The climb to independence for young adults can be the most enriching periods of one’s life, and perhaps also one of the most dangerous.

“The tendency to overdue happens because they don’t know their limits, and they don’t have an appreciation for the consequences,” Riverland Community College counselor and state representative Jeanne Poppe said.

For binge drinkers, the consequences have proven deathly for at least six Minnesotans, which tied the state with North Carolina for the third-most drinking deaths between 1999 and 2004, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.

Texas and California topped the list with 18 and 16.

An analysis by the Associated Press found that 157 college-age people ages 18-23 drank themselves to death between 1995 and 2005. Eighty-three of them were younger than 21.

Poppe said the desire for risk, for acceptance and for independence often drive crazed drinking habits among young people, who often times are on their own for the first time when entering college, and ready to the experience to the limit.

“This is all part of what they think college is about,” Poppe said, adding that during freshmen orientation for one of her children, she and her husband were warned about the influence of alcohol on college-age students.

“They will find it, they will get access,” she said. “You do need to really attempt to parent from afar.”

This means conversation, according to Mower County public health nurse Dorothy Meyer, who said parents need to talk to their teenagers about the risk factors of alcohol use.

“Parents being willing to talk to their kids about the risks of alcohol — that’s a really important thing to have,” she said.

Public Health doesn’t have any programs in place to inform teens or advise parents on the issue, though Meyer said materials are available on the state health department Web site.

She said dinner time is a suitable environment for the discussion, adding that regular meals together often mean healthier children academically and emotionally.

“That’s probably one of the things that gets lost with families,” Meyer said.

Public health didn’t have countywide statistics about drinking deaths or habits, though Mower County Sheriff Terese Amazi said she hasn’t noticed a stark change in minor consumption citations or any college-age drinking deaths.

“We haven’t seen any here,” she said. “Ours have been more chronic alcoholics who basically drink themselves to the grave eventually.”

She did agree with Meyer, however, on the importance of parent involvement, particularly in regards to conversations about drinking games and their repercussions.

“These drinking games are very, very dangerous, and I don’t think kids know that,” Amazi said.

“A lot of these kids who are dying are four to five times the legal limit — they are shutting their bodies down,” she added. “They think it’s a game, but it isn’t.”

According to the Associated Press investigation, one practice — taking 21 shots on one’s 21st birthday — has been particularly lethal. In the seven-year span, 11 people died from alcohol consumption on their 21st birthday.

Freshman-age college students are particularly susceptible to overdosing. In addition, men represented more deaths than women.

Binge drinking is defined as a pattern that brings blood-alcohol concentration to 0.08 percent or higher — five or more drinks over two hours for men and four or more drinks over the same period for women.

Signs of alcohol poisoning may include vomiting, seizures, disorientation, slow or irregular breathing and clammy, pale or bluish skin.

Many times, friends will assist another home, where he or she is put to bed but never wakes up, so the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence advises those worried about an overdose to wake the person up, and if he or she doesn’t stir, call 911. They should also turn the person to prevent choking on vomit and stay with him or her until help arrives.