Land of the drunkards?

Pi1otguy

Pi1otguy

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http://www.cdc.gov/vitalsigns/BingeDrinking/index.html
CDC said:
More than 38 million US adults binge drink*, about 4 times a month, and the largest number of drinks per binge is on average 8.
(snip)

  • Age group that binge drinks most often: 65+ years
  • Income group with most binge drinkers: more than $75,000
  • Most people who binge drink are not alcohol dependent or alcoholics.
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Must say, I'm actually surprised at this among the other findings. What does this mean?
 
It means the government does not recognize a beneficial return on the alcohol tax, so they might as well outlaw drinking.
 
Just drift the thread in to drunk piloting and then you'll be good.
 
I'm pretty sure they define binge drinking as a day where you consume 5 drinks or more. I had this stuff shoved down my throat when I was in college. Its required you take anti-drinking courses these days. Also interesting that my state college requires you to have health insurance. If you don't have any, you get automatically enrolled in their insurance plan which is $500. This is even for part time students who just want to take one class. I wonder which politician got paid off for that one.



By the way, what does this mean;

and the largest number of drinks per binge is on average 8.
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The average is 8? "largest number on average" makes no sense to me.

In the article it mentions that binge drinking can cause AIDS, Unplanned pregnancy, other STD's. I wonder how that happens!
 
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Actually, no surprise at all... the notion of binge drinking was made popular by the elites in Britain originally (in the late 1700's), and remains the most common again in the elite classes. Similarly here, the wealthier and more established tend to be more into the practice.
 
Also interesting to note that many of the states that have higher binge drinking are located in really cold areas of the continental US.
 
If only those who drank too much would slow down a bit, and those who really need to have one now and again would partake, all would be well.
 
Sac Arrow said:
Just drift the thread in to drunk piloting and then you'll be good.
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What does this mean to future pilots? CDC says drink contributes to 54 illnesses/injuries so in theory that'd shrink the pool of eligible pilots. Would this be the straw that breaks GA's back?

dell30rb said:
I'm pretty sure they define binge drinking as a day where you consume 5 drinks or more.
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Yup. 5+ for mean, 4+ for women "in a short period of time".

The average is 8? "largest number on average" makes no sense to me.
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Means, when the average binge drinker goes to their limit for an all out binge, they have 8 drinks. Presumably their "normal" binge is less.

In the article it mentions that binge drinking can cause AIDS, Unplanned pregnancy, other STD's. I wonder how that happens!
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They're drinking it wrong? :confused:
 
anyone else notice they say 'in a short period of time' then never define that period of time with a number?

as best i can tell short period of time means 24 hours since they say no more than two drinks per day for guys and one for women. of course the other side of that is they probably say if you drink at least two drinks a day as a man or one drink a day as a woman you're an alcoholic.
 
Goals of the folks who write these studies:
1 - Get more funding
2 - Be condescending
3 - Sensationalize stuff
4 - Provide excuses to limit freedom
5 - Get more funding
 
So let's see: 65+, bringing in $75k+, 5 or more servings of alcohol a few times a month.

Who the hell stole my retirement idea?

Oh wait, no mention of being an ex-pat on a beach down south.

Never mind. :)
 
Another attempt to redefine socially acceptable behaviour as a disease.

5/4 drinks in one setting 4 times a month


As done so frequently, you use numbers gained with an unrelated dataset (90,000 injuires due to alcohol including chronic alcoholics) and use them to inflate the importance of the findings you created with your dataset (the binge drinkers). Then you pick out some meaningless numbers and print them in bold.

The headline '5 drinks/evening every saturday has no ill health or social effects' wont get you funding for the next study.
 
#'1 & #2 may be facts. #3 is an OPINION. My opinion is that binge drinkers ARE a form of alcoholic's. Been there done that. Dave
 
Ddayle said:
#'1 & #2 may be facts. #3 is an OPINION. My opinion is that binge drinkers ARE a form of alcoholic's. Been there done that. Dave
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Its my opinion that binge drinkers are generally alcoholics too, although I think this study is very suspect in how it classifies binge drinking.

IMO:

The person who does not touch the stuff during the week but turns into a monster on saturday night after 5+ drinks has a binge drinking problem that needs to be addressed.

The person who has between 1-3 drinks on an average night (accepted level for no ill health effects), and once a week or less has 5-8 drinks responsibly (ex, no driving, shenanigans) does not have a binge drinking problem.

Under this study both of the above people would be classified as a binge drinker.
 
Ddayle said:
#'1 & #2 may be facts. #3 is an OPINION. My opinion is that binge drinkers ARE a form of alcoholic's. Been there done that. Dave
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Doctors have criteria for assessing alcoholism. Things like someone having lost a job due to their drinking, having an "eye-opener", etc...

I think there might even be a liver enzyme level you can test for to aid in the diagnosis.

