BINGE CITY

DRINKING AT UW-MADISON HAS A HOLD ON STUDENT CULTURE

BINGE DRINKING (BINJ DRINKING): CONSUMING MORE THAN FIVE DRINKS IN A ROW FOR
MEN, AND FOUR IN A ROW FOR WOMEN AT LEAST TWO NIGHTS A WEEK.

Stephanie Kurtz and Debra Rosario are preparing for another pub crawl.

Their ritual includes touching up their makeup, choosing the perfect
outfits, listening to Hole's latest CD and getting a head start drinking in
the kitchen of their N. Frances Street apartment.

By 10:30 p.m. the two 21-year-old UW-Madison roommates are surrounded by six
friends. They play cards and talk about the rising cost of fake IDs. The
table is cluttered with ''dead soldiers'' - empty bottles and cans.

There is a can of beer, 13 beer bottles, a bottle of champagne and two
liters of vodka.

''We always drink before we go out,'' Rosario, a molecular biology student,
says. ''It helps build up our tolerance and it's cheaper to get a buzz on at
home.''

In case they need more, there are three other bottles of booze in reserve
above the refrigerator.

This scene isn't unusual. Binge drinking at UW-Madison surpasses the
national average and, according to experts, such behavior is embedded in
Downtown Madison's culture, especially among college students.

''I might start with mixed drinks but then usually stick to beer when I go
out,'' Kurtz, a journalism major, says. ''Liquor before beer never fear;
beer before liquor never sicker.''

With four hours left to drink before the bars close (bar time is 2:30 a.m.
Friday and Saturday nights and 2 a.m. other nights), Kurtz and Rosario will
head Downtown to add at least four more bottles of beer each and a couple of
shots to their booze base.

The cost? Kurtz says they can easily spend $15 or more per person per night.

By the time they are ready to go home, Kurtz is smoking, Rosario has the
hiccups, and the two are arguing - three things that rarely happen unless
they've been binge drinking.

''I threw up last Friday,'' Rosario admits. ''I was almost catatonic. I had
eight shots before I even went out.''

Unusual? Not really.

Two nights later, they're ready to do it again.

Do the math

The Centers for Disease Control, the U.S. Surgeon General's Office and the
National Clearinghouse for Alcohol and Drug Information define binge
drinking as having more than five drinks in a row for men, and four in a row
for women at least two nights a week.

Translation: Most UW-Madison students are binge drinkers.

They binge at the mention of a football game. They binge at the hint of a
birthday. And they binge because it's a weekend.

They are reminded of the dangers of binge drinking when someone dies in a
drunken-driving car wreck, when they have to wrestle the car keys away from
a friend, when they can't recall what they did the night before, or when
another college student drinks to death.

And, contrary to drinking lore, it's not just the fraternity boys who are
binging.

Fifty-two percent of college students drink ''to get drunk,'' according to a
1995 College Alcohol Study by the Harvard University School of Public
Health - up from 33 percent in 1993. The trend cuts across ethnic lines, but
drinking is more common among white teen-agers than Hispanics and African
Americans.

The 1995 Harvard study found that 12 million undergraduates drink about 4
billion cans of beer a year. That averages out to almost 55 six-packs per
individual. Each year they spend $446 per person on alcoholic beverages,
which is more than they spend on textbooks and soda combined.

''Binge drinking is a tradition that has made the UW-Madison famous as one
of the top party schools in the nation since the 1980s,'' says Robert Adsit,
coordinator of a group that's trying to curb binge drinking here.

The RWJ project is a six-year project funded through 2002 by a $700,000
grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

The Princeton Review (a survey company in New York City that is not
associated with Princeton University) recently named UW-Madison the No. 2
party school in the U.S. behind the State University of New York at Albany
and ahead of the University of Florida.

But a high ranking as a party school isn't an honor everyone here wants to
boast about. UW Admissions doesn't like it. And neither does Adsit.

''People know us as the No. 2 party school, but few people know that we are
No. 1 in student activism, according to Mother Jones, and that we are top in
several academic areas,'' Adsit says. ''Few people also know that we send
more students to the Peace Corps than any other school.''

RWJ, which is in the University Health Services building, is working to
raise awareness of these more positive aspects of campus life, while trying
to change the culture to reduce high-risk drinking. The goal is to make a
cultural shift, rather than preach abstinence.

Police calls

Stand in the middle of State Street or at the corner of Lake Street and
University Avenue around 2:15 a.m. on a weekend.

What you'll see is hundreds of people in various stages of drunkenness.

Some have fallen off their bar stools. Others are hoping to find someone -
or at least a cab - to take them home.

One man runs from the bars with no shoes on.

''Some of these people are just looking for a place to go to continue the
party,'' says Madison police officer Stacey Vilas, shaking her head and
watching him. ''Some will have beer kegs waiting in their bathtubs when they
get home.''

