Binge drinking is often considered to be a rite of passage among many youths today, especially (and increasingly) on college and university campuses. Many others, however, consider binge drinking to be less of a college or university or harmless social ritual, or students' innocent "rite of passage" behavior , than it is a real, growing, social problem, with many destructive and self-destructive aspects. In this essay, I will argue that, while not all binge drinking always results in doing harm to oneself or others, binge drinking is in fact too often a risky, harmful, and destructive activity, and for that reason, it is much more of a social problem than it is a mere innocent rite of passage. .

             A "rite of passage" is, according to Wikipedia: "a ritual that marks a change in a person's social or sexual status. Rites of passage are often ceremonies surrounding events such as childbirth, menarche or other milestones within puberty, weddings, menopause, and death". Further, as anthropologist Victor Turner, a worldwide expert on adolescent and young adult rites of passage in multiple societies, states:.

             The communication of sacra [i.e., sacred lessons and understandings of a rite .

             of passage initiate's society] and other forms of esoteric instruction really .

             involves three processes . . . The first is the reduction of culture into .

             recognized components or factors; the second is their recombination in .

             fantastic or monstrous patterns and shapes; and the third is their .

             recombination in ways that make sense with regard to the new state and .

             status that the neophytes will enter. ("Dewey, Dilthey, and Drama: An Essay.

             on the Anthropology of Experience" (p. 37).

                 .

             Further, according to Turner, rite-of-passage structures typically consist a pre-liminal phase (e.g., a period of separation from an initiate's main society); a liminal phase (a transitional period of preparing for adult life in one's society), and a post-liminal phase (reincorporation, now as an adult, into one's society).