Women Get Drunk, High and Addicted Easier Than Men

[CatWoman]

I beg to differ.

When I was in the Army, I hung out with some tough old broads - chicks who could drink the average man under the table.

Yet, most of the discharges for positive urinalysis and drug and alcohol infringes were men.

Snake oil salesmen used to prey on women with their "medicinal" tonics packing 40-proof alcohol. Mick Jagger sang of "mother's little helper."

A woman's addiction to alcohol, pills and other narcotics has long been a wink-wink topic—one that garners a few smirks, rarely taken seriously. The focus has always been on men, who traditionally have had higher rates of substance abuse.

But now the gender gap is closing. More than 20 million girls and women in the United States abuse drugs and alcohol and 30 million more are addicted to cigarettes, according to a 10-year research effort from the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University.

The study documents how women, pound-for-pound, not only get more drunk or higher faster then men, but also become addicted more easily. The research results are presented in a new book from CASA called "Women Under the Influence" (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006).

http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20060518/sc_space/womengetdrunkhighandaddictedeasierthanmen

[benburch]

1. The myth of 'the weaker sex'

And I say it is just that. A myth.

[CatWoman]

2. damn straight!!!

:hi:

[XboxWarrior]

21. Maybe not faster......

but here's Lynn Cheney in the deep of it.......

[shadowknows69]

31. These aren't exactly pride inspiring accomplishments

are they?

[CatWoman]

33. perhaps only the shadow knows

as I have no idea what the fuck you're talking about.

[shadowknows69]

34. I was referring to the title of the thread

When people started braggin up women who could do these things better. Please put away your claws Ms. Kitty. :hi:

[Warpy]

10. Yes and no

After all, I can't imagine a man trying to give birth to an orange, let alone a watermelon.

However, there are some striking differences in the way each sex metabolizes drugs. Tobacco in young women stunts lung development, something it doesn't do in males. Women react to much less alcohol and may metabolize it more slowly, meaning we get drunker longer on the same drink a man takes.

We need to recognize that there are differences without using them to penalize one sex or the other.

[TahitiNut]

15. "We need to recognize that there are differences"??

Lemme tell ya, sweetheart ... I've recognized those differences since Kathy and I compared 'plumbing' and discussed the Meaning of Life as we ate our bag lunches sitting in the playground bushes in first grade, back in the late 40s.

Viva la difference!

[CatWoman]

16. I always knew you were a slut from way back

:D

[TahitiNut]

17. Proudly so. From "dirty little kid" to "dirty old man" in a mere 50 years.

:evilgrin: Kathy was far, far more interesting to me than "snakes and snails and puppy dog tails."

[CatWoman]

20. ROFL

:rofl:

and I was never a big fan of sugar and spice and everything nice :D

[Warpy]

23. Uh, read the second clause

We are not prey.

[TahitiNut]

24. "We are not prey." WHO THE FUCK SAID YOU WERE??

When you find THAT PERSON, then reply to THEM, NOT ME!

I'm damned fucking sick and tired of this "pretense argumentation" - insinuating that you're contradicting something I posted. That's just BULLSHIT!

:grr:

[Gabi Hayes]

3. all RIGHT! just made a 'date' for tonight!

going to see Neil Innes.

with what shall I ply her with?

[CatWoman]

5. LOL

May I suggest Chardonnay, laced with vodka?

:hi:

[Gabi Hayes]

9. haaaaaaaa....that's pretty much what she likes!

don't forget the gentle brush of the neck, the soft whisper in the ear.....

[panader0]

7. Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker

[stlsaxman]

25. Neil Innes????? where where where where where where??????????????

i wanna go i wanna go i wanna go i wanna go i wanna go i wanna go i wanna go i wanna go i wanna go i wanna go i wanna go i wanna go i wanna go i wanna go i wanna go i wanna go i wanna go i wanna go i wanna go i wanna go i wanna go i wanna go!!!!

I would DIE a happy man if only i could hear "Joe Public" in concert.... :bounce:

[Gabi Hayes]

28. if you're in St Louis, you can make it.... leave right now

Abbey Pub, chicago

Grace and Elston

four and a half hours, if you hurry

[stlsaxman]

37. DOH!!!

yeah, my sweetie wouldn't be free 'til way too late to have gone... :(

was it fab?