Vilas covers one of the Downtown districts - a place where binge drinking is
the cause of many of her calls.

In fact, tonight her shift starts with an anonymous phone call. Five
teen-agers, 17 and younger, are sitting on top of a car in a parking ramp
drinking beer, and vodka mixed with Surge, a sugary soft drink.

The teens met while cruising East Washington Avenue and took their party to
the ramp. One boy says he pays homeless people, sometimes with alcohol, to
get the alcohol for him.

''You can get alcohol anywhere,'' says Andrew, a 17-year-old from Madison
who asked that his last name not be used. ''You can get it from people you
work with, paying the homeless or going to lower class parts of town and
paying someone there to get it for you.''

The boys who have been drinking are ticketed. One girl who hasn't (she has
to take a breath test to prove it) is allowed to drive the others home.

When that problem is wrapped up, Vilas joins officer Tami Droessler on party
patrol. It's 11 p.m. and music pouring out of an open window prompts them to
visit an apartment party at 444 W. Main St. and ask the host to turn it
down.

They'll also talk to people at several house parties and give them brochures
with guidelines for keeping the party safe and advice for how to avoid
police calls.

Public urination and noise are two reasons people call police. Vilas hands
out five or six brochures on a busy night of house parties.

Not everyone takes the warnings seriously, though. Vilas recalls one party
where fines totaled more than $20,000, mostly because of the underage
drinkers.

But underage drinking isn't the only problem.

''A lot of times the problem is over-drinking,'' Vilas says.

She recalls one of the first house parties she saw in Madison and how there
were kegs in the basement and people were standing in a puddle of beer and
vomit.

''They were packed in like sardines,'' she recalls. ''Not being from here
originally, I was shocked at what a different culture it is.''

She has found people who have needed to have their stomachs pumped at the
hospital before going to the detoxification center.

She regularly handles sexual assaults that are alcohol-related. She stops
drunken drivers and drunken pedestrians who stand in the street and stop
traffic.

''I see fights start just because someone is drunk and someone else looks at
them the wrong way,'' Vilas says. ''And if you hit someone and they have to
get stitches, that is a felony. I don't think people know that.''

She also recalls that several years ago she was one of the first officers on
the scene after a student, who had been drinking, tried to commit suicide by
jumping onto an electrical transformer.

Meanwhile, a Hawaiian-theme fraternity party attracts Vilas and Droessler to
Breese Terrace around midnight. About 150 people are inside.

The police are questioning the house president on the porch as Cyndi
Lauper's song ''Girls Just Want To Have Fun'' blares inside. UW-Madison
fraternities are supposed to have guest lists to prevent underage drinkers
and overcrowding.

''A couple of years ago I think it was worse,'' Vilas says. ''We've tried to
work with the UW and the fraternities, and the brochures we hand out at the
house parties have been really helpful.''

The fraternity party call is cut short when a fight erupts inside Wando's
bar after a man attacks one of the bouncers. Chasing down the suspects keeps
Vilas and several other officers tied up for an hour. The chase leads them
to McDonald's where one of those involved is eating french fries.

As police question the man, a line grows outside Brothers tavern nearby.
Vilas notices it and at 1 a.m. decides to go in with Droessler to check the
capacity (often police will use a hand counter) and driver's licenses of
people who look underage.

Vilas snaps a license out of one girl's hand.

''Not even close,'' she says.

And the girl with the fake ID, though not ticketed, has to leave.

Then she wishes another woman a happy 21st birthday. A man runs up and hugs
Vilas for no apparent reason.

''There have been times when I've checked a bar and 70 percent of the
clients leave when I walk in because they are underage,'' Vilas says. ''And
sometimes people in line at the bar applaud when I go in because they want
the underagers out so that they can go in.''

At 2 a.m. Vilas sees drunks pouring out of the bars. A man on foot waves
down Vilas' car.

He's lost. She doesn't mind giving him directions. What she does mind,
though, are drunks who vomit and urinate in her squad car when they've been
picked up.

''The State Street officers usually end up taking four or five people daily
to detox,'' Vilas says. ''Many of those are the transients or the chronic
alcoholics. But there are times I've had to take a student to detox, or a
21-year-old who has had too much on their birthday.''

Vilas says she will usually try to find a friend who is sober and
responsible to care for the drunk.

''It is my legal responsibility to make sure they can make it through the
night,'' she says. ''I take people to detox when they are incapacitated and
can't care for themselves or are a danger to themselves or others.''

At 2:30 a.m. another call comes in. She is paged to the balcony of the La
Bamba Mexican Restaurant on State Street.

''What the hell are you looking at?'' one man yells to another. A third man
gets in between them and tells them to simmer down. The police aren't
impressed by the post-bartime fight.

The police are nearing the end of their shift, they've seen enough rowdiness
and anger from over-served drunks for one night.

