Red-state binge drinking: North Dakota leads nation in alcohol dependence

[VOX]

And why not? * and Cheney have, what, three DUIs between them?
Drink up. :beer:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7179876/
Binge drinking reaches deep across U.S.
The Associated Press
March 14, 2005
“It’s like a rite of passage,” said Maeyer, 24, who works at two bars. “I have never heard so many people casually talking about how many drunken driving or minor consuming alcohol arrests they’ve had.”
<snip>
A recent study from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health seems to bear out her observation. It found more than 31 percent of North Dakotans age 12 and older said they had five or more drinks in one sitting during the month before the survey, done in 2002 and 2003. The national average for binge drinking was 23 percent.
<snip>
Nearly 55 percent of North Dakotans between the ages of 18 and 25 reported binge drinking. About 17 percent who were ages 12 to 17 and about 28 percent in the 26-and-older category said they had five or more drinks in one sitting.
<snip>
North Dakota’s 11 percent rate of alcohol dependence and abuse also led the nation in the study.
<snip>

[ananda]

1. blue??

I thought ND was a red state.

[donheld]

3. It is ruby red

whoever labeled it blue was highly mistaken

[VOX]

6. Mea culpa.

Am posting on the fly here at work. Fixed on edit.

[donheld]

7. Flies do not like to be posted on

Us the keyboard instead. :eyes: lame joke monday

[tx_dem41]

2. I think you have your red and your blue reversed. n/t

[VOX]

5. Indeed. That kind of morning. Thank God for the edit feature.

:crazy:

[Warpy]

4. Jaysis, I thought it was New Mexico

I'm Boston Irish and I never saw drunks like this back home. This is as poor a state as ND, at least, and poverty and hopelessness contribute to a huge alcohol problem here.

(No, the problem isn't the high percentage of Native Americans. Studies done locally have shown they have no higher a rate of alcholism than whites do, although they do react to drinking quite differently and die sooner from it when they do become alcoholic)

[Qanisqineq]

8. I grew up in ND and started drinking at 13

No, it had nothing to do with being poor, we weren't. Most of my friends weren't poor either. Many quite rich in fact. It also has nothing to do with being a red state (god, I am so sick of the red state/blue state crap).

I also went to alcohol classes, not for alcoholism or drug abuse but as part of treatment for depression. We knew even then that ND had the worst drinking problem in the USA. There were a number of theories discussed: people often alone with no one living nearby; the long winters; a large number of Scandinavians/Germans; farmers stressed over their farms (hail, too wet, drought, crop prices, etc.); the list goes on and on.

[PsN2Wind]

10. All those things on your list and

Everclear

[Radical Activist]

9. Don't you think George Bush sets a fine example to our youth?

Drunk driving is no big deal since Bush did it! I'm so glad we have someone who brings honor and integrity back to the white house.