BORGs Are the Latest College Drinking Trend, and the First Major Study Is Pretty Grim - VICE

Look, binge drinking in college is pretty normal, stupid or not. Lord knows I’ve had my fair share of jungle juice and Four Loko. But BORGs have taken that stupidity to new heights. Short for “blackout rage gallon,” a BORG is a gallon jug filled with alcohol, mixer, water, and usually caffeine or electrolytes.

This isn’t a fishbowl-with-six-straws situation. It’s one drink. For one person. And, as the name might suggest, the night doesn’t always end well.

The first major research on BORGs just came out in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs. University of Chicago psychiatry professor Andrea C. King led the study, which surveyed more than 100 students across the country. What they found isn’t especially supportive of the idea that BORGs are somehow the smarter way to get drunk, which is what the college kids are saying. 

BORGs caught on during the pandemic, when having your own sealed drink felt safer than sharing from a communal cup. After that, people started adding water, electrolytes, and caffeine, with this bizarre thought that a gallon of booze could somehow be healthier and more “controlled.”

King’s data makes that argument pretty hard to defend. “Nearly one third of respondents said they experienced a blackout from a BORG event,” she said. Another 59% reported doing or saying something embarrassing, 17% vomited, and the study also recorded injuries and ER visits associated with BORG use.

The jug itself is part of the issue. A BORG can hold as much as a fifth of liquor, or about 17 standard drinks, and sweet mixers can make that amount of alcohol very easy to drink quickly. “The mixing of hard liquor and additive flavorings in BORGs may be particularly harmful given the sweetness of the beverage,” King said.

The study also found that people weren’t exactly keeping their BORGs to themselves. Participants reported sharing sips and trying each other’s mixes, which undercuts one of the main selling points of carrying your own sealed jug in the first place.

King’s point is that the important decisions happen before anyone is influenced by the dangerous trend. “Having an open discussion can go a long way toward reducing harms at college,” she said. Kids drink for all kinds of reasons, from wanting to fit in to blowing off stress to not wanting to feel much of anything for a few hours. Talking about that, along with how much alcohol actually goes into the BORG, is probably more helpful than pretending abstinence is the only answer. “It doesn’t have to be all-or-none.”

College students have never needed much encouragement to invent new ways to get hammered. But alcohol poisoning is still very real, no matter how cute the gallon looks or how many electrolytes are mixed into it. A decorated jug can still send someone to the ER.