noveldevice | (no subject)

Ugh. I just watched a CNN segment that enraged me. I'm not going to link because I don't want to up their hits, but I have a few questions.

If someone asked you how many drinks in a sitting is a binge, what number would you give?

Now, would you ask them what they meant, specifically, by binge?

Would you ask them to define "a sitting"?

Would you ask them where that sitting would occur, how long it would last, and what the social context of that sitting would be?

If I ask you what is "a sitting" as it relates to a "binge", what is your response?

The CNN segment defined a "binge" as "5 drinks in a sitting". They didn't specify where that "sitting" was, how long the "sitting" was, or in what context it was occurring. There was also absolutely no adjustment for individual tolerance of alcohol. (Five ciders for me is about enough to get me lit, but if I don't keep drinking I'm sober again within an hour after I stop, and I won't have any ill effects the next morning, even if I don't drink water before bed. Five mixed drinks will have even less of an effect. Though either way, I will definitely want my coffee in the morning.)

Here's my irritation: The CNN segment is positing this as a faux-feminist ideological movement, and it makes me angry for two reasons. First, when you say "Third wave of feminism the potty-mouthed hard-drinking bad girl?", you ignore the fact that there is already a third wave of feminism out there. Second, I get really irritated when supposedly enlightened people clutch their pearls over women's behaviour, and then criticise it by saying that we're "acting like men". I'm sorry, what? If being female is intrinsically a bar to having fun, there is something hugely, hugely wrong with our society (not that that's news). I reject your attempts to impose "ladylike" behaviour on me. I will go on doing exactly what I want, and if you don't like it, fuck you.

That's just me being sensible, and feeling like I have the same rights as any other person regardless of plumbing. Which, come to think of it, is feminism.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I personally (having never been drunk but having dated a lot of alcoholics) would define the number of drinks in a binge to be enough, and rapidly enough, to result in throwing up or passing out. If the person can still walk enough to make it to the door unaided I'm not sure it's a binge.
A bender, however, is when there's not enough drinking for passing out, but enough to prevent the person making it to the door unaided, that goes on for more than half a day.

The study they're apparently basing this on, done in 1993 by Harvard, defines a binge as 5 drinks per hour if you're male or 4 if you're female, and apparently "in a sitting" for the CNN report was corrupted from "in a row", id est, uninterrupted by changes of locale, significant amounts of time, non-alcoholic beverages, and/or food.

"Have you had five drinks in a sitting" and "have you had four drinks in a row in an hour" are two very different questions.

And even moreso if you're asking someone who weighs 40 kilos (like my ex-gf who would get sloppy drunk on one glass of wine) or someone who weighs 110 kilos (like my mountain-bike-racing buddy who could drink a six-pack and still do handstands.)

Lame question is lame.

I'm reading a book right now about how poorly science is represented, and represents itself, to the public: how tempting it is to cite numbers as facts, when those numbers could very well be correct but not mean anything at all. It's depressing.

I don't think i'd define it that way for one reason. I have half the genetic structure of an alcoholic (thanks Dad!) which has given me an immense alcohol tolerance but no particular tendency toward alcoholism. The two times I've drunk enough to throw up or pass out (or both), the first time it was 19 glasses of rocket fuel and the other it was two bottles of Krug, six shots of tequila, and a whole bunch of something Danish that I'm pretty sure had the blood of virgins in it. I definitely think I hit the "binge" portion of the evening long before I was actually worshipping the porcelain goddess, those evenings (and others besides).

Ugh, they're fucked on both counts.

What incredibly shitty science reporting. Blah.

I really like how spending five seconds to type "third wave feminism" into the google was just too much work.

I on occasion may have five drinks in a night, but it's a binge if I have them all at the same bar? (depending on the night and drinks, 5 will usually take me 5 to six hours to consume, unless one of the drinks is a good scotch, in which case it might be 7 or 8 hours).

If course, if a "sitting" means you don't get up to pee, I might have more sympathy for the definition.

Rate matters - so does effect.

As for the definition of binge, I thought the term implied an extended bout of drinking, with nasty consequences - ranging from raging headaches to missing an important engagement because you slept through it.

If it's the segment I'm thinking of, one the of the interviewees (Jaclyn Friedman) is on record that they said she said things she didn't.

Cat knows, because Jaclyn is my roommate and told Cat alllllllll about it.

Small world.

Very!

wtffffffffffffFFFFF

The "binge drinking" definitions throughout the world tend to be screwed up, anyway -- and somehow, the way they're used has a tendency to put down women.

I mean, a couple years ago, there was one definition that was in use in Britain, for some purpose and I don't remember what -- but it basically said that a woman who had three beers in an evening, twice a week, was a problem drinker. The definition for men was also unreasonable, but not QUITE as unreasonable as the one for women.

I confess that my grumpy contrarian streak has led me to drink more in the last year or two. As I've been reading more and more definitions of "problem" and "binge" drinking that I think really SHOULDN'T be problems, I've been trying to bring my drinking up to those levels.

Okay, my other reason is that, as a mixologist and sommolier, I need to be creating cocktails, and tasting wines and beers frequently to keep my skills sharp, but still. Yes, primarily, I'm drinking more for professional reasons, but it's also because Stupid People Say I Shouldn't.

(Note: the "Stupid People" referred to here are rarely the researchers -- although it's happened. More frequently, they are news folks who are reporting poorly, and legislators who hear the poor news reporting and misunderstand even further.)

There was a chat show/discussion thing on tv here the other night that explained the UK government defines "binge drinking" as having 4 pints in one night, which got a huge "wtf" mixed with giggles from the audience, because the average Brit has never thought anything of 8 or more pints on a night out. And I agree that it all seems to be an effort to impose "proper" behaviour on young women, which gets my back up too!