When People Drink Themselves Silly, and Why

[groovedaddy]

The urge to binge mindlessly, though it can strike at any time, seems to stir in the collective unconscious during the last weeks of winter. Maybe it’s the television images from places like Fort Lauderdale and Cabo San Lucas, of communications majors’ face planting outside bars or on beaches.

Or perhaps it’s a simple a case of seasonal affective disorder in reverse. Not SAD at all, but anticipation of warmth and eagerness for a little disorder.

Either way, researchers have had a hard time understanding binge behavior. Until recently, their definition of binge drinking — five drinks or more in 24 hours — was so loose that it invited debate and ridicule from some scholars. And investigators who ventured into the field, into the spray of warm backwash and press of wet T-shirts, often returned with findings like this one from a 2006 study: “Spring break trips are a risk factor for escalated alcohol use.”

Or this, from a 1998 analysis: “The men’s reported levels of alcohol consumption, binge drinking and intoxication were significantly higher than the women’s.”

In fact, the dynamics of bingeing may have more to do with personal and cultural expectations than with the number of upside-down margaritas consumed. In their classic 1969 book, “Drunken Comportment,” recently out in paperback, the social scientists Craig MacAndrew and Robert B. Edgerton wrote that the disconnect between the conventional wisdom on drunken behavior and the available evidence “is even now so scandalous as to exceed the limits of reasonable toleration.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/04/health/04mind.html?th&emc=th

[Taverner]

1. Binge Drinking =5 drinks in 24 hours????

What kind of f'd up logic is that?

By that logic, you could be a binge drinker and never even catch a buzz.

For example:

1pm: 1 glass of red wine

2:30pm: 1 glass of red wine

4pm: 1 glass of red wine

5:30: 1 glass of red wine

7pm: 1 glass of red wine

And poof! You're a binge drinker! Doesn't matter that you probably aren't even buzzed, and could drive safely by legal standards (you'd be under the .08 limit)

[Jim__]

2. The most surprising part of the article for me ...

... far and away:

The studies found that people who thought they were drinking alcohol behaved exactly as aggressively, or as affectionately, or as merrily as they expected to when drunk. “No significant difference between those who got alcohol and those who didn’t,” Alan Marlatt, the senior author, said. “Their behavior was totally determined by their expectations of how they would behave.”

I never would have guessed that.

[Hekate]

3. Drinking gives a lot of people "permission" to behave differently than they would otherwise...

...and an excuse the next morning. How interesting that the placebo effect extends even to drunken behavior!

I wonder if you even get a hangover off the placebo. :P

Hekate

[Hannah Bell]

4. I believe it. I noticed drunks in different countries

behave differently. Japanese, when they drink (& sometimes they drink until they're falling-down stupid), are happy & maudlin. Never saw a mean or violent drunk the 3 years I was there -- & I went to a lot of bars & functions.

[Warpy]

5. My ex just didn't have an "off" switch

and once he had one drink, he'd keep drinking until he started to puke and couldn't keep any more down. That's the state he was in when I left. He became a maintenance drinker after I left and his problems didn't.

I spotted it the first time I saw him drink and told him he was heading for alcoholism if he didn't watch out. Unfortunately, drinking was the way for a short and extremely intelligent man to fit into a group. Drinkers are easy, all you have to do is drink to fit in.

I'm glad to say he's since gotten sober. He was a good guy and I wish him well. The "friends of Bill" club is a lot healthier than the drinkers' club.

No matter what the reason for taking that first drink is, that lack of an "off" switch that tells the drinker he's had enough is what leads to binge drinking.

The warning signs are needing a lot more alcohol than most people to get a buzz, rarely having hangovers, and continuing to drink long after everyone else in a group has stopped, trying to chase that elusive buzz and either get it back or keep it going.