DRINKING games, late-night parties far from disapproving parents, and youthfully robust livers make for an intoxicating pastime that鈥檚 tough to curtail. But an interactive website has at least persuaded the heaviest student drinkers to cut down.
The site, dubbed , provides a 10-minute consultation. It starts by quizzing students about their drinking habits. Heavy drinkers then learn how much more they drink than their peers, the extent to which they are exceeding recommended limits and the health effects of their blood-alcohol level during their most extreme reported binge. The site also tots up and displays the amount of money they spend on booze in a year.
When more than 7000 undergrads in Australia used the site as part of a study, it identified 2400 as having a problem, and seems to have done some good: for at least six months following the study, the heaviest boozers reduced their intake by 11 per cent (Archives of Internal Medicine, vol 169, p 1508).
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at the University of Newcastle in Callaghan, New South Wales, who led the study, admits that the reported gains are modest, but regards them as a success given that the target population is motivated to drink heavily: 鈥淚n a group such as this, abstinence is not the goal.鈥�
He says the website should be tried on students from North American and British universities, where heavy-drinking is common.