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—To compare drinking patterns among college freshmen with those found among students at similar schools 12 years ago, and to describe in detail the differences between "binge" drinkers and "nonbinge" drinkers.

—Mailed survey.

—Fourteen 4-year colleges in Massachusetts.

—A total of 1669 first-year college students.

—The survey instrument contains a variety of self-report measures of drinking behaviors, attitudes, and consequences. "Binge" drinking is defined as the consumption of five or more drinks on one or more occasions in the past 2 weeks.

—The proportion of "frequent-heavy" drinkers remained constant between the 1977 and 1989 surveys (30% vs 31% of men; 13% vs 14% of women), but today's students get intoxicated more often and are more motivated to drink to get drunk. The proportion of students who said "to get drunk" …