For some people recreation use of certain substances is impossible. For instance, I cannot casually smoke cigarettes. I either smoke zero or a pack plus a day. So I smoke zero cigarettes.

Other people can occasionally use recreational chemicals without the same risk of dependency. There are a lot of factors that go into this and I'll guess that genetics are a factor. I know friends who only smoke cigarettes while drinking, which is totally foreign to me. That doesn't make them "smokers" by any means.

We are all beholden to our point of view. But just like Obi Wan Kenobi told Luke, the truth depends greatly on which point of view you take.
 
dell30rb said:
The person who does not touch the stuff during the week but turns into a monster on saturday night after 5+ drinks has a binge drinking problem that needs to be addressed.

The person who has between 1-3 drinks on an average night (accepted level for no ill health effects), and once a week or less has 5-8 drinks responsibly (ex, no driving, shenanigans) does not have a binge drinking problem.

Under this study both of the above people would be classified as a binge drinker.
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The interesting question is what would happen if you 1-3 drink per 'average night' example would have change his habits for a couple of days, e.g. after a motor vehicle accident :wink2: .
 
As of 2012, the United States has a total resident population of 312,858,000, making it the third most populous country in the world.
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So 38 million is about 12% of US population that drinks an average of 8 drinks every weekend according to the claim. I just don't live in that neighborhood. Do you?
 
weilke said:
The interesting question is what would happen if you 1-3 drink per 'average night' example would have change his habits for a couple of days, e.g. after a motor vehicle accident :wink2: .
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I don't quite understand what you're saying here.
 
all i'm seeing is the Binge drinkers are saving up their 2 drinks a day for men and one for women until the weekend when they don't have to worry about going to work the next day.

sounds somewhat responsible to me, though according to the CDC i'm wrong.
 
I'll drink to that!


:)
 
dell30rb said:
I don't quite understand what you're saying here.
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That it is my experience that many of the 1-3 drink/day category social drinkers for some reason start running into full blown withdrawal 24hrs into a hospital admission. This suggests either that the chemically addictive properties of alcohol kick in in at a lot lower of a level than previously thought, or that alcoholics are g#@@G%% liars who will routinely minimize their regular intake whenever asked.

(I am saying that someone who admits 1-3 drinks every day and a 8 every weekend is probably an alcoholic)
 
Pi1otguy said:
http://www.cdc.gov/vitalsigns/BingeDrinking/index.html

Must say, I'm actually surprised at this among the other findings. What does this mean?
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"SOURCE: 2010 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System Combined Landline and Cell Phone Developmental Dataset, adults aged 18 and older, US"

I think it means both their methodology and unstated assumptions might have problems.


More on their telephone surveys here: http://www.cdc.gov/brfss/index.htm


Here is the document that contains the survey questions (just section 13 with 5 questions relate to alcohol):
http://www.cdc.gov/brfss/questionnaires/pdf-ques/2010brfss.pdf

​
 
Drachen596 said:
anyone else notice they say 'in a short period of time' then never define that period of time with a number?
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According to the CDC's FAQ:

What is binge drinking?
According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism binge drinking is defined as a pattern of alcohol consumption that brings the blood alcohol concentration (BAC) level to 0.08% or more. This pattern of drinking usually corresponds to 5 or more drinks on a single occasion for men or 4 or more drinks on a single occasion for women, generally within about 2 hours.
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Next question: did they really go out and test everyone's BAC for this survey? :wink2:
 
Joe B said:
Next question: did they really go out and test everyone's BAC for this survey? :wink2:
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No - it was atelephone survey. None of the 5 questions used the phrase "short period of time." The web page in the first post of this thread invented that concept.
 
Morne said:
Goals of the folks who write these studies:
1 - Get more funding
2 - Be condescending
3 - Sensationalize stuff
4 - Provide excuses to limit freedom
5 - Get more funding
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Sounds like a global warming/climate change apocalypse study to me...
 
HPNPilot1200 said:
Maybe the CDC doesn't consider underage folks "adults." That would probably skew the numbers quite a bit.
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I don't think they would change the numbers, in fact I doubt CDC left their statistic out. Typically underage will more gravitate to pot and crack because it's easier to get and cheaper to get high.
 
weilke said:
That it is my experience that many of the 1-3 drink/day category social drinkers for some reason start running into full blown withdrawal 24hrs into a hospital admission. This suggests either that the chemically addictive properties of alcohol kick in in at a lot lower of a level than previously thought, or that alcoholics are g#@@G%% liars who will routinely minimize their regular intake whenever asked.

(I am saying that someone who admits 1-3 drinks every day and a 8 every weekend is probably an alcoholic)
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If you are taking my example to the extreme.. 3 a day plus 8 on the weekends I agree with you, however that was not how I intended the example to be interpreted. I used 1-3 b/c in an alcohol education course I took they said that number had no ill health effects... Not necessarily implying that the person would drink every single night
 
dell30rb said:
If you are taking my example to the extreme.. 3 a day plus 8 on the weekends I agree with you, however that was not how I intended the example to be interpreted. I used 1-3 b/c in an alcohol education course I took they said that number had no ill health effects... Not necessarily implying that the person would drink every single night
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The problem is that the person who tells you about 1 often enough as 3, the person who as 3 has 5 every night.

