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

Turner further notes that, in the liminal phase of a rite of passage, the transitional state between childhood (or adolescence) and adulthood, individuals are "betwixt and between" ("Victor W. Turner", Wikipedia), that is, they do not belong to the society that they previously were a part of, yet they have not yet been reincorporated into another society ("Victor W. Turner"): "Liminality is a limbo, an ambiguous period characterized by humility, seclusion, tests, sexual ambiguity, and communitas. Communitas is defined as an unstructured community where all members are equal" [emphasis added] ("Victor W. Turner). While college and university binge drinkers, then, may in fact participate in a communitas of sorts (i.e., an unstructured community in which all members (i.e., student peers) are equal), binge drinking rituals nevertheless do not contain any of the other key characteristics that typically define rites of passage, e.g., humility; seclusion; tests; and sexual ambiguity. Therefore, binge drinking, in and of itself, can hardly be considered a legitimate rite of passage for college and university students. Instead, binge drinking is merely a (serious and growing) social problem.

In addition, the college years are typically a time when most students desire strongly to fit in on campus; to be well-liked and included, and to get along well with their friends, and their peer groups in general. Such widespread social beliefs about the "normality" of binge drinking, then, especially in such typically extremely socially-conscious campus milieu as college and university fraternities and sororities; clubs; and dormitories, may cause any number of eager-to-fit-in students to conclude to themselves, that, if binge drinking is in fact a "normal" rite of passage, for them not to engage in binge drinking along with their peers is "not normal". This is a harmful, and potentially injurious or even lethal, effect of peer pressure in college and university campuses (Clark, Durkin, and Wolfe, "Social Bond Theory and Binge Drinking among College Students: A Multivariate Analysis", 1999;

However, binge drinking is obviously quite far from being innocuous or harmless: for either the binge drinker himself or herself, or for others around the binge drinker. Binge drinking cannot be harmless, first, because binge drinkers may become quickly, seriously, and dangerously intoxicated and such intoxication then impairs both their normal physical capabilities (such as walking a straight line or driving a car safely) and their mental and emotional judgment (Oei and Morawska, 2004).

recognized components or factors; the second is their recombination in

The high incidence of traffic fatalities is the most visible alcohol-related

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