Many people think that being young and abusing alcohol go hand-in-hand. After all, we’ve all seen the movies and television shows about the wild keg parties people throw when their parents go out of town or the crazy fraternity parties that feature a good amount of alcohol.

As a consequence, then, some teenagers and young people might not be alarmed if they consume a lot of alcohol or even experience frequent hangovers or other consequences of such substance use disorder. They consider it experimentation and part of being young.

Not all teens and young people abuse alcohol, of course, but a large number do. According to the 2015 Monitoring the Future survey, around 35 percent of U.S. twelfth graders used alcohol in the past month.

Even more alarming is the number of people binge drinking. Binge drinking involves drinking a great deal of alcohol in a short amount of time. Typically, this amounts to number five or more of drinks for men in two hours and four drinks for women in the same time period.

Binge drinking is particularly dangerous because it introduces a great amount of alcohol into the body in a short amount of time. The liver and other organs do not have the ability to process alcohol as thoroughly as thy usually do because the amount of alcohol bombarding them.

Despite these dangers, it seems as if different groups (such as high school and college students) celebrate binge drinking. They may joke and even brag about their drinking and the consequences of their drinking.

But these conversations are making light of practices that can be extremely dangerous, especially for people who are new to drinking. If people haven’t eaten, are using other mind-altering substances, or are vulnerable in other ways, they could be putting themselves at even great risk.

There are many dangers in the world. Binge drinking and similar practices can create additional, needless dangers.