It's late Friday night, and after partying for several hours, fatigue sets in. For some college students, this dilemma causes them to turn to one of the newest additions to the party-hard lifestyle: mixing alcohol and energy drinks.
These hyperactive cocktails have been sweeping college campuses and bars, appealing to many because they give drinkers the ability to consume more alcohol and remain on their feet later into the night.
Ian Wong, director of health education at Tufts, explained that there are many risk factors surrounding the combination of alcohol and energy drinks.
Because drinkers do not feel the tiring effects of alcohol, they do not realize how intoxicated they actually are, Wong explained.
"Alcohol is a depressant, and when people drink a lot, one of the side effects is that they start getting tired, sleepy [and] lethargic," Wong said. "With the energy drinks, you don't feel that tiredness, so sometimes you think you're not that drunk ... but it doesn't mean that you're any more sober."
Wong is worried that because people may not realize they are drunk, they will continue to drink more.
"My concern is that a lot of people may not feel as intoxicated as they truly are and may be drinking a lot more than they ever would drink, because they don't feel the normal effects," he said.
Wong also explained that in low doses, alcohol can act as a stimulant before its depressant effects take hold.
"There's the biphasic response in alcohol," Wong said. "In low doses, alcohol feels like a stimulant ... so now [when you combine alcohol with energy drinks] you're having alcohol as a low-dose stimulant along with this high-dose stimulant."
Despite their risk factors, it is the extra stimulation and increased energy that attracts party-goers to highly-caffeinated drinks.
Sarah*, a Tufts freshman who wished to remain anonymous, said that she likes drinking alcohol with energy drinks because the mood-enhancing effects of alcohol seem to last longer - and while Wong explained that energy drinks can make students feel they need to drink more alcohol, Sarah said she felt drunk from consuming less alcohol.
"It was definitely not the same drunk as just soda and alcohol or juice and alcohol," she said. "It was a drunker drunk off of less alcohol for longer."
But Sarah added that although she enjoys the combination of drunkenness and a caffeine high, she realizes that it can be risky.
"When you're drunk off of energy drinks [and alcohol], it's really fun," she said. "But at the same time, you definitely don't feel as in-control."
Maggie*, another freshman who wished to remain anonymous, explained that she didn't feel as intoxicated as she actually was after mixing vodka with a Monster energy drink, but that she made social decisions that later showed her how drunk she'd been.
"I was a lot more comfortable walking around, because I probably didn't think I was as drunk," she said. "[When I combined the two], I saw my college counselor and I went up and hugged her kids, which probably wasn't a very good idea."
In addition to causing people to drink more alcohol, these combinations can seriously increase the risk of dehydration and raise body temperature, Wong explained.
"They're [both] diuretics," Wong said. "So that means that you're going to start urinating and losing water. You lose it with alcohol, and then you lose it with caffeine, so now because you're doubling this loss of fluids in a much quicker way, you can become dehydrated a lot faster than you realize."
Another risk posed by energy drink cocktails is that drinkers end up consuming not just excess alcohol, but far more caffeine than they regularly would.
Wong explained that because they are drinking more alcohol, people are, in turn, drinking far more energy drinks than they would in a normal setting.
"If you asked any student, 'Would you sit down and, within an hour or two hours, drink three or four [energy drinks]?' they'd probably say no," Wong said. "But if you asked them, 'would you drink three or four alcohol drinks within the hour?' they may say yes."
Wong emphasized that the greatest danger of this new trend is the excess to which people are doing it.
"A good number of college students are using these energy drinks,... and we also know there [are] some students who drink a lot of alcohol," Wong said. "The point about all of this right now is moderation."
*Names have been changed.
