Ladies’ Night Rise in drinking rate among young women alarms public health experts nationwide

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“Sass, are you decent?” April calls as she bounds up the stairs of her friend Sara’s apartment, hoping not to catch her half-naked.

“Yeah,” Sara replies from behind her bedroom door. “And drunk.”

It’s a little after 9 on a Saturday night in Orono. Sara’s friend never showed for dinner, so she ended up polishing off the better part of a bottle of Pinot Grigio on her own. She walks downstairs, dressed conservatively in a Ralph Lauren oxford and chinos with stiletto heels, and pours herself a glass of seltzer water – “to pace myself.”

The night is still young and the 22-year-olds know there are many shots and mixed drinks in their future. Sara, a Massachusetts native, and April, a military brat, met during orientation weekend at the University of Maine – both felt like outsiders because they were “from away.” They had the “party room” in their dorm freshman year, and both nearly failed out their first semester. Now fifth-year seniors, the women have since gotten their act together, but they still love their liquor.

“We’re pretty notorious around here,” Sara said.

“I just say we know how to have a good time,” April added, sipping a glass of Malibu rum and Diet Coke, wearing jeans, a white top and a long string of pearls. “We don’t rip our shirts off and run around. We just drink.”

And they’re not alone. A recent Wall Street Journal article reported a marked rise in the amount of alcoholic beverages consumed by women between the legal drinking age and 24. Citing a study by the consumer research group Datamonitor, the Journal reported a 33 percent increase by volume among young women between 1999 and 2004.

In Maine, the trend begins in high school, according to Kimberly Johnson, director of the state’s Office of Substance Abuse. Her office collects data in a biennial survey of Maine students, and the alcohol-use gap between girls and boys, which once was significant, has all but disappeared in recent years.

“Girls have caught up,” Johnson said.

She attributes the rise to several factors: a surge in marketing to women, more “sweet drink” options, the glamorous portrayal of alcohol on such programs as “Sex and the City,” and something a little harder to quantify – a change in social norms. Johnson says all of the shame girls used to have about drinking and having sex – the fear of a bad reputation – just isn’t there anymore.

“I think [drinking] has always been seen as being grown-up, even when I was a teenager” said Johnson, who is now 43. “I think that’s not a new phenomenon. I think what’s different now from back then is there’s this whole thing around alcohol, women and sex. Boys still try to get girls drunk to get laid, but girls’ perceptions of themselves have changed.”

But their maturity level hasn’t. Which means girls are using booze to shed any inhibitions they may have about their newfound sexuality. That’s a scene Sara and April have seen all too often – not necessarily among their peers, but among younger women at off-campus parties.

Sobering statistics

At 10:15 p.m., April tops off her Malibu and Diet Coke and Sara pours herself a final glass of Pinot Grigio and plops in an ice cube. Her roommates Elyse and Stephanie walk in, weary after a long night of waiting tables at a Bangor restaurant. They sit down on the living room carpet and jump into the conversation about “liquid courage.”

“Guys flock to the drunk, wasted girls,” said Stephanie, whose long, dark hair and big hazel eyes make her look much younger than her 21 years.

“I think it’s more, like, sexually based,” Sara added. “It’s not just, ‘Let’s go out and get drunk and have a good time.’ It’s, ‘Let’s get drunk and go out and see who I can get.”

That mix of sex and alcohol is a dangerous cocktail. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 19 million new cases of chlamydia, syphilis and gonorrhea occur each year, almost half of them among people ages 15 to 24.

“There is a clear link to heavy alcohol consumption and unsafe sex, then you make the next link that unsafe sex transmits STDs,” Johnson said. “For women, you have to wonder how many sexual encounters are actually by choice – [drinking heavily] makes them so much more vulnerable.”

Despite their many escapades – Sara once fell into a ditch and hit her head on a rock after too many tequila shots and April found herself padlocked into her friend’s room one night after she passed out – they say they’ve never felt vulnerable when it comes to men. The women usually walk home together in a group and keep an eye on one another’s drinks while they’re out.

That’s not to say they haven’t dealt with any consequences to their drinking. In addition to blacking out, throwing up and spraining their ankles a few times, they had a rough time their first semester. Sara had the highest grade-point average of the group at 1.37 and the women all found themselves on academic probation. They attribute it in part to tequila nights, keeping up with their friends and general binges.

A binge is considered five or more drinks in one sitting, and a 2004 survey by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration found 32 percent of women between the ages of 18 and 25 engaged in binge drinking the month before the survey was conducted, the Chicago Tribune reports. That’s up from 29 percent from 2000.

Elyse, Sara and April, on the other hand, find themselves drinking less now than in years past. They go out one or two nights a week, rather than every night, because they all have internships or jobs to go to in the morning.

“You can’t go in smelling like booze,” Stephanie said.

But smelling like booze is just the tip of the iceberg, Johnson says. The younger someone begins drinking, the higher their long-term risk for addiction, not to mention the immediate risk of injury or assault. That’s why Johnson’s office has implemented such programs as the Higher Education Alcohol Prevention Partnership on Maine’s college campuses and worked closely with families and communities to curb underage drinking.

“There are so many other implications around heavy alcohol consumption,” she said. “Performance in school or work – it affects that. There are potential long-term effects on learning and development among people who start heavy alcohol consumption in late adolescence. … One of the long-term risks would really be brain damage. You’re basically affecting your cognitive functioning to some level.”

Sweet and low-carb

A little after 11 p.m., Sara, April and Stephanie have piled into a minivan – with a designated driver – and are speeding toward Old Town and the Riverfront Pub.

