'Being Very Drunk' Is Tried by More Students in City

High school students in New York City have some of the world's greatest cultural attractions in their back yard. But they often spend their weekend nights acting like stereotypical students at a college surrounded by cornfields, tossing back drink after drink in what those who follow the situation say is a disturbing and dangerous epidemic of binge drinking.

A 2005 city survey found 28% of white students in the city's public high schools had, within the month before the survey was taken, consumed the four or five drinks in one session necessary to qualify as a "binge." White students have been shown to binge drink at much higher rates than their nonwhite counterparts. While no comparable statistics exist for the city's private schools, interviews with students suggest such behavior is frequent.

The students say getting drunk allows them to overcome sexual inhibitions and to relax at the end of a week filled with extracurricular activities and college preparation.

"In kids my age, it's about losing oneself — because they're upset, because they're stressed out," a 17-year-old junior at Columbia Preparatory School on the Upper West Side, Alison Karasyk, said. "At the point of being very drunk, they feel a release and that they can blow off steam."

Miss Karasyk said she has observed her peers use binge drinking as a way to explore their sexuality without having to think about the consequences of their behavior. "It's definitely hard as a teen — it's hard in general — for a guy and a girl to be open about liking each other," she said. "Especially for those who want to be experimental, when they drink, they're a little happier, and a little more open to that kind of thing."

A 16-year-old who lives on the Upper East Side, Hilary Shar, said her friends from the suburbs are incredulous when she complains of having nothing to do on weekends. "They say, ‘Oh, you're so lucky you live in the city,'" Miss Shar, an 11th-grader at the Dwight School on the Upper West Side, said. "I say, ‘No, it's really not that different.' The movie theaters may be bigger, and there are more restaurants to choose from, but the activities are pretty much the same."

Those activities often include attending alcohol-laden parties at their classmates' homes.

In some circles, the high school social scene revolves around drinking, Miss Shar said.

Underage drinkers here say they buy alcohol — often beers and sweet "alcopops," such as fruit- or chocolate-flavored alcoholic beverages or shots — using fake identification cards, or by paying older siblings or friends to buy it for them.

A junior at Trevor Day School on Manhattan's Upper East Side, Alexandra Barsky, said students begin drinking alcohol at their friends' houses when they are freshmen.

"I think maybe it's more frequent now than it used to be, in terms of the younger generation," she said. "Especially in New York City."

The head of the Parents League, a group of private school parents, Cynthia Bing, said students have no trouble getting alcohol. At a recent "Teen Scene" forum, student panelists told a room full of parents that drinking goes on among high school students, but they gave reassurances that students try to be responsible for one another's safety. That sometimes includes taking them to an emergency room if the drinking gets out of hand, Ms. Bing said.

Many city-reared high school students say they began drinking in their early teenage years — and that their parents exert little effort to curb or halt their alcohol consumption.

The head of Trevor Day School in Manhattan, Pamela Clark, said that in households where there is frequent entertaining, students can easily take a few drinks without their parents noticing.

Ms. Clark said students are taught the consequences of underage drinking starting in middle school. When she hears a rumor about student drinking, she calls the student in for questioning. "The kids are horrified," she said. "We tell the parents. We investigate."

Still, she said she focuses on the health issues, not punishment.

Miss Shar said some parents agree to host or chaperon parties where heavy drinking takes place. Most often, these parents attempt to remain inconspicuous, surfacing only when a partygoer gets sick or rowdy, teenagers say. "Usually they'll stay out of the way — they're just there if you need anything — although one mom gave out cookies," she said. "I thought that was kind of funny."

Other times, the drinking takes place in the school building itself. A 2003 New York Sun article reported that at Stuyvesant High School, an elite city public school that students enter by scoring well on a competitive exam, a student binged on Jack Daniels, vomited, then passed out on a bench in the Student Union.

Tomorrow: The college crisis.