[rocktivity]

4. Well, duh--that's because women, for the most part, are smaller than men

which means they have less blood thank men, which means they're going to absorb the same amount of a substance faster. To figure that out, they had to do a study?

:headbang:
rocknation

[Rex]

6. Well of course they do; women are more hysterical and can't handle...

I'm kidding! Any creature that can shoot a small cannonball from 'betwixt the leggings' has to be one powerful entity. :evilgrin: Take cover! :hide:

[Mythsaje]

8. From personal experience?

I'd say this is nonsense. Most of the hardcore stoners I knew when I was younger were guys. Few smoke anymore, but still... The majority of girl stoners I knew could take it or leave it. There were exceptions, of course, but I'll still say that most of them were like that.

As far as alcohol goes--I've known far more guys in their twenties that were hardcore drinkers than women.

I ain't buying this at all.

[JVS]

11. Social expectations and norms are different

Our society does not view men drinking as something odd. For a man to end the day by having "a few beers with the boys" before coming home is considered perfectly normal. If a woman were to do the same, it would raise more eyebrows. A result of this difference in expectations is that women who want to drink might chose to do it on the sly.

[Mythsaje]

22. Maybe in social circles other than mine... n/t

[ArnoldLayne]

12. Drunk and high faster I don't know about

getting addicted easier. :hippie:

[BleedingHeartPatriot]

13. Lucky us. Less time and money to acheive our altering of consciousness.

:rofl: MKJ

[dsc]

14. I don't know about getting addicted faster

but it is a scientific fact that women have less water in their bodies than do men. Thus a woman will get drunk faster than a man of the same weight at least if one defines being drunk as the percentage of alcohol in the blood stream.

[xchrom]

18. all i know is that my girlfriend k. in highschool plied me with drink

so i would be easy.

or easier.

me i knew if i held out -- she'd find a way to spring for a couple more beers -- but don't tell her please.

[idgiehkt]

19. well, I sure crashed and burned

I could drink my male friends under the table and they could bong hit me around the block.

Don't know why it was that way, though.

[Solon]

26. I call Bullshit!

granted its not scientific, but a girl I dated used to drink me under the table all the time(quite fun in some cases ;)). But she was small, maybe a little over half my weight and was able to drink probably twice as much as me, she used to chase Tequila with Everclear, she was nuts, even I wasn't that crazy. Fun times. :)

[VOX]

27. I'm 6' 5", 215 lbs. My 5' 8" slender wife can drink circles around me.

Which is not to say that she's a booze hound -- far from it. But she can have 3-4 social drinks and remain fully functional, and if I try to match her, I can't be allowed near a vehicle or heavy machinery. :)

Everyone's metabolism is different.

[Nikia]

29. It might be true on average

I am not sure the exact mechanism but there might be a scientific reason for this. I do know that for our alcohol awareness/rape prevention sorority program that we were warned that alcohol might affect us more when we were menstrating. It could be hormonal.
Antedotal evidence doesn't mean the averages are not true. For example, in high school, I won the mile run for a gym class fitness test for a class that had both boys and girls. That does not mean that it isn't true that boys don't run faster on average.

[mcscajun]

30. There will always be exceptions to any general statement.

"A woman's body contains less water and more fatty tissue—which increases alcohol absorption—compared to a male body. And women have a lower activity level of an enzyme called alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH), which breaks down alcohol. Similar biological factors are at work in metabolizing illicit drugs. "

If you stack a female alcoholic up against a non-alcoholic male, you'll find a woman who can drink him under the table, easily. There will always be variances in metabolism, but overall, the statement was "pound-for-pound" and they're generalizing. There's always room for variances, and exceptions to every generalization.

For myself, I'm a woman with a low tolerance for alcohol from an alcoholic family, so I've seen plenty on both side of the equation. The more you drink, the more alcohol you need to seem drunk or to pass out. The principle in the study still holds up, despite anecdotes about women we all may know or have known.

[realisticphish]

32. exactly

Just because you "know a guy" doesn't make it not so. Whenever scientific reports talk about these things, they mean AVERAGE. AVERAGE, people.

[Cleita]

35. Well many of us have earned it.

Bottoms up!

:beer:

[BlooInBloo]

36. (a) Does the phrase "on average" do any work here?

and (b) I always assumed that this phenomenon was a function of ON AVERAGE girls having less mass than boys.