“Who’s going to be at the Riverfront?” Stephanie asks.

“Who cares?” April replies. “We’re going to get free shots.”

As it turns out, she was right. Heads turned as the women strode to the bar, and within seconds, a man in his 50s had bought them each a creamy pink shot named after a part of the female anatomy that can’t be printed in a family newspaper. It was a mixture of strawberry liqueur and tequila, and it went down fast. Sara sat down and ordered a beer, Stephanie got a Captain Morgan and Coke and April continued with Malibu and Diet Coke.

“You don’t feel as fat when you drink mixed drinks,” Stephanie said.

She’s not the only one after that not-so-fat feeling. There’s a reason why Michelob Ultra ads feature a fit couple working out before drinking, and other brands have jumped on the low-carb bandwagon. But these beverages – and malt liquor-based coolers such as Smirnoff Ice – have also attracted a following of young women and underage girls, who unlike men, won’t drink beer if they don’t like it.

“There’s so many new drinks that are fruity, sweet, kind of taste like soda,” Johnson said. “It’s an easy way to introduce someone to alcohol. … In the old days, when people wanted to do research on alcohol using rats, to get them to initiate drinking you had to introduce sugar to make them drink. We used to do it with rats. Now we do it with people.”

In the 1980s and 1990s, wine companies tried to expand their market with sweet, fruity coolers. It worked for a while, but didn’t really stick. In recent years, alcohol companies have seen a dip in sales among Baby Boomers, which has spurred a new wave of products – and elaborate marketing – geared at younger people and women, Johnson said.

“The market is shrinking and they’re fighting for the market share,” Johnson said. “Going after young people and women is expanding the market. For years, the thing to do was to go after men. … That real targeting of women is a relatively new thing.”

Among legal-age drinkers, there has been a surge in demand for flavor-infused liquors, such as Vox green apple vodka, in the last five years. Women between the ages of 21 and 25 are driving the trend, according to one local retailer.

“I have never sold this to a man,” Pat Wheeler, owner of Burby & Bates in Orono, said, pointing to a bottle of the windshield washer fluid-colored Blue Wave vodka. “And all this other stuff is targeted at women.”

Wheeler has owned Burby & Bates for the last two years and has worked there for the last 16. Today, Burby & Bates supplies most of the restaurants and bars in the Greater Bangor area and it is one of the highest-grossing liquor stores in the state. When Wheeler started, he estimates that 85 percent of the store’s clientele was male. These days, on any given Friday night, roughly half of the customers that walk through the door are female – mostly college-age.

“Every year it becomes increasingly more female, and we’ve diversified our product,” Wheeler said. “People come in and ask for Vox apple vodka by name. The demand is there. We’re feeling the demand and it’s a female customer asking for it.”

Wheeler says female customers also ask for Boone’s Farm flavored wines, Pommery Pop – single-serving bottles of pink champagne that come with their own straws, “malternatives” such as Mike’s Hard Lemonade, and boxed wine.

“Guys don’t buy this,” Wheeler said, pointing to a box of mango-flavored Sangria. It is fairly common to remove the inner bladder full of wine from its packaging. “College girls can put this in their pocketbook and go mobile. I see it almost every Friday night. Girls have been known to sneak into bars by slipping them into their bras.”

A nightcap

The young women at the Riverfront didn’t need to sneak anything in – the free drinks from admiring males just kept coming, and four rounds later, they were ready to roll.

The scent of Southern Comfort and stale beer hung in the air and the bartender danced as “Everybody Wang Chung Tonight” blasted from the jukebox.

“I totally could do some karaoke right now,” Stephanie yelled over the noise. “I am the next Whitney Houston.”

So at half-past midnight, they left and piled into the minivan. As their driver pulled up to a stoplight, they contemplated crooning at No. 10 North Main, but reconsidered as they watched a fight heat up on the sidewalk outside.

“To Ushuaia!” Sara called and April turned up the radio. But by the time they got to Orono, April wanted to be dropped off at her apartment instead.

As they rode in the darkness, Stephanie and Sara talked about their future. Earlier in the night, they agreed there would be much, much less drinking in the “real world,” but the rest was up for debate. Where would they move after graduation – South Carolina? Florida? Back to Massachusetts?

“Maybe we’ll just get out of here,” Sara said.

But for now, they were just going home for some sleep and a big glass of water to wash the night away.

And, they hope, to keep a hangover at bay.

Kristen Andresen can be reached at 990-8287 and kandresen@bangordailynews.net.

Booze clues

Pat Wheeler of Burby & Bates in Orono, one of the state’s highest-grossing liquor stores, says there are four categories of alcoholic beverages and related mixers that are primarily requested and purchased by young women.

Malternatives: Though sold under brand names such as Smirnoff and Bacardi, these sweet, mainly fruit-flavored drinks use malt liquor as their base. At 4 percent to 5 percent alcohol by volume, their kick is similar to beer.

Flavored or infused liquor: Five years ago, Wheeler had only a handful of vodkas and rums. Spurred by the rise in popularity of fruity martinis, such offerings as Bacardi Limon and Vox apple vodka take up an entire shelving unit in his store.

Boxed and flavored wine: Boone’s Farm now shares refrigerator space with strawberry champagne, boxed mango sangria and small “wine cubes.” Wheeler says coeds have been known to ditch the box and sneak into bars with a bag of wine in their purse or, with the smaller cubes, in their bra.

Sweet mixers: Among Wheeler’s 21- to 25-year-old clientele, women are less likely than men to buy 15 ingredients to make the perfect cosmo. They prefer a quick, easy alternative but still want the flavor of a mixed drink. These brightly colored mixers do the trick.