Posted on 12/14/2021 10:13:34 AM PST by nickcarraway
by Study Finds Share Tweet TEMPE, Ariz. — Stress, by itself, appears to be a bigger trigger of excessive drinking among women than it is for men, a new study reveals. Researchers from Arizona State University find men who start by ordering a soft drink after a stressful day are less likely to end up switching to alcohol in comparison to women.
While men are still more likely to develop a drinking problem, the study authors say women are catching up and are more likely to suffer from alcohol-related health problems. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, excessive drinking leads to more than 95,000 deaths in the U.S. each year.
“Some people can intend to have one or two alcoholic beverages and stop drinking, but other people just keep going,” says assistant professor Julie Patock-Peckham in a university release.
“This impaired control over drinking is one of the earliest indicators of alcohol-use disorders, and we know stress contributes to both impaired control over drinking and dysregulated drinking. The role of stress in impaired control over drinking is understudied, especially in women.”
Stress drives everyone to drink, but men can slow it down The Arizona State team invited 105 men and 105 women to visit their laboratory, which they designed to look like a bar, with stools, an actual bartender, and lively conversations. Before raising their glasses, researchers split the participants into two groups, with some experiencing a stressful situation and others having an easy-going day.
Half the participants consumed an alcoholic drink equivalent to three cocktails, while others received three non-alcoholic beverages. Next, all the volunteers received unrestricted access to alcoholic drinks from the bar for 90 minutes.
“We know that both genes and the environment play a role in problematic drinking,” Dr. Patock-Peckham explains. “We can’t do anything about the genes, but we can intervene with the environment.”
“Stress and impaired control over drinking are tightly connected, and because stress is something we can manipulate, we tested whether stressors cause dysregulated drinking,” the researcher continues.
Participants then took a breathalyzer test and the researchers tallied up how many drinks each person consumed during the experiment. Overall, exposure to stress led to heavier drinking among all participants, the study shows.
However, men under stress who drank alcohol before the open bar continued to drink more excessively than those starting with a soft drink. On the other hand, women under stress drank more regardless of whether their first drink was alcoholic or non-alcoholic.
“That women just needed the stress but men needed the push of already having alcohol on board shows how important this type of research is,” Dr. Patock-Peckham concludes. “The outcomes from alcohol use are not the same for men and women, and we cannot keep using models that were developed in men to help women.”
Every woman I know with a drinking problem seems to have developed it during menopause.
Coping mechanism. My wife gets hangry until she has a first glass of red in Big Carl the Glass.
There should always be a bottle of dry red open.
Girls just wanna have fun.
Put another way, women are mindless pleasure sponges with little other direction.
In another time and place that was a prevailing notion.
IMO at some point women, usually younger single women, came to believe excessive drinking was kind of a male dominated past-time & another glass ceiling needing breaking. The problem is they are even less physically able to cope with the effects of heavy drinking than are most men.
The headline reminds me of an old Rodney Dangerfield routine.
I wake up in the morning and stress says to me, “You’re gonna get it good today...”
There are still 55 additional genders to study, so more grant money will be required.
stress drives women to drink....
women drive men to drink...
Maybe they just have more on their minds.
May I take this opportunity to recommend "Gato Negro"
('Black Cat' wine) a cheap imported cabernet sauvignon from Chile'.
(File this one under: "Getting Sloshed on a Budget with Style and Taste".)
The stuff is pretty good - I like it.
I first discovered it in the Trader Joe's in Phoenix, AZ (of all places)
almost 30 years ago.
Yep. Then the men cause the women even more stress.
A vicious circle it is...
I was diagnosed with Type II diabetes over 20 years ago, so I don’t drink any alcoholic beverages. Never really liked them to begin with. The majority of my stress occurred when I was younger, going through a divorce, and raising two sons alone. I didn’t drink then either, and I wasn’t diabetic at the time. Drinking wasn’t an option, as I had a job and responsibilities. I had a sister who was an alcoholic. She was single, never married, and had no stress, other than what she created for herself. She quit her job when she was around 25, spent the majority of her life in and out of State psych centers, until she was finally permanently committed, was eventually diagnosed with dementia, and died at the age of 74 while living in an adult-assisted living home.
There are varying degrees of stress, something this study ignores.
This along with global warming could make for some interesting times.
Less likely to be menopause and more likely that time in her life when all the crap hits at once. Parents dying, children at college, husband's medical or other problems, financial instability near retirement....
Try edibles. Weed leaves you happy and calm. Plus, it's the best damn thing for people with PTSD.
As a recovering alcoholic of almost 31 years, I discovered the medicinal purpose of liquor in high school. I always had a nervous, upset stomach and couldn’t live “normally” unless I killed the pain with booze. The reasons for this are unknown, and irrelevant, but I was a functioning alcoholic for years until I finally hit bottom.
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