The standard method of drinking in NZ — as in most of the English Speaking world — is in binges. Most people do not drink every day. They drink on Thursday night, and Saturday night. On those nights, there is an unofficial competition on who can hold their liqour. And today’s herald notes this has consequences.
Young adult drinkers dependent on the bottle are nearly 10 times more likely to have had 10 or more sexual partners within several years than people who don’t misuse alcohol, a new study shows.
And they are nine times more likely to have committed violent offences.
The study’s authors, including Dr Joseph Boden, estimate in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence that the elimination of all alcohol misuse could reduce the young adult crime rate by up to 47 per cent.
The research, from Otago University at Christchurch, is based on interviews with around 1000 members of a long-term study who were born in the city in 1977.
The alcohol study draws on answers from when they were aged 21, 25 and 30.
Five per cent met the clinical criteria for alcohol addiction. Up to a quarter had problems with alcohol that were less serious but still affected their daily life to some extent.
Dr Boden said much alcohol research focused on the impact on teenagers – “because they do the most drinking, it peaks at age 21 and drops after that.
Our study shows these adverse effects are occurring up to the age of 30″.
He said earlier research by his group had indicated the risks of hazardous drinking patterns were now stretching further into adult life because of New Zealand’s trend of delaying parenthood, which now on average started in the early 30s.
“It shows people are living this extended adolescence.
“They are partying a lot, carrying on doing these things that they were doing when they were younger. Parenthood knocks this stuff right out of people – the drinking, the drugging. They largely clean themselves up.”
Getting boozed increases the likelihood that one will make a poor choice and sleep with that pick up artist or slattern — and then having to live with the consequences.
if you are male, given the feminist view that anything but fully sober and continuous consent is sexual assault, you leave yourself wide open for facing a criminal charge that is treated as an exceptional crime — just like witchcraft was.
For the rape crisis people, at least in my country, blame men — with their posters saying No at anytime means No. They would be better to talk about sober sex being better, and doing the practical things that my university does — such as buying up pubs and re-purposing them.