''How are we going to get home?'' one of the men whines loudly.

His wife was so embarrassed by his behavior that she took the car and left
him to fend for himself.

The incident ties Vilas and another officer up for 90 minutes - longer than
the 45 minutes Vilas spent listening to the victim of an attempted sexual
assault earlier in the night.

At 4 a.m. the officers pour out the bottles of alcohol they have
confiscated.

''Now I'll just drive around and look for people who are passed out or need
assistance,'' Vilas says. ''This was a pretty typical night Downtown. Most
of the problems are related to the concentration of alcohol Downtown.''

Working toward change

''When I tell people that I coordinate a program to lower binge drinking at
UW-Madison, people laugh,'' Rob Adsit of the RWJ Project says. ''That's
because binge drinking is so ingrained in our culture here.''

When Adsit talks about binge drinking, he means people who drink to get
drunk.

UW-Madison is one of 10 schools nationwide that the Robert Wood Johnson
Foundation is studying. And studies show that 60 percent of UW-Madison
underclassmen and 86 percent of the fraternity and sorority members are
binge drinkers.

''Out-of-state students who come here are shocked when they see all of the
drinking that goes on,'' Adsit says. ''But I also hear from a lot of kids
who say they come here because they know it is a party town.''

Adsit adds that for a long time there has been an attitude that this is
Wisconsin, so that's just the way it is.

''Students also tell us that there is nothing else to do on campus except
drink,'' Adsit says. ''Students drink because they want to fit in. They see
herds of people coming out of the dorms headed to parties and they want to
be a part of that.''

So RWJ is giving them alternatives to drinking such as the alcohol-free
Thursday night athletic and social program this semester at the Southeast
Recreational Facility (SERF). There were 70 students the first week, 120 the
second week, and about 300 more recently.

RWJ, which is about 2' years into the project, also is working with a
network of tavern owners, neighborhood associations, the UW fraternity and
sorority system, residence halls, police, landlords, State Street business
owners, Edgewood College, Madison Area Technical College, UW alumni and
others.

''The 1980s was a heavy drinking decade here and the alumni from that time
who were a part of the reputation built here have been very interested in
working with us,'' Adsit says.

RWJ is especially concerned with health and secondary effects of binge
drinking. RWJ's goal is to reduce alcohol-related problems at UW-Madison
such as violence, vandalism, noise, sexual assaults, the spread of sexually
transmitted diseases, and academic failure.

According to RWJ statistics, binge drinking increases the odds of
experiencing some form of violence by a factor of 3 to 5 times. In addition,
more than 70 percent of campus rapes nationwide are related to drinking.

RWJ has been working with the Journalism 325 class at UW-Madison to poll
students about their drinking habits. What they found is that female
students drink to feel more powerful and to shed their usual inhibitions
while male students typically drink to find a date and to get sex.

''Everyone knows that binge drinking is a problem here,'' says Bettie Lewis,
a 23-year-old UW-Madison journalism graduate student and a student worker
for the RWJ Project. ''But they are silent about it.''

Lewis is not against drinking, but says that she drinks very little herself.

''When I've seen people drink and do something stupid, or look stupid, I
know I don't want to put myself in that situation,'' Lewis says. ''I don't
like the feeling of not being in control.''

Lewis says she is concerned when other students tell her that they can't
have a good time without ''getting wasted.''

''I've seen people who are sick because they drank too much and with a
couple more drinks would have been dead,'' Lewis says.

But Lewis adds that most of the students she talks to are receptive to ideas
on how to reduce their drinking.

''We focus on accountability rather than being judgmental,'' Lewis says.
''We still want people to have a good time, but to be safe when they are
partying.''

House party

This house, in the 400 block of West Johnson Street, has a reputation for
throwing some of the most memorable Downtown house parties.

For the eight people who live here, this is the last party of the semester.
Mike Huberty, 22, a communications arts and psychology major, speculates
that it could be their wildest yet.

Party preparations begin at 8:30 p.m. with a panic to pick up beer at a
local liquor store before it closes.

Roommates have pooled $258.72 to buy five kegs of beer, ice and cups, and to
rent tappers and tubs for the ice. They'll also each buy their own hard
alcohol.

The party supplies fill the back of Ben Jaeger's pickup truck. Jaeger, 22,
is a music education major at UW-Madison and one of Huberty's roommates.

They make one more stop to pick up a sixth keg from a friend who had a party
and didn't quite polish all of his beer off.

As they head home, people on the sidewalks and porches notice the kegs and
cheer them on.

''We've got to get into the party mode now,'' Huberty says as he helps carry
the beer inside.

A couple kegs for the first floor and a couple for the second.

Next, they move the furniture to make room to dance.