In my book, the person who has 6 drinks over the course of an evening, maintains socially acceptable behaviour, walks home or takes a cab and suffers no ill effects on his health, life or professional standing (be it pilots or other professional licenses), does not suffer from a disease, no matter how hard the grant driven addiction research system wants to make it so.
 
weilke said:
The problem is that the person who tells you about 1 often enough as 3, the person who as 3 has 5 every night.

In my book, the person who has 6 drinks over the course of an evening, maintains socially acceptable behaviour, walks home or takes a cab and suffers no ill effects on his health, life or professional standing (be it pilots or other professional licenses), does not suffer from a disease, no matter how hard the grant driven addiction research system wants to make it so.
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Yup. Just more nanny state social engineering crap brought to you by some useless idiots tying to get more grant money. Maybe if a bunch of us were to kick down the doors of the CDC and bust a few kneecaps, perhaps they'd think twice before attempting to pick our pockets.
 
I'm still figuring out which disease they're trying to "control" with this study. Hard to control legal self-poisoning.
 
denverpilot said:
I'm still figuring out which disease they're trying to "control" with this study. Hard to control legal self-poisoning.
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It doesn't matter, it has nothing to do with disease and everything to do with control. Everybody wants to make the world the way they want it, and for the most part, humans are as scared as rabbits. So they want laws to keep them safe. As soon as a large quantity of people don't want their limitations because they aren't afraid of dying, then they are determined to be diseased because they want to do what they enjoy even if the consequences are deadly.

This stuff is all over fear and the denial of death among most people.
 
denverpilot said:
Hard to control legal self-poisoning.
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Moderate drinking, which is defined as one to three drinks per day, is associated with the lowest mortality rates in alcohol studies. Moderate alcohol use (especially when the beverage of choice is red wine) is thought to improve heart health, circulation and sociability, which can be important because people who are isolated don't have as many family members and friends who can notice and help treat health problems.

But even after controlling for nearly all imaginable variables — socioeconomic status, level of physical activity, number of close friends, quality of social support and so on...


The sample of those who were studied included individuals between ages 55 and 65 who had had any kind of outpatient care in the previous three years. The 1,824 participants were followed for 20 years. One drawback of the sample: a disproportionate number, 63%, were men. Just over 69% of the abstainers died during the 20 years, 60% of the heavy drinkers died and only 41% of moderate drinkers died."

These are remarkable statistics. Even though heavy drinking is associated with higher risk for cirrhosis and several types of cancer (particularly cancers in the mouth and esophagus), heavy drinkers are less likely to die than people who don't drink, even if they never had a problem with alcohol. One important reason is that alcohol lubricates so many social interactions, and social interactions are vital for maintaining mental and physical health.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2017200,00.html#ixzz1k1IcTXsA
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^ Interesting several studies have shown that those who drink moderately and heavily live longer than those who abstain entirely from alcohol.

The summary of this particurlar study showed that moderate drinkers lived the longest, followed by heavy drinkers, and that non-drinkers had the shortest life expectancy.


“Our findings, while confirming the hazards of excess drinking, indicate potential windows of alcohol intake that may confer a net beneficial effect of moderate drinking, at least in terms of survival,” the Italian team concludes.
“Heavy drinkers should be urged to cut their consumption, but people who already regularly consume low to moderate amounts of alcohol should be encouraged to continue,” they add.
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A quick search of several studies shows that most concur that moderate intake (defined as 1-3 for men and 1-4 in another study) is linked to increased life expectancy.

All studies were quick to point out that heavy drinking has big time negative effects, even the one that mentioned heavy drinkers lived longer than non-drinkers.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture released its 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans on Monday. There weren’t many surprises in its recommendations to reduce fat and salt, eat whole grains, and cut the overall amount we eat.
But here’s one thing that might surprise you. Chapter Three, titled “Foods and Food Components to Reduce,” deals with alcohol. The Guidelines, created by America’s leading health researchers, state: “Alcohol consumption may have beneficial effects when consumed in moderation (up to two drinks daily). Strong evidence from observational studies has shown that moderate alcohol consumption is associated with a lower risk of cardiovascular disease. Moderate alcohol consumption also is associated with reduced risk of all-cause mortality among middle-aged and older adults and may help to keep cognitive function intact with age.”
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In the end we'll spend a lot of time, money, and effort only to prove that moderation is the key to it all.
 
Bobcat1 said:
In the end we'll spend a lot of time, money, and effort only to prove that moderation is the key to it all.
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:yeahthat:

And that truly worrying about all this stuff will shorten your lifespan faster than most of it. Stress kills.
 
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