DRUNKITY DRUNK DRUNK:
Did you know that April is Alcohol Awareness Month? For those of you who aren’t already super duper aware of alcohol, as twitter suggests you are, the news is super duper aware of alcohol for you today.
ALL THE DRINKING LADIES: You may recall a study released a week or so ago which revealed that better educated women are nearly twice as likely to drink daily; perhaps ’cause we’re depressed about all that money we spent on college now that we’re unemployed anyhow. JK! Here’s why: Expert #1 says “better educated women may drink more because they have kids later in life and have more active social lives. They also hold down jobs in a workplace dominated by men, where drinking is more accepted.” OR, says Expert #2, “Women who hold a degree and a high-level job may handle workplace stress by using alcohol to numb themselves.” Expert #3? “Women who’ve gone through college may tend to drink more because they bear the brunt of caring for kids and households while holding down jobs.” What do you think?
DRUNK FRIENDS: Are your friends drunk? Then you probably are also drunk:
Using the Framingham Heart Study, which tracked more than 12,000 people for 30 years, researchers found that the influence of close friends and those in your extended social circle can have just as much effect on how much you drink as genetics and family history.
A person whose friend drinks heavily is 50 percent more likely to drink heavily himself. In fact, just having a friend of a friend who abuses alcohol makes you 36 percent more likely to do the same. The researchers hope this information will aid in the development of more efficient alcohol-treatment programs.
And, to think, all this research came from before the age of Facebook. Now cyber-acquaintances you have never even meet in real life can tempt you to drink by posting status updates and photos from their sloppy Friday night.
We’d like to take that a step further and suggest that friends can tempt you to drink by announcing on Facebook that they are having a drink right that minute — we can’t wait for the new studies that come out proving that the internet makes people drink more than they used to, ’cause they ain’t alone anymore.
And if you don’t drink, do you find the alcoholic internet kind of annoying sometimes?
DRUNK HOST: If I had Ryan Seacrest’s job, I would probably have to get really drunk every night too. But Seacrest is so squeaky-clean, there’s no possible way he’s pulling a Hey Paula OR IS HE? Is Ryan Seacrest getting drunk on American Idol?
DRUNK COLLEGE STUDENTS: Well at the University of Wisconsin at Stout, the kids are totally drinking too much and so the chancellor is cracking the fuck down:
The university would increase the number of classes held on Fridays in order to discourage Thursday drinking; empower the dean of students to deal more harshly with underage drinking (and its abettors) as well as other alcohol-related offenses; and step up its efforts with local law enforcement to crack down on off-campus house parties, which he considers havens for underage students looking for access to booze.
And the kids are, as you may expect, unimpressed and taking it to facebook.
DRUNK LADIES IN THE UK: Like in the UK, women are being celebrated for “saving pubs.” A study of 2,000 women showed that a THIRD went to a pub at least once a fortnight, usually down the local boozer rather than an upmarket high street chain. And it revealed that even more women would go to pubs if they served better quality food, had entertainment and less televised sport.” (@the sun)
DRUNK PRE-TEENS: A new study in the UK suggests that binge drinking as a teenager increases the risk of breast cancer. Apparently, in “some parts of the country,” 11-15 year old girls are consuming an up to a bottle and a half of wine per week. (@the telegraph uk)
Whether or not you plan to consume copious amounts of alcohol, you should come celebrate with people that usually do at the Go Magazine Nightlife Awards party in New York City on Tuesday, April 20th, with DJ Michelle Rodriguez.
NOT DRUNK, BUT GAY: Jennifer Storm, a former self-proclaimed BLOC (big lesbian on campus), returned to Penn State to talk about her book “Leave the Light On: A Memoir of Recovery and Self-Discovery,” which is about recovering from alcoholism and drug addiction. (@collegian)
JUST DRUNK: Meanwhile, this happened: Laura Hall, 20, has been barred from drinking at every pub, club and hotel in England and Wales. She is also prohibited from purchasing alcohol at shops, supermarkets and off-licenses, under the terms of a drinking banning order, police said. (@telegraph uk)
JUST STUPID: Hey stoner – don’t light your alcohol-filled bong: In New Mexico, a man set his mobile home on fire after lighting a bong he’d cleaned out with alcohol. (@nbc)
FOUR SQUARE:
Twanna “Funky Brown Chick” Hines loves FourSquare so much that CNN followed her to a coffee shop just to talk about it! FourSquare honestly petrifies the hell out of me, as I actually stopped reporting my whereabouts on Twitter about a year ago because it freaked me out! But Autostraddle COO Brooke loves it, that’s how we all know she went to The Abbey six times in one week last month. (@cnn)
ANTI-GAY DAY:
Exodus International has kindly set aside an entire day to educate people about the ‘truth’ that they are douchebags:
“Thousands of Christian students are participating in the sixth annual Day of Truth Thursday, a student-led initiative that seeks to encourage peer-level conversations about relationships and biblical sexuality.”
