Girls better at binge drinking.
Yes it’s official. The ladies despite having smaller brains and without the large beer bellies of their male counterpart can easily out drink him and still remain standing. According to a study by Duke University Medical Centre in Durham North Carolina as copied in the Irish independent January 5th 2006, women’s brains react differently than men’s when they drink alcohol.
The research also published in the Journal Alcoholism shows that women are less susceptible to the sedative effects of alcohol and are therefore less likely to feel sleepy – a first sign of intoxication. According to senior researcher Scott Swartzwelder, alcohol usually makes people feel tired and less anxious. However females particularly during the first and last stages of the menstrual cycle are less sensitive to these effects, thus indicating that hormonal change plays a contributory factor.
The down side of this is that there is a rise in women presenting with the alcoholic’s disease of cirrhosis of the liver. Usually found in alcoholics of middle age, it now appears that women in their mid twenties are affected.
In its analysis of the research the independent’s columnist Alan O Riordan is less concerned about the science of the findings and more concerned with the fact that these findings ignore the new culture spawned by the Irish Celtic Tiger, or maybe Tigress.
In America women know their limits. They know when to stop, therefore preserving their dignity. In Ireland the new women or ‘laddette’ as O Riordan calls her is more interested in keeping up with her male counterpart or following every ‘boorish’ fad set by her English counterpart.
Its pints instead of glasses or large shots instead of wine and all do be consumed in double quick time. On average women in the 18 to 24 age bracket drink 45 gallons per year or 270 bottles of wine.
This level of consumption may indicate that women are finally free and are having a damn good time, or have yet to find a level of independence that is assertive enough to say no.