Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

The Hangover That Lasts
NY Times ^ | December 29, 2007 | PAUL STEINBERG

Posted on 12/29/2007 10:23:09 PM PST by neverdem

NEW Year’s Eve tends to be the day of the year with the most binge drinking (based on drunken driving fatalities), followed closely by Super Bowl Sunday. Likewise, colleges have come to expect that the most alcohol-filled day of their students’ lives is their 21st birthday. So, some words of caution for those who continue to binge and even for those who have stopped: just as the news is not so great for former cigarette smokers, there is equally bad news for recovering binge-drinkers who have achieved a sobriety that has lasted years. The more we have binged — and the younger we have started to binge — the more we experience significant, though often subtle, effects on the brain and cognition.

Much of the evidence for the impact of frequent binge-drinking comes from some simple but elegant studies done on lab rats by Fulton T. Crews and his former student Jennifer Obernier. Dr. Crews, the director of the University of North Carolina Bowles Center for Alcohol Studies, and Dr. Obernier have shown that after a longstanding abstinence following heavy binge-drinking, adult...

--snip--

So, some possible resolutions for the New Year:

Stop after one or two drinks. Studies of the Mediterranean diet have shown that one or two drinks on a consistent basis leads to a longer life than pure teetotaling.

If you must binge, start at age 40, not at age 16 — and always have someone else drive. Just as youth is wasted on the young, so perhaps is alcohol.

If you have binged excessively when younger, follow it up with some regular exercise. Get those brain cells regenerated.

As Shakespeare once pointed out without the benefit of studies on lab rats, “O God, that men should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains!”

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: alcohol; alcoholabuse; brain; health; marijuana; neurology; wod
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-80 ... 141-144 next last
To: KJC1
AGAIN, at any time, any place we agree to be tested. Night or day rain or shine. On Christmas. Thanksgiving.

This is a yes or no question.

At your department, do they draw ID or badge numbers out of a hat, or randomly by computer each month and require you to submit to a drug test, as part of a mandatory drug testing program?

Yes or no?

41 posted on 12/30/2007 12:08:10 AM PST by dragnet2
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 40 | View Replies]

To: dragnet2
You hijacked this thread---back and forth with same old replies. You guys should settle this via private communication. Oh well...

Back to the original article: Like George Burns said in his 90's: "If I knew I was gonna live this long I would've taken better care of myself."

42 posted on 12/30/2007 12:08:24 AM PST by Rudder
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 38 | View Replies]

To: dragnet2

I agreed to be tested ANYTIME...get it..ANYTIME...alive or dead.

So, even if I die, they can test me.

What do you do for a living, I’ve noticed you have dodged that question.


43 posted on 12/30/2007 12:12:44 AM PST by KJC1
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 41 | View Replies]

To: KJC1

May I try?

Have been drug tested?


44 posted on 12/30/2007 12:13:22 AM PST by razorback-bert (Remember that amateurs built the Ark while professionals built the Titanic.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 34 | View Replies]

To: dragnet2
Why don’t they routinely and randomly drug test LEOs and judges like they do in many other professions?

I'd like to see them drug test Congress. They can wreck a whole country!

45 posted on 12/30/2007 12:14:51 AM PST by Smokin' Joe (How often God must weep at humans' folly.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: razorback-bert

Oops, have you been drug tested?

How many time if yes?


46 posted on 12/30/2007 12:15:54 AM PST by razorback-bert (Remember that amateurs built the Ark while professionals built the Titanic.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 44 | View Replies]

To: dragnet2

You can certainly agree with the logic behind a sobriety checkpoint, and understand why LEO’s would believe they’re important and just.

OTOH, checkpoints of any kind seem in some ways, the traffic equivalent of “hate speech” laws.

Drunk driving is already illegal. The reason is, it interferes with driving reaction times, and contributes to accidents. So there already is a structure in place, to punish those who drive drunk - drivers who are seen or especially cause an accident, are punished.

Similarly, so called “hate crimes”:

Assaults, are illegal. Hate crime laws, are applied to assaults, but the assault is already illegal.

I support, respect and genuinely admire law enforcement - I will even admit to having been treated with what in retrospect, was a certain degree of leniency by a couple officers; but checkpoints do smack to a certain extent, of the stereotypical “your papers please...”.

Especially since, it’s entirely possible for a driver to arrive at a checkpoint set up for one purpose, to end up in trouble for something else entirely.

