I knew about stoned yoga but I'm just learning about drunk yoga. The Los Angeles Times is reporting that there are exercise classes where you can also get your drink on (specifically, wine):

The classes are intended for beginners, [founder Eli] Walker said, and encompass a 45-minute vinyasa-style session based on gentle moves set to a 1990s hip-hop playlist. Expect some mild drinking games as well. (Nonalcoholic beverages are also available.) There is time before and after to socialize.

These Drunk Yoga classes are currently only available in Los Angeles and New York City. But don't let that stop you. Pour yourself a glass and get to it. Nobody's the boss of you.

image via Drunk Yoga/Facebook Read the rest

In northern Russia, a man who really wanted some booze drove an armored personnel carrier through a shop window, crashing into the store, then exited his vehicle and climbed through the wreckage to steal a bottle of wine. I know this will shock you, but he was drunk. Read the rest

Thirty percent of adult Americans are teetotalers. Ten percent consume an average of 0.02 drinks a week. Another ten percent have 0.14 drinks per week (I'm in this category, as I will have a taste of my wife's wine when she orders a glass). The next ten percent has 0.63 drinks a week, followed by 2.17 drinks, 6.25 drinks, and 15.28 drinks. The top ten percent consumes a whopping 74 drinks a week. That's over 10 drinks a day!

I didn't find data for the top once percent of drinkers, but these are probably the folks who are dying from drinking. According to the Washington Post, alcohol deaths are at a 35-year high. Last year 30,700 Americans died from alcohol poisoning and cirrhosis. That beats heroin overdose deaths (11,000) by a longshot.

A recent study quantified the risk of death associated with the use of a variety of common recreational drugs. They found that at the level of individual use, alcohol was the deadliest substance, followed by heroin and cocaine. The reason? The ratio between a toxic dose and a typical dose is extremely narrow with alcohol. If you're happily buzzed at say, three drinks, three more might make you sick, and three after that may put you in alcohol poisoning territory.

For this reason, some researchers are starting to urge public health officials to focus more on the dangers posed by alcohol, and less on the dangers of less toxic drugs, like marijuana and LSD.

On the science of alcohol and alcholism, from 1949, Encyclopedia Brittanica films. Booze: “a potential menace to community safety as well as personal health”. Read the rest

This video was made by Finland-based Fragile Childhood, "an awareness-raising campaign, which aims to reduce parents' use of alcohol by helping them understand the harm it causes to children."

Here's another:

What if children could choose their parents? Read the rest

I've heard -- and repeated -- the theory that addiction rates among indigenous people in the Americas was caused by genetics -- specifically, that "new world" populations hadn't gone through the European plague years' genetic bottleneck that killed everyone who couldn't survive on alcoholic beverages (these having been boiled during their production and thus less likely to carry infectious diseases). Read the rest

A Swiss study has found that "pre-drinking," "pre-funking," "pre-gaming"—basically, the ritual among college-age young adults of drinking before you go out to drink, leads to "excessive consumption and adverse consequences."

Pre-gaming didn't have a name when I was their age; it's interesting how the phenomenon (is it even a phenomenon?) has become a media meme this year. This NYT story is another example.

I realize the newly-released study provides citeable evidence about a behavior with dangerous consequences, but the results are kind of like, yo, thanks, Captain Obvious.

"Increased drinking was associated with a greater likelihood of blackouts, hangovers, absences from work or school or alcohol poisoning. Pre-drinkers were also found to engage more often in unintended drug use, unsafe sex, drunken driving or violent behavior."

Sounds about right. More in the LA Times. Read the rest