Psychologists discover the secret of female drunkenness

 

Scientists have found that for women, only one stress factor is enough to provoke excessive alcohol consumption.
An article about this was published in the Journal of Addictive Behaviors Psychology.

The study was conducted by scientists from the University of Arizona led by Julie Patok Beckham. During the experiment, the participants drank alcohol, while they were in a stressful and non-stressful state. One stress factor made women, not men, drink more than they intended.

“Some people may plan to have a glass or two done, but not all of them can keep it within the self-created framework,” the work’s authors say. “Loss of control over drinking is one of the first indicators of alcohol problems, and the role of stress in this has been relatively little studied.”

The study involved 105 men and 105 women with a stressful situation. They were randomly assigned to groups: one was given alcoholic drinks initially, while the other was given non-alcoholic drinks. The participants then got unlimited access to the bar for 90 minutes.

It found that people exposed to stress were more likely to binge drink, but there was a significant difference between the sexes. The stress-prone men tended to drink only if they had already drunk the original beverage beforehand. If the original beverage was non-alcoholic, the dependence of consumption on stress was lower. For the women, this was not the case: in their case, there was no difference between what they drank initially.

The authors hope that the study will help improve the prevention of alcohol dependence, which may need to be adapted to the characteristics of male and female drinking patterns.