That seems to have taken us as a society, at least one step down that slippery slope. Needing to present ... our papers.

We seem to be getting closer to that sort of thing, slowly and by degree.

Unfortunately, each additional step, seems to have a whole new group of enthusiastic advocates...

(just my .02)


47 posted on 12/30/2007 12:17:23 AM PST by Cringing Negativism Network (I'm a proud Yankee Doodle Protectionist)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 39 | View Replies]

To: dragnet2
Your answer is "No."

Officer is ropadoping.

I signed the same line.

Admin needs cause to justify. Part of collective bargaining agreement in my department.

21 years was enough fer me.

My daughter is a Merchant officer. She gets the cup a few times a year on-duty. Manditory, periodic, random testing. That's what yer talkin' 'bout.

Now, if my department had had that program, all violators would then get the manditory 30-day paid vacation for rehab. [first-time]{although I do know some guys who got a second gift]. Shifts would be real short, what with all the guys taking advantage of the perc...along with the helpless Certs-chewers. :^)

48 posted on 12/30/2007 12:17:26 AM PST by dasboot
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 36 | View Replies]

To: KJC1
At your department, do they draw ID or badge numbers out of a hat, or randomly by computer each month and require you to submit to a drug test, as part of a mandatory drug testing program? Yes or no?

____________________________________________________________

You declined to answer the above question.

The answer is "no".

You are not subject to *regular* *random* drug testing programs, like in other professions.

Of course, you knew this, but for some reason you just refused and declined to answer it.

Have a good New Year!

49 posted on 12/30/2007 12:19:01 AM PST by dragnet2
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 43 | View Replies]

To: dragnet2

Oh no, you are not getting off easy.

What do YOU do?

I have been tested. I was tested 3 months ago.


50 posted on 12/30/2007 12:20:27 AM PST by KJC1
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 49 | View Replies]

To: dasboot
Your answer is "No."

Yes I knew that, see #49.

For some reason the other poster just refused to acknowledge it. lol

Thanks for being up front.

51 posted on 12/30/2007 12:21:10 AM PST by dragnet2
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 48 | View Replies]

To: KJC1

Was it random; or did you dent a cruiser?


52 posted on 12/30/2007 12:22:04 AM PST by dasboot
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 50 | View Replies]

To: peggybac
I’m curious what his definition of binge drinking is.

The study's authors described a style of drinking that they designated as "binge" drinking, defined as the consumption of five or more drinks in a row for men and four or more for women, at least once in the 2 weeks preceding the survey.

a standard drink defined as equal to 12 grams of absolute alcohol

However, the total amount of alcohol in a typical serving of beer (12 ounces), wine (5 ounces), and hard liquor (1.5 ounces) is the same.

53 posted on 12/30/2007 12:22:32 AM PST by neverdem (Call talk radio. We need a Constitutional Amendment for Congressional term limits. Let's Roll!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: dragnet2
You declined to answer the above question. The answer is "no".

WTF is your point? Do you have a point beside the one on your head or is this just practice for an intellectual masturbation contest?

54 posted on 12/30/2007 12:22:38 AM PST by Rudder
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 49 | View Replies]

To: dragnet2
Of course, you knew this, but for some reason you just refused and declined to answer it.

And after all that, what is your POINT?

55 posted on 12/30/2007 12:22:51 AM PST by Wingy
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 49 | View Replies]

To: Rudder

His point is that cops should be manditorily tested randomly, periodically. Officer said that was already the case...but his posts read otherwise. I get it.


56 posted on 12/30/2007 12:25:20 AM PST by dasboot
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 54 | View Replies]

To: neverdem
...a standard drink defined as equal to 12 grams of absolute alcohol

What?!!! You can't drink 200-proof etoh---it won't go down your throat. Makes no sense.

57 posted on 12/30/2007 12:27:08 AM PST by Rudder
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 53 | View Replies]

To: dasboot

Random testing.


58 posted on 12/30/2007 12:28:16 AM PST by KJC1
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 52 | View Replies]

To: dasboot
His point is that cops should be manditorily tested randomly, periodically.

And that gets right to the heart of the thread, which was binge drinking. NOT!

59 posted on 12/30/2007 12:28:44 AM PST by Wingy
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 56 | View Replies]

To: dasboot; dragnet2

Thanks, but...Are you dragnet’s “Amen Charley?”


60 posted on 12/30/2007 12:31:23 AM PST by Rudder
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 56 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-80 ... 141-144 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson