be categorized as one of the biggest milestones during one's college career.

This is the time that people are finally allowed into the bars and are able to get into the "21+ to drink" parties on campus and elsewhere. However, I have been learning that the popular drinking game, 21 shots, amongst college students our age is actually leading to a bit of a problem, binge drinking. The NIAAA (National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism) defines binge drinking as drinking that brings a person's BAC level to 0.08. This type of binge drinking tends to happen after just four drinks for women in about two hours and five drinks for men in the same amount of time.

In fact, just to reiterate how incredibly terrible this problem has become, it's said that about one in four college students admit academic consequences from drinking, this includes missing classes.

So how can we help to fix this issue of binge drinking? Realize that the problem is not within the drinking, but within the excessive amount of alcohol consumption as a national average. Talk to with your roommate, have a conversation with your friend group about how often you're choosing to drink and how much. Make a pact to limit the number of drinks everyone should have. This can even save you lots of money.

Be safe, and have fun.