A case of toilet paper is distributed throughout the bathrooms. Normal white
light bulbs are changed into party colors of red, green, purple and blue.
The motor on the disco ball needs to be fixed. Valuables are hidden.
Blankets cover the windows to muffle the party noise and dance music.

And a sign inside the door reads: ''To the times we can't remember and the
ones we'll never forget.''

By 11 p.m. the house is rocking with more than 200 people. Another 100 or
more have been turned away because it's too crowded.

''We're not exactly keeping the party small but we are keeping it
reasonable,'' says Brian Showers, 22, a communications arts major.

Huberty monitors the crowd to ensure that there's an equal percentage of men
and women.

''No one wants to party with all guys or all girls,'' Huberty says.

People share stories of past parties here.

During one, the attic floor broke and beer from a keg that was up there
leaked through. Rather than waste a drop, the hosts set out cups and drank
the beer drips.

There was the New Year's party with 40 bottles of champagne. The ceiling in
the TV room is still covered with sticky champagne residue. Roto Rootor
recently removed a cork lodged in a bathtub.

And there was the time someone threw up in the stove and extinguished the
pilot light.

People are now tapping beer into coffee pots, which they're using as beer
pitchers.

''Don't drop the cup. That's valuable stuff,'' a drunk yells.

There are lines at the bathrooms.

''It's not nice to get up to take a shower in the morning and find a puddle
of p-in the bathtub, but it's happened,'' says Jeff Kenda, one of the hosts.

Three male partiers moon for a camera. The dance floor grooves to the B-52s'
''Love Shack.''

The kegs draw people with empty cups into the kitchen like moths attracted
to a light.

Carrie, a woman from Colorado who asked that her last name not be used, is
slurring her words.

''At home I like to have spontaneous and ridiculous fun, sometimes while
taking drugs but not usually drinking,'' she says over the sounds of
screaming women and belching men. ''But when you come to Madison you have to
get drunk.''

Carrie has had six beers and will have at least three more before leaving
the party with a man.

''The satisfaction comes from knowing that we've created this,'' Showers
says.

Dan ''The Legend'' Concotelli, 21, from Waukesha, is a friend of the hosts.

''I like to get crazy and dance with everyone,'' Concotelli says. ''Their
last party I threw up on myself; I'm pacing myself this time.''

By midnight the house is out of beer.

Some young men have built a human pyramid. Affectionate drunks kiss on the
couches. One girl has made out with at least five guys tonight.

''Make some noise,'' a DJ screams. ''The sun won't come up for another four
hours so that means we have four more hours to party.''

In the back staircase someone has vomited.

The hosts break out liquor.

At 1:30 a.m. a partier falls down the stairs and spills beer all over
himself. His ego is bruised but he says he's not hurt.

Jon Walbrun, 23, a math and computer science major at Edgewood College,
turns down the music because a neighbor has complained. He's also lamenting
the fact someone stole a bottle of liquor out of his bedroom.

There is a toast to the hosts and then Huberty coaxes a friend into giving
him his car keys.

''Nobody drives home drunk from my party,'' Huberty insists. He offers the
guy a blanket and a couch to crash on.

At 3:30 a.m. Billy Joel's ''Piano Man'' plays. Only about 30 people are
left. They are starting to wind down, hugging and sharing a drink, which,
they agree with the song lyrics, is better than drinking alone.

One partier shows off his prize for the night: a woman's phone number.

Repeat business

''This campus is just one big bar,'' Kurtz says.

Two days after their last binge, Kurtz and Rosario are back at it.

They are repeating their usual pub crawl, visiting at least four bars
tonight.

As they move from bar to bar they pass three drunk men who are busy swearing
and making fun of a homeless woman. Another man rides piggyback on a woman.
Cabs cruise past. So does an ambulance.

They pass lines that are 20 or more deep to get into some college bars.

At the City bar, Rosario looks through the lost and found. She lost a shirt
here the other night. It's a shirt she wore as a jacket and it's the third
shirt she has lost in a bar this semester.

Why do they do it?

Kurtz and Rosario agree. Because when you drink a lot, you are no longer
shy. Booze is their liquid courage.

You become a conversationalist. A singer. A dancer. You plug the jukebox and
the bar usually cheers your choice.

The world changes after five or 10 drinks. People want to hear you talk and
sing. And they might even dance with you.

''Drinking is all about psychology,'' Kurtz says. ''It's about being in
certain moods.''

Rosario tries to peel the label off her beer bottle. She explains that if
you peel it off without ripping it, that means you are ''getting some (sex)
tonight.''

Kurtz laughs.

''I never get the label off,'' she says.

Kurtz and Rosario, like many other binge drinkers, drink because it helps
them forget about exams, about work, about loneliness.

And most of all, they say, they drink because that's what other UW students
do. And that's what the students before them did, and the students before
them.

''It's nothing new,'' Kurtz says. ''It makes you more confident and social.
And what's wrong with that?''