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Posts Tagged ‘drinking’

Source: NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COMBY JOE GREENE
Wednesday, 15 February 2012

I could probably do a better job writing this story if I had consumed some vodka first.

Scientists from the University of Chicago concluded in a recent study that men who are under the influence, but also not legally drunk, were faster and more creative in solving word association problems than men who were sober.

The study, published online in Consciousness and Cognition on Jan. 28, said that sober men approached the task more deliberately, according to psychology graduate student Andrew Jarosz.

This could be why many musicians and artists claim to be more creative after imbibing, researcher Jennifer Wiley was quoted as saying on Gizmodo.com.
“A composer or artist fixated on previous work may indeed find creative benefits from intoxication,” Wiley said.

In the study, two groups of 20 social drinkers were asked to perform a creative problem-solving task, according to an article on the study in sciencenews.org, and the results from both groups were comparable.

Then, both groups watched an animated movie. The volunteers in one of the groups ate a snack and drank enough of a vodka cranberry drink to bring their blood alcohol level just under the 0.08 percent legal limit; the other group of volunteers didn’t eat or drink.

Both groups then took part in another creative problem-solving task. Those with a buzz solved more questions on average, and did so in less time, than those who were clear-headed.

The results of the study support findings of a group at the University of Missouri in Columbia. Psychologist J. Scott Saults’ team related that individuals under the influence become less afraid to make mistakes, which could increase creativity, sciencenews.org reported.

So drink up, and start writing.

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Source: ANI

Date: September 30, 2010

A new study has found that due to various factors, including social, economic and ethnic influences and pressures, more people are drinking than 20 years ago. A UT Southwestern Medical Center analysis of national alcohol consumption patterns gathered the data from more than 85,000 respondents.

The findings, Dr. Raul Caetano said, suggest that continuous monitoring of alcohol consumption levels is needed to understand better the factors that affect consumption. “Changes in the population due to aging, the influx of immigrant groups, and a decline in mean income level because of economic recessions can all impact trends in drinking and problems associated with drinking,” he said.

While more Caucasians, Hispanics and African-Americans reported drinking between 1992 and 2002, only Caucasian women consumed more drinks per person. The number of drinks that African-Americans and Hispanics consumed leveled out over the 10-year time period. Dr. Caetano said the team also identified several sociodemographic predictors for whether someone was more likely to drink to intoxication. They found that males younger than 60 who did not have a college degree were likely to consume more drinks per month. Being unemployed or unmarried also were identified as risk factors for males getting intoxicated more than once a month, he said.

For the study, the researchers culled data from the 1991-92 National Longitudinal Alcohol Epidemiologic Survey and the 2001-02 National Epidemiologic Study on Alcohol and Related Conditions. The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism conducted both surveys, in which trained interviewers spoke with individuals 18 or older in the respondents’ homes. The interviewers used a standardized questionnaire, so both surveys used the same overall methodology. Each study included about 43,000 participants.

The study has been published in the October issue of Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research. (ANI)

Click here to learn about the effects of alcohol consumption.

Source: Record Searchlight

By: Scott Mobley

Date: September 29, 2010

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has signed legislation championed by a Redding family whose daughter died from alcohol poisoning.

Assembly Bill 1999 would grant limited immunity from prosecution to underage drinkers seeking medical help for themselves or their peers.

Anthony Portantino (D-La Cañada/Flintridge) introduced the bill in February, noting several underage drinkers have recently died of alcohol poisoning. They might have survived had their friends not been afraid to call an ambulance, he said.

Debbie Allen, whose 17-year-old daughter Shelby Lyn Allen died of alcohol poisoning just before Christmas 2008, has supported and publicized the bill.

“Not everyone will need this,” Allen said. “But some underage drinkers are afraid to get help because they don’t want to get into trouble, and this takes the trouble out of the picture. Whatever it takes to save a life.”

An underage drinker who calls 911 to report possible alcohol poisoning and cooperates with paramedics and law enforcement once they arrive will be immune from prosecution, under the law. Underage drinking is otherwise a misdemeanor.

AB 1999 is a companion to another bill Schwarzenegger signed in August that eliminates immunity for adults who knowingly supply alcohol to minors.

Allen and her husband, Steve, had also sought the “social host” law, written by Los Angeles Democrat Mike Feuer.

Shelby Allen, a popular Foothill High School junior, was found dead on a bathroom floor at the home of Wallace and Debby Liberman east of Redding.

Shelby Allen died after a bout of intense drinking with the Libermans’ now 18-year-old daughter and another teen. The rest of the Liberman family slept upstairs while the teens drank, sheriff’s deputies said.

Shasta County prosecutors had charged the Liberman teen with involuntary manslaughter in Allen’s death, but a juvenile court judge dismissed the case in November.

The Record Searchlight has not identified the teen because she was a minor when her friend died.

Shelby Allen became ill after drinking 15 shots of vodka in about an hour, according to a court document.

Allen’s two friends took her into the bathroom where she vomited into the toilet. Allen eventually passed out on her knees with her head resting on the toilet seat.

The girls put a towel under her so she could lie on it, the document said.

The Liberman teen stayed with Allen until she believed her friend was fine and checked on her two times before morning. Allen had not moved, according to the court document.

The third girl, who had also become ill, checked Allen later in the morning and thought she wasn’t breathing, according to the court document.

An older sister of the Liberman teen alerted her father, who called 911 and began CPR.

Learn how to how to prevent underage drinking in an alcohol establishment.