Daily Mail - Booze makes students happy, shock: Survey finds binge drinking puts...

[edgarshade]

Booze makes students happy, shock: Survey finds binge drinking puts students in a better mood

By Laura Cox

PUBLISHED: 14:04, 20 August 2012

With reader comments

• Students who binge drink say they are happier than those who do not
• Study based on 1,595 undergraduates
• Worrying for medical experts given the known dangers of excess drinking
• Every year more than 696,000 students are assaulted by another student who has been drinking each year
• More than 400,000 have unprotected sex as a result of their drinking each year
• Around 25 per cent of college students report academic consequences of their drinking

It might sound like the whimsical argument of an underage drinker, trying to convince their parents of the merits of beer, but excess boozing really is good for you, a new study has found.

Binge drinking college students claim to be happier than their sober classmates, according to a report released at the Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association in Denver on Monday.

The results make troubling reading for medical experts, given the known dangers of binge drinking, defined as knocking back more than four drinks per session for females or five for males.

More...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...binge-drinking-puts-students-better-mood.html

 

[23536]

students who party and fuck a lot are happier than students who don't? Shocking!

 

[AlphaMethylPhenyl]

Wait so because they're happier that makes it good for them?

 

[thujone]

It doesn't count as news when the source is tabloid garbage

 

[MrPorter]

"based on 1,595 undergraduates", "More than 400,000 have unprotected sex as a result of their drinking each year"

Either I'm understanding this wrong or each student is having sex 250 times a year. That's like every day except weekends

 

[NeighborhoodThreat]

You're not understanding it correctly. The survey was done with a sample of 1,595 undergraduates. Not 400,000 undergraduates. It is called a "sample" for a reason.

 

[AlphaMethylPhenyl]

Hope they had a representative sample...

 

[slimvictor]

It is important to note that there are two intertwined reasons why binge drinking could be linked to happiness.
The first is simply the intake of the drugs: the alcohol makes them happy.
The second has to do with social things - other people drink, I drink with them, I feel connected and enjoy my life with friends - and this seems to be the relevant factor.
If cannabis and other (at least "lighter than alcohol") drugs were legal, it could remove most of the health- and behavior-related problems that the article describes as being associated with alcohol, but people could still get the benefits from connecting with a society of peers.

 

[Voxide]

Wait so because they're happier that makes it good for them?

This.



What an idiotic study.

 

[23536]

^^I don't think drug laws are holding college students back from smoking as much weed as they want to smoke.

One way to remove alcohol from this scene is to flood it with MDMA (or a similar substance).

 

[Dresden]

I bet MDMA users are even happier than binge drinkers. Meth users too, probably.

 

[Voxide]

I bet MDMA users are even happier than binge drinkers. Meth users too, probably.

Yeah, definitely

8)


Big claims require big evidence so lets see some. Personal anecdotes don't count.

 

[slimvictor]

^ I don't see where Dresden made any claims at all.
Just conjecture.
No evidence is necessary to make a conjecture, right?
After all, this is a discussion, not a court of law or a science journal.

 

[Voxide]

^ I don't see where Dresden made any claims at all.
Just conjecture.
No evidence is necessary to make a conjecture, right?
After all, this is a discussion, not a court of law or a science journal.

Semantics.

Anyway, that bet would be lost.

 

[qwe]

voxide, i assume you're sitting on proof that MDMA (in particular) can lead a person to that kind of room (not due to ignorance of emergency staff and doctors) in a significant (for discussion) number of cases of taking MDMA.

i don't think it makes you crazy, or puts holes in your brain. i think that, used with minimal harm reduction knowledge, it could improve relationships.

 

[Solide]

What a shocker, my worldview has been shattered.

Anyway, with the current treshold for defining binge-drinking this study means absolutely nothing

The results make troubling reading for medical experts, given the known dangers of binge drinking, defined as knocking back more than four drinks per session for females or five for males.

more than four drinks per session for females or five for males

four or five drinks per session

I know we're in a different scene here from mainstream society, so my/our view on 'binging' might be a little warped when you read things about people going on week-long stimming sprees, facerolling MDMA parties, ego-diluting dissociative submersion and amnesia-inducing benzo abuse .. But it can't be just me that thinks 4-5 drinks barely qualifies as an intoxicating amount of alcohol, never mind 'binge-drinking quantities'.

I might be paranoid here, but I just get the feeling that they're trying to shame people into getting intoxicated at all by giving the minimum amount of alcohol to get you slightly drunk a negative connotation. I feel there's alot of doctors, and ofcourse people in general, out there that have taken 'health' as some sort of pseudo-religion. Like Abrahamic religions there's only one way of living (the healthy way/ religious way) and that lifestyle is the only acceptable one because it grants you what they think is the ultimate Good (healthy longevity / afterlife) while those that don't adhere to the rules are people that need to be 'cured and converted' (give up their unhealthy habits / heathen lifestyle) for their own good because they just don't realise that their way of life is wrong. Maybe I'm seeing things that aren't there, but with the decline of the significance of religion in Western society I sometimes think that the human need for spirituality tries to fill that void by latching on to other beliefs that provide a purpose, a direction and a way of life. I know I could be wrong, I haven't given it that much thought but it's a feeling that a sometimes get by reading articles like this.


Edit:

voxide, i assume you're sitting on proof that MDMA (in particular) can lead a person to that kind of room (not due to ignorance of emergency staff and doctors) in a significant (for discussion) number of cases of taking MDMA.

i don't think it makes you crazy, or puts holes in your brain. i think that, used with minimal harm reduction knowledge, it could improve relationships.

I'm pretty sure that's a prison cell, not a psych ward room.