Why BORG drinks are dangerous for you

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If you went to a party recently and didn’t see anyone drinking a BORG, you probably won’t be partying with college students.

And if you have no idea what that phrase means, you’re probably not a member of Generation Z.

The acronym BORG stands for “blackout rage gallon,” according to the National Capital Poison Center in Washington, DC. The term refers to a concoction often prepared in a gallon-sized plastic pitcher that usually contains vodka or other distilled alcohol, water, a flavor enhancer, and an electrolyte powder or drink. BORGs are often drunk at outdoor parties, also known as darts.

There is so much alcohol in a BORG that “drinking one can lead to life-threatening consumption and alcohol poisoning,” said Dr. Anna Lembke, professor of psychiatry and addiction medicine at Stanford University in California. .

This bulk drink is the new version of jungle juice, according to Sabrina Grimaldi, creator and editor of online lifestyle magazine The Zillennial Zine. The publication targets the micro-generation between millennials and generation Z.

“Instead of making a cocktail for a party in a huge 5-gallon drink dispenser, a giant storage bin, or even the grosser trend of making jungle juice in a sink or bathtub, everyone has his own personal drink,” Grimaldi wrote to CNN in an email. As the drink’s name suggests, “it’s meant to make you extremely drunk.”

What Lembke calls BORG’s “social contagion factor” makes it even more dangerous.

“Kids see other kids doing it and want to try it themselves,” she said. “That’s another real danger here: taking dangerous deviant behavior and normalizing it by spreading it on social media.”

Grimaldi, 24, first heard about BORGs earlier this year when her editorial intern, Kelly Xiong, 21, pitched her a story about why they’re so popular among Gen Z.

“I graduated from college in 2020, so it’s safe to say I haven’t been a part of the college party scene in almost 5 years (mostly due to the pandemic),” Grimaldi said . “Even though Kelly and I are so close in age, it’s crazy to see how these microtrends are showing up.”

Xiong, who just graduated from the University of Pittsburgh, first learned about BORGs during his sophomore year of college.

“It was during a St. Patrick’s Day block darty, and almost everyone had their own BORG,” she told CNN via email, adding that the drink is especially popular around major holidays outdoor or “special occasion darts”.

Although the origins of the term are difficult to trace, BORGs have made headlines, most notably in March 2023, when more than two dozen students at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, many wearing BORGS, were transported by ambulance following an accident. event on campus.

The trend is not limited to college demographics.

At last year’s senior class pool party and this year, “everyone made their own BORG,” said Virginia, 18, a private high school student from Tampa, Fla., who didn’t want his real name used to protect. his privacy.

Virginia said one of the reasons BORG appeals to her is the social aspect. “You need to name your BORG and get creative by writing the name on it with a Sharpie,” she said.

BORG posts featuring gallon jugs with puny names like Captain Borgan, Our Borg and Savior, Borgan Donor and Borgan Wallen are proliferating on TikTok.

Thinking along these lines is part of what makes BORGs potentially dangerous for people who use them as a party drink, Lembke said.

Virginia said she recognized the dangers of drinking BORG. “A lot of people just pour vodka and don’t measure it, so that can be pretty dangerous than knowing you’ve drunk three cans of beer,” she said. “No one really rations how much they’re going to drink.”

This is true even if the person is 21, the legal drinking age in the United States, or older.

In the United States, a standard drink contains 1 to 1.5 ounces of distilled spirits, 5 ounces of wine or 12 ounces of beer, according to the National Institutes of Health. For women, drinking more than four standard drinks (and for men, more than five) in a two-hour period is considered bingeing, according to the NIH.

“A BORG often contains one-fifth (25.6 fluid ounces or 3.2 cups) of vodka or other hard liquor, or about 17 standard drinks, which is a huge amount of alcohol,” Lembke said.

It’s actually better not to drink alcohol at all, as a number of recent studies have shown that no amount of alcohol consumption is healthy. The World Heart Federation published a guidance note in 2022 stating that there is “no level of alcohol consumption that is safe for health”.

If you do drink, health experts encourage moderation. That’s no more than 3 ounces of alcohol for women or 4 ounces for men in any one day, according to the 2020-2025 Dietary Guidelines for Americans. Lembke also recommended against making it a regular habit.

The liver processes about 1 ounce of alcohol per hour, or about one standard drink per hour, Lembke said. Depending on the amount of alcohol in the mix, drinking a BORG “totally exceeds the liver’s ability to metabolize it,” especially for someone who isn’t already tolerant to alcohol, Lembke said.

The fact that BORGS are typically sweetened with a diluting agent such as electrolyte drinks or water flavor enhancers only makes them more dangerous, she said.

“It makes it tastier, and people can usually drink more than they could from something like straight vodka,” she said. “But it doesn’t increase the liver’s ability to better metabolize alcohol.”

Independent journalist based in Florida Terry Ward lives in Tampa.