Letters to the Editor
Leaving Team Sports and Becoming Socially Isolated in College Contributes to Binge Drinking
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To The editor,
Did you know that one of the greatest predictors of binge drinking in college is participation in team sports in high school? This fact is shocking to many parents in Darien when I have spoken this last year at the Darien schools. But let’s think this through, unless your child is planning to continue pursuing their sport in college, your child will have more unstructured time than they have ever had in their life. Perhaps they will experience a loss of identity and affiliation, and perhaps a loss of social competence as a result. This creates a perfect storm for a yearning for new connections and affiliation which can easily be satisfied through binge drinking. The loss of competitiveness on the sports field will now be replaced by a new level of competitiveness in drinking games.
