Is This Study On Alcohol Accurate?

[Eisbaer]

According to this study, getting drunk in mid-adolescence seems to reduce anxiety and also depression in individuals later in life, and improve the transition from adolescence into adulthood for males. Does anyone know of any other scientific evidence proving the study below to being correct or incorrect?

"Males who remained abstainers in adulthood were psychologically well-adjusted, but both male late beginners and males who remained abstainers showed a delayed entry into the adult role. Thus, getting drunk for the first time in mid-adolescence seems to be an ingredient in the normal developmental process in adolescent males."

"It has also been found that drinking in mid-adolescence is related to improved mental health in the long term (15). According to Silbereisen & Noack (13), alcohol use appears to facilitate integration into the peer group, which in turn may be responsible for a subsequent gain in self-esteem. "

"Mental health problems. In males, both late and early beginners had higher scores on the SCL-index than the abstainers and those whose debut age was close to the mean. Pair-wise comparisons (Scheffé test) revealed that males who were younger than 15 or older than 18 years of age at first intoxication, reported significantly more symptoms of anxiety and depression than the other males did. In females, the early beginners deviated from those had followed the mainstream, but the late beginners did not. There was a U-shaped association between age at first intoxication and the BCI-index in males, implying that the abstainers, as well as the early and late beginners, had poorer self-esteem than those in the middle range. Again, significant distinctions (Scheffé test) were found among males: The abstainers and those whose debut age was 14 or younger and 17 or older had poorer self-esteem than those who were 15 or 16 years old at their first intoxication. Age at first intoxication was unrelated to the BCI-index in females."

"An association between age at first intoxication and living with parents emerged when the respondents were 25 to 28 years old, but only in males. Thus, disproportionally many male abstainers and male late beginners continued to live with their parents in adulthood."

The study also says that..
"There were striking differences, however, between abstainers and late beginners"
However, it doesn't seem to mention any of the differences. Are there any differences between abstainers and late beginners?

Below is a link to the study. My quotes are from the "DRY adolescence 1996.doc" document which is available for download.
https://www.researchgate.net/public...psychosocial_maladjustment_in_young_adulthood

 

[kleinerkiffer]

Od - > N&PD

 

[sekio]

It makes sense, although with the caveat that (like any other "healthy" substance usage) this really applies more to moderate social drinking rather than binge drinking or alcohol dependency.

From what I've read, introducing the idea of responsible intoxicant relatively early, along with positive role models for alcohol usage, helps reinforce that it's just another normal facet of life. If instead alcohol and drugs are treated as a 'forbidden fruit' then almost all underage use will be in settings that exclude responsible adults, leading to much higher incidences of negative experiences (alcohol poisoning, arrests, delinquency, usage in settings like school etc). It's worth remembering that the idea of an 'acceptable drinking age' is a new invention....

Alcohol used in moderation has long been known as a 'social lubricant' and indeed is one of the only acceptable drugs to be used socially in the world, so it's not that far fetched that youths who use alcohol recreationally in a group setting would have better social development and probably less anxiety. The greater the amount of social interaction you have, the easier it gets, after all.

 

[serotonin2A]

There was a study that showed something similar with marijuana...I think specifically adolescents who experimented with marijuana tended to be more intelligent and more well adjusted. It isn't an effect of marijuana use (indeed, heavy marijuana use in teenagers tends to have the opposite effect), but rather that teenagers with high intelligence tend to be curious and open to new experiences.

 

[belligerent drunk]

^ yeah the correlation/causation here is reversed IMO. It's more likely that the more intelligent a person is, the more curious they are to try new things, and also do their own research to see that actually occasional substance use is far from unhealthy. Certainly has been the case in my first and second-hand experience.

 

[starting_over]

I always thought humans were like dogs... you should train them to be socially competent before they grow to be adults. Alcohol at house parties helps with that when you're a teenager.

 

[sekio]

For most people, sure, there's always a few outliers who don't seem to grasp the concept of "social" drinking though.

 

[Eisbaer]

So, if someone first got drunk at around 16, but alone, they would not experience any benefits?

The study may be slightly inaccurate by saying that only people from 15 to 18 experience benefits too, as the age range could be around of 14 to 22+? Since the brain does not fully mature until about 25..

 

[sekio]

I don't think this is a case of alcohol itself providing a pharmacological benefit, like its effects on heart disease in moderation. Rather, it seems to be more along the lines of: teens who engage with others socially are better-adjusted in older life, and alcohol use in moderation helps facilitate that.

 

[Cotcha Yankinov]

I imagine as you go younger and younger, the effects on the developing brain may start to outweigh the facilitory effects on social life.

There was a longitudinal study done on young drinkers that I can't exactly recall the results of but there were some significant effects on learning. I think some of these kids were frequent drinkers though, and going rather bingey at times.

An analogy that comes to mind is that cannabis may not straight up make you a "better" guitar player but it may make you interested in playing more guitar and listening to a variety of music that you may not have tried sober, and then you may be better/more creative at guitar.

 

[d1nach]

Correlation dpesnt equal causation theres a correlation between sleeping and dying dud you kniw over one third of people die in there sleep and almost one hundred percent of lethal injections contain hydrogen,di- monoxide