Alcohol abuse

The primary purpose of a liberal education is to make one's mind a pleasant place in which to spend one's leisure.  ~Sydney J. Harris

Alcohol fuelled behaviour is a fairly constant headline provider, whether it is at a sports match, on the road, domestic or late night public binge behaviour.  While everyone seems to agree it’s a problem, there is very little agreement on dealing with the issue.  

Alcohol affects the brain - at low levels alcohol increases the electrical activity in the brain affecting pleasure and euphoria, (working in a similar way to cocaine and amphetamines). It also works on the circuits targeted by drugs such as Valium - easing anxiety and calming, and on the serotonin system in a similar way to Prozac, increasing self-confidence and reducing depression.  In larger quantities though, it interferes with chemical messaging in the brain, affecting coordination, speech and the ability to learn and form memories - which is why people experience "blackouts".  All primates have an affinity for alcohol - monkeys and apes have been observed drunk from naturally occurring fermentation in the wild – based on our shared genetic ability to metabolise alcohol, and people with genes who are more efficient at processing alcohol are also linked to higher rates of usage.  Using this as a basis, we can theorise that modern binge drinking is a “disease of nutritional excess” like obesity, where the beneficial effects of particular foodstuffs in limited supply in the prehistoric environment we evolved in have become mismatched with its availability in the modern environment.

While this physical basis may give us a propensity to consume, using to excess must also involve other factors.  If we continue with our obesity analogy we can perhaps find signs of distorted thinking patterns among heavy drinkers such as; filtering - where you focus on negative details and magnifying them while filtering out all the positive aspects of a situation; personalization - where you think everything people do or say is some kind of reaction to you; control fallacies - feeling externally controlled and seeing yourself as helpless; and blaming - holding yourself or others responsible for every problem.  Distorted thinking can be involved in self harm situations so you may also see behaviour such as suicide in correlation with high alcohol use in some populations.  New Zealand certainly has high rates of both alcohol overuse and suicide.

Being social animals, there are also group dynamics involved with alcohol use.  Drinking patterns vary hugely between cultures, and the cultural heritage for many groups in New Zealand involves binge drinking.  Also present is the deindividuation that can occur within groups – the anonymity found in a group allowing the individual to indulge in forms of behaviour they wouldn’t otherwise engage in.

You may have heard of the Stanford marshmallow experiment; an experiment on self control where young children were left in a room with a marshmallow, and if they didn’t eat it before the experimenter came back, they could have it and another.  Only around a third of the children could wait long enough to get the second marshmallow.  Although the ability to defer gratification changes as we age, an earlier study in Trinidad showed that it was also dependant on social and economic background.  If self control was an issue with alcohol abuse it would be evident where alcohol was more available, and there are a number of studies which link alcohol related behaviours with the density of liquor outlets.

We can use a simple performance model to look at alcohol related behaviour; physical attributes plus motivation plus situational factors leads to behaviour.  There is a genetic basis to alcohol use with more efficient processors more likely to drink, and there are motivational factors – such as distorted thinking in individuals, deindividuation and cultural factors in groups.  Also present are contingent factors such as alcohol availability.  For each individual who exhibits negative alcohol related behaviour there may be a different emphasis e.g. low self control and high availability plus distorted thinking pattern; or genetically efficient, social users.  This may mean there is no one solution to alcohol abuse.   If we go back to the theory expressed above regarding alcohol as a disease of nutritional excess based on its availability, and the research indicating that the contingent factor of geographic availability has a correlation to negative behaviour then it would seem likely that restricting the density of outlets will assist with the dealing with the problem, although not solve it completely.

There is another way of restricting the availability of alcohol, and that’s by age.  If we look at teenagers they are a group that display low ability to defer gratification, a high proportion of distorted thinking patterns and more easily influenced by group behaviour i.e. many of the risk factors for abusive behaviour - so increasing the availability (reducing the contingent factor preventing use) by lowering the legal age doesn’t seem a particularly good decision.

But is there a simple solution?

New Zealand has been named as one of the countries people would most like to migrate to.  The standard of living for almost all of us is pretty good by world standards, so why are we so uncomfortable with ourself that we seek to leave our minds before we consider we are enjoying ourselves? Why don't we appreciate what we have more?

www.dilbert.com

There is a story about a great Buddhist teacher who is lying on his deathbed.  Shortly before he had his final meal; his favourite sweet rice cakes.  His students are gathered around, to hear and record his final words – such a great teacher will undoubtably say something particularly profound.  Finally he speaks and they lean forward eager to hear – “My” he said, “they were particularly good rice cakes” - and then he died.  When we get to the point of appreciating such simple everyday things in our lives, then the issue of alcohol abuse will surely go away.