Sometimes I feel like these kinds of studies are overly literal. The saying I hear frequently is the "beer before liquor" version, i.e. "before before liquor, never sicker; liquor before beer,...
Sometimes I feel like these kinds of studies are overly literal.
The saying I hear frequently is the "beer before liquor" version, i.e. "before before liquor, never sicker; liquor before beer, you're in the clear". I've always figured that the variety of alcohol doesn't matter worth a damn. What matters is consumption rate of the volume of alcohol itself (i.e. the pure alcohol, not the entire beverage), with a major psychological component.
The thing about alcohol is that what you drink doesn't immediately make its way into your system. It operates on a delay. It has to pass through your digestive system and work its way into your blood. So if you're sitting there pounding shots down your throat like there's no tomorrow, then by the time you've hit that "I drank too much" feeling and cut off your intake, there's still alcohol sitting in your stomach that hasn't made its way into your system yet. Once it does, that "I drank too much" becomes "oh god, I shouldn't have drank that much, please kill me now".
How does beer come into play here? If you drink it after the stronger stuff you've been drinking, you give that stronger alcohol the chance to work its way through your system. Then, once you've hit that "I drank too much" feeling and cut off your intake, the alcoholic beverage left in your stomach is beer rather than liquor or wine and so the post-cutoff alcohol being introduced to your system is at a much lower percentage by volume than if it were stronger alcohol sitting in your stomach.
In other words, beer is just a buffer for your bad drinking habits and gives you a bit more of a heads up so you know to quit drinking before your hangover can get any worse than it already will be. That buffer only works if it's at the tail end of your drinking, not if it's at the start. It's not a rule to prevent hangovers, it's a rule to help you reduce the consequences of your stupid drinking habits by tricking you into slowing down so you can actually tell when you've had too much to drink.
These little nuggets of wisdom are often born from real, tangible results where the actual benefit is due to some other confounding variable that isn't being accounted for.
To clarify, the fundamental flaw of the study would be that participants were given a strict amount of alcohol to consume and the effect of the order of consumption was the only thing measured....
To clarify, the fundamental flaw of the study would be that participants were given a strict amount of alcohol to consume and the effect of the order of consumption was the only thing measured. This is the wrong variable to account for. What they need to measure instead is the total number of standard drinks consumed when a participant is instructed to stop drinking once they've hit what they assess as their limit, with the type of beverage being switched after X number of drinks. I would wager that more standard drinks get consumed when going from beer to liquor/wine than going from liquor/wine to beer.
In a different but somewhat related vein, I've always taken issue with peoples' claims that different types of drink make them a "different type" of drunk. We've all no doubt heard someone say:...
In a different but somewhat related vein, I've always taken issue with peoples' claims that different types of drink make them a "different type" of drunk.
We've all no doubt heard someone say: "Oh, I can't drink whiskey. It makes me a mean drunk. I only drink vodka" or something along these lines.
It seems to me that the alcohol in their beverage of choice is the exact same chemical as the alcohol in the drink they tend to avoid, and the effect that it will have on their brain will, by definition, have the same effect. Their experiences with feeling different emotions when drinking different types of drink likely has a lot more to do with their emotional state, environment (etc) than is does with whatever they chose to indulge in that night.
Physiologically, of course you're right. That said, placebos have been shows to be effective over and over again, event when the subject knows they're taking a placebo. I don't think it's a...
Physiologically, of course you're right. That said, placebos have been shows to be effective over and over again, event when the subject knows they're taking a placebo. I don't think it's a stretch at all to say that people's past experiences with a particular type of alcohol both consciously and unconsciously effect their behavior when drinking the same alcohol on the present.
Sometimes I feel like these kinds of studies are overly literal.
The saying I hear frequently is the "beer before liquor" version, i.e. "before before liquor, never sicker; liquor before beer, you're in the clear". I've always figured that the variety of alcohol doesn't matter worth a damn. What matters is consumption rate of the volume of alcohol itself (i.e. the pure alcohol, not the entire beverage), with a major psychological component.
The thing about alcohol is that what you drink doesn't immediately make its way into your system. It operates on a delay. It has to pass through your digestive system and work its way into your blood. So if you're sitting there pounding shots down your throat like there's no tomorrow, then by the time you've hit that "I drank too much" feeling and cut off your intake, there's still alcohol sitting in your stomach that hasn't made its way into your system yet. Once it does, that "I drank too much" becomes "oh god, I shouldn't have drank that much, please kill me now".
How does beer come into play here? If you drink it after the stronger stuff you've been drinking, you give that stronger alcohol the chance to work its way through your system. Then, once you've hit that "I drank too much" feeling and cut off your intake, the alcoholic beverage left in your stomach is beer rather than liquor or wine and so the post-cutoff alcohol being introduced to your system is at a much lower percentage by volume than if it were stronger alcohol sitting in your stomach.
In other words, beer is just a buffer for your bad drinking habits and gives you a bit more of a heads up so you know to quit drinking before your hangover can get any worse than it already will be. That buffer only works if it's at the tail end of your drinking, not if it's at the start. It's not a rule to prevent hangovers, it's a rule to help you reduce the consequences of your stupid drinking habits by tricking you into slowing down so you can actually tell when you've had too much to drink.
These little nuggets of wisdom are often born from real, tangible results where the actual benefit is due to some other confounding variable that isn't being accounted for.
To clarify, the fundamental flaw of the study would be that participants were given a strict amount of alcohol to consume and the effect of the order of consumption was the only thing measured. This is the wrong variable to account for. What they need to measure instead is the total number of standard drinks consumed when a participant is instructed to stop drinking once they've hit what they assess as their limit, with the type of beverage being switched after X number of drinks. I would wager that more standard drinks get consumed when going from beer to liquor/wine than going from liquor/wine to beer.
In a different but somewhat related vein, I've always taken issue with peoples' claims that different types of drink make them a "different type" of drunk.
We've all no doubt heard someone say: "Oh, I can't drink whiskey. It makes me a mean drunk. I only drink vodka" or something along these lines.
It seems to me that the alcohol in their beverage of choice is the exact same chemical as the alcohol in the drink they tend to avoid, and the effect that it will have on their brain will, by definition, have the same effect. Their experiences with feeling different emotions when drinking different types of drink likely has a lot more to do with their emotional state, environment (etc) than is does with whatever they chose to indulge in that night.
Physiologically, of course you're right. That said, placebos have been shows to be effective over and over again, event when the subject knows they're taking a placebo. I don't think it's a stretch at all to say that people's past experiences with a particular type of alcohol both consciously and unconsciously effect their behavior when drinking the same alcohol on the present.
I'll test this out tonight and let you guys know.
Alcohol before alcohol, hell of a time!