Alcoholic borg threatens health of college students

St. Patrick’s Day is a holiday that celebrates the heritage and culture of the Irish. The celebrations involve people wearing green outfits to public parades and festivals. In New Jersey, St. Patrick’s Day is a holiday where college students usually go out with friends at night, order drinks and have fun. 

Many young adults, however, partake in creating their

own drinks. A drink called “blackout rage gallon,” more commonly known as a “borg,” has been popping up on TikTok feeds since 2020. The drink is carried around in a plastic gallon bottle and typically contains a fifth of vodka, water and liquid flavor enhancer. Recently this drink was the cause of an incident that resulted in 30 ambulances being called to the University of Massachusetts (UMass) during students’ “Blarney Blowout” celebration held before St. Patrick’s Day. 

It would be pointless for them to try to force students to stop drinking, but they can do their part to educate them on how drinking can affect lives. 

According to the Gazette, “Borg consumption has become popular among college students and other individuals who desire a customizable and possibly safer group drinking experience.” 

Although it is considered a safer drinking experience because it is optimal for single-person consumption and decreases the risk of drink-spiking, a high number of ambulances were requested for UMass students due to alcohol-related complications. Therefore, this drink can be considered dangerous for students’ lives. 

Promoting drinks on social media might initially seem like a great way to widely share unique drink recipes that can add life to a party, but it can also lead to major health consequences that require emergency medical services to be called to the scene.

St. Patricks Day parties have always been known to get a little out-of-hand. The trending “borg” has taken celebrations to a new level. Photo curtesy of Darlene Alderson, Pexels

College students are more likely to drink because of the “wide availability of alcohol on campus, increased social pressure to drink, and also academic-related stress,” according to Online Degrees. Colleges should educate their students on the consequences of alcohol abuse since they are a common demographic of young people who drink. 

It would be pointless for them to try to force students to stop drinking, but they can do their part to educate them on how drinking can affect lives. 

In my opinion, there should be more regulations to restrict this content. Especially after what happened to UMass students, it has become obvious that unsafe internet trends easily bleed into real life. People should also be more aware that what they see on the internet might not be true. Individuals who enjoy consuming alcohol should be aware of the consequences that binge drinking and trying potentially risky recipes could cause.

It is no secret that college students deal with mental health struggles due to the stress from the amount of work they are required to do to pass a course and get their diploma at the end. To young people, drinking is a form of stress relief, so they consume alcohol to feel better. They use drinking as a tool to forget about their problems and they forget that this action can lead to negative consequences on their physical health, even if at the time it seems to bring them relief.

 

jshimura@ramapo.edu

Featured photo courtesy of BanjoZebra, Wikipedia