Alcohol- some call it their only friend, others call it their guilty pleasure. According to SPARKS, a majority of Elon students drink at least once or less a week.
"The majority of students who go out and drink are the students who will always be drinking," said Erica Young, SPARKS Peer Educator.
Mixed drinks are becoming increasingly popular amongst college students. Some students try to get drunk faster by having mixed drinks. Other students prefer mixed drinks for variety.
"When making a mixed drink it's easy to be like 'oh I'll put a little but of this in there, maybe a little bit of that,' because it is based on taste," said Julia Denick, SPARKS Peer Educator.
But students might want to think about what they are mixing their mixed drinks with. According to a study by scientists at Northern Kentucky University, people who mix with diet soda get more drunk faster than people who mix with sugary drinks.
Researchers made two drinks with the potency of four. After both drinks were downed in 10 minutes, people who drank the diet cola mixed beverage had a higher Blood Alcohol Content.
Those who drank the diet cola mixed beverage had a BAC of .091. Those who drank the sugary mixed beverage had a BAC of .077.
The researchers sampled 16 people. They say the 18% difference in BAC is because the sugar in regular soda slows down how fast alcohol is consumed. Since there is no sugar in diet soda, there is nothing to slow down the consumer drinking.