Monday, January 7, 2008

The profound enlightenment to be found in this article has driven me to drink

When I was about 8 years old, I distinctly remember Side Bar demonstrating to me that a simple test of logic proves that Santa Claus could not possibly exist. Now, you might think that's just kind of dickish. And it was. But even as a youngster, Side Bar's bullshit detector could not be denied. I should've thanked him, I suppose, for his refusal to permit my continued ignorance.

His point was simple: "How could one guy visit every kid's house in the entire world in just one night?"

I was dumbfounded. I felt like my whole world had been torn asunder and rebuilt in a flash. Those sorts of things happen when everything you've ever known turns out to be total bullshit, but yet somehow makes perfect fucking sense. Like when you find out Bruce Willis was a ghost the whole time!

Just today, I spotted an article which gave me that same rush of mind-blowing discovery that was heretofore unforeseeable. (Is it redundant to use the same syllable twice in a row? Probably.)

Here's the article, the title of which I will post below:

College Drinking Games Lead to Higher Blood Alcohol Levels

No fucking way.

And just for kicks, here's the first paragraph. It's filled with such illuminating insights, I'm amazed that an actual human being was able to so skillfully combine left-brained poetic majesty with right-brained scientific fact-finding. (Though there's no byline, so I guess it coulda been written by God or something.)
SUNDAY, Jan. 6 (HealthDay News) -- The first on-the-scene study of college drinking behavior shows that parties with drinking games result in higher blood alcohol levels, while themed parties encourage college women to drink more heavily than men, new research suggests.
And finally, here's one more bit of 100%-pure amazingness:
The researchers found that playing drinking games, having a personal history of binge drinking, attending a party with many other intoxicated people, and attending a themed event all predicted higher blood alcohol levels.
Again, no fucking way!

Without bothering to read the actual study, I'm going to go ahead and predict what a few more of the predictions in this study will be.
  1. While participation in any drinking game tends to increase overall alcohol consumption, participation in certain drinking games which entail more drinking than others lead to participants drinking more alcohol than in other games involving less drinking by the participants.
  2. Usage of liquor as opposed to beer and/or wine in drinking games leads to slightly different levels of drunkenness. For example, chugging one pint of lager or ale will result in the participant getting "less drunk" and "less hospitalized" than if the participant were to chug a pint of whiskey or tequila.
  3. Certain drinking games which involve "puke points" (wherein a participant receives extra points for drinking enough to induce vomiting, then returning to continue playing; also known as a "boot-and-rally") will involve more participants vomiting than those which do not encourage such skills.
  4. Drinking alcohol leads to the drinking of alcohol.
In a separate study, an even more surprising result was found. See picture below.

(Pics from here and here.)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Most studies use survey methods that require people to recall their drinking behavior -- days, weeks or months prior -- and such recall is not always accurate"...

Another great line from the article.

Open Bar said...

Yeah, it's full of little gems like that. And this:

our study illustrates that is possible and important to examine drinking behavior in real-world settings

I couldn't agree more. I perform first-person experiments of this type like three or four times a week.