This is of course in response to Friday’s Gay Day of Silence. Thousands of public schools will allow students to sponsor an anti-bullying “Day of Silence” to raise awareness abotu anti-gay bullying. It’s sponsored by GLSEN. Family organizations say it’s a waste of taxpayer dollars. Silence is expensive you guys.
NYC LGBT COMMUNITY CENTER: Police are investigating after a burned rainbow flag was discovered Wednesday morning outside the NYC LGBT Center. The flag was hanging off a poster display case in front of the building. Employees at the center say they have received threatening phone calls and letters in the past but nothing like this has happened before. (@gaycenter)
BE QUEER, BUY QUEER:
Hey, college queers! Have you submitted to OUTmedia and Campus Pride’s Be Queer, Buy Queer project yet? The 4/15 deadline is fast approaching! If you need a little inspiration, check out this video on what BQBQ is all about, and then get going!
EDIT: The deadline has been extended! Send in your videos through 4/26! Voting will be 4/27-4/29.
The trouble with punishing people for being offensive is who gets to decide whats offensive. And don´t drunks deserve pity not wrath.
Oh dear, all that drunk talk makes me feel guilty. I actually worry sometimes that me and my mates drink too much. Every single one of us is an Irish stereotype, social life here is pretty much entirely centered on the pub so I think that’s one of the routes of the problem. Also, people in my college course (im studying to be a veterinarian) are so stressed and highly strung booze is just a stress release. Anyway, fuckit, I guess we’re not doing anyone any harm I suppose, (besides ourselves!) and I do love cider and vodka, and it’s not like we’re going to change any time soon so no point in me trying to rationalise it!
I’m a theatre major. Drinking is part of our culture. So clearly, everyone I know drinks, and everyone they know drinks, so I drink.
I think I just proved that study way, way right. Which is totally fine by me.
Yesterday was my 21st birthday. (In the middle of Alcohol Awareness month? Too perfect) Obvs I went out last night, despite it being a Wednesday…
Today, I miraculously feel completely fine, but I am coughing up tequila from my lungs. Not joking. I didn’t know that was possible until I noticed that all I taste is tequila after a cough. Best hangover ever.
I keep reading the fix title as, “Drinking While Female Educated.” I’m not even sure what my brain thinks that’s supposed to mean. But she’ll probs regret it tomorrow.
i don’t drink the alcohol (anymore). i’m probably the only person here who doesn’t. amirite? i’m a special unicorn!
i DO find the ‘alcoholic internet’(aka facebook) annoying sometimes. mainly because while everyone else is drinking their feelings, i’m stuck processing mine. also people get super annoyed/confused when they find out i don’t drink. it’s bizarre.
youmaybepartiallyrite. I also don’t drink, but it’s not that i don’t do it anymore, i just never have. When i was little i made a sort of ‘straight edge’ vow to myself (without any subcultural affiliation, of course)… I just really don’t know why. I also don’t drink coffee, or energy drinks. I also need to work on this, probably.
So i guess the only reason why the ‘alcoholic internet’ annoys me sometimes is because it reminds me that i basically haven’t changed since I was around six years old.
I have never gotten the annoyed reaction from people, only the mildly confused or the condescending “awww, such an innocent creature, lets teach her the ways!” kind of attitudes.
[you’re still a special unicorn though, you just have to believe!]
I totally read that BQBQ as BBQ and now I’m starving. Sorry for the shallow and immature comment but I can’t think past burgers and macaroni salad now. :-{
The 4/15 deadline is fast approaching!
It’s nearly 4/16 so I think if anyone was planning on submitting they’re pretty much out of time.
funny you should mention that! the deadline has been extended to 4/26.
hello i am actually literally drunk right now. sorry kristina. also it’s a thursday sooooo i guess it’s good that i don’t go to the university of wisconsin stout. also maybe this is obvious/i’m dumb but maybe better educated women drink more b/c they make more money and alcohol is expensive. seriously i have to budget that in.
oh don’t be sorry! i support the drunkenness of team autostraddle 100%.
First, how funny is it that they are cracking down on drinking at the University of Wisconsin – STOUT. Or am I the only one who is that easily amused?
Second, is that once a fortnight kinda low or is it just the Brits that I know?
Really though, who doesn’t have at least a friend of a friend with a drinking problem?
Reading this feels kind of spooky, seeing as I spent the large part of yesterday afternoon thinking about how much I wanted to go to the pub, just by virtue of it being slightly sunny.
If I had to hazard my own guess about why drinking has increased, I’d have to pull a Daily Mail and say house prices. Seriously, over the last five years my pub-going frequency has plummeted, and this can’t be put down to getting more mature, no, it’s because most of my friends now own houses, so all their money goes on mortgages instead of drink. However, the average first-time buyer age is rising due to the ridiculous expensiveness of it all, which means that the homeowner-dullness stage of life takes slightly longer to kick in.
Also, the people trying to link higher education with higher alcohol consumption might be forgetting how much universities are centred more around getting acquainted with beverages than books. When I rolled up at my uni college, there were banners proudly proclaiming “Everybody’s got to learn to drink sometime” and “You’re here for a good time, not a long time.” I can’t pretend I didn’t take that advice to heart.
Ultimately, I blame the Victorians and the lingering remnants of their sexual oppression which has created a drunken-shag-first, ask-questions-later attitude to sex in the UK, thus putting alcohol in a central role in social encounters.
But you know what the trouble is? It’s that the only place to truly dissect this, and other bizarre theories, is in the pub, which is where you’ll find me from noon…
Ha, that’s exactly what I was thinking yesterday, the sun appeared briefly through a cloud and I instantly thought Bulmers time! (Magners for the Brits) Maybe that’s effective advertising for you as that’s exactly what cider makers promote-drinking outside when it’s sunny!
Also, on another point, the government here has been trying their absolute best to reduce fun and drinking…..theres new licencing laws where all off licences are closed at 10 (!) and all clubs close at 2.30 and 1am on Sundays and they’ve added taxes to booze so that it’s fecking expensive….and yet we still drink excessively. We’ve found ways around these religious based idiocy laws and we drink at home before we go out and we have lock in’s on Sundays and keep the clubs open until the police arrive and the club gets fined! And to open late on the weekend the pub has to go to court EVERY WEEK to apply for a late licence, they’re trying to kill pubs and they’re succeding with straight pubs, the gay ones are thriving because gays are used to being clandestine as being gay was only made legal in 1993, but the straight ones are shutting down every single day. :-(
Here we have one of the strictest laws on alcahol in the western world. But we just evade it, with time you´ll learn the cracks of the system. But i guess the rule of law is not taken literaly here. (IF TAX EVASION WAS AN OLYMPIC SPORT!! We WOULD COME, SEE, AND CONQUER.)
Oh really, an where is that, the States? Oh, I had no idea actually! Ha, we do manage to find the cracks and if it wasnt for exams coming up soon id probably be drunk right now, im drunk a surprising amount on AS, but when you’ve been drinking vodka and red bull all night and cant sleep what else would I be doing besides nerding it out on the net! :-D
Iceland
Oh sorry, I assumed the US for no reason at all! I also heard booze is fierce expensive over there, my mate visited recently and paid 12 Euro for one pint, insanity, although maybe she was in some tourist trap!
Oh, and p.s: thanks very much Iceland, because of YOUR volcano erupting all flights in Ireland and the UK are grounded until Monday, tut tut! :-P
Five euros are the average now i think.
This volcano is a tiny one. We have much much bigger ones that might erupt. And don´t worry the last time this volcano erupted it was just over a year so no grief then.
It must be the way the wind was blowing because we got all the fecking ash, there’s no flights at all at the minute, even Whitney Houston, who was due to play a gig here tomorrow, had to get the ferry over!
Anyway, all this talk of pints and things has given me a craving, im off to the pub! :-D
UPDATE: Wooo pints! :-D
is it bad that my first reponse to this was: ONLY a third of women go to the pub once a fortnight? that seems low to me. I’m going to make myself feel better and assume they polled women of all ages and the OAPs brough the average way down, because my granny definitely doesn’t go that often. she saves it for monthly karaoke.
Trying to crack down on drunk college students seems less appealing than babysitting Sarah Palin’s kids. My school is trying to do the same thing, only instead of increasing Friday classes they make freshmen take an online course about alcohol. Because that’s effective. More classes on Friday’s just means more hungover/still drunk students in class. Or more absences, whatever.
The stoner lighting up his alcohol-infused bong reminds me of a time a kid at my high school lit his face on fire after trying to take a flaming shot of Everclear. Ah, humanity.
I saw a video once of a kid who took a flaming shot and lit his face on fire- and then his friend poured MORE BOOZE on him in an attempt to douse the flames.
anyway, the first two oversights I saw to the why educated women drink more were already mentioned by rachel and sally- and they’re reasons that seem a lot more likely than the ones the experts thought of.
There were kids sniffing gas in a shack around where i lived. afterwards somebody lit up a cigarette. Didn´t go well.