Video: Mia Mormino – Pour Another

Mia Mormino is a Los Angeles, USA-based electronic pop singer songwriter who exploded onto my radar last year through her “seven deadly sin-gles.” I’ve previously shared her tracks Rapunzel (which represents envy), Stick-up (which represents greed) and Building Blocks (which represents sloth). Her latest is Pour Another, representing gluttony. (more…)

Why There's An Unfair Stigma On Female Binge-Drinking

‘You are what you eat.’ K-Shop is a 2016 British horror film written and directed by Dan Pringle. The film was produced by Mem Ferda and Adam J Merrifield of White Lantern Film. The film is being distributed by Bulldog Film Distributors and is set for a UK cinema release in July this year following a festival premiere at Scotland’s ‘Dead By Dawn’ in Edinburgh this April. Empress Road Pictures are…

Map showing prevalence of binge drinking in the USA

On February 2, 2016 the Centers for Disease Control issued a press release, along with an infographic, about women and alcohol use. More than 3 million US women at risk for alcohol-exposed pregnancy, the press release was entitled. CDC Principal Deputy Director Anne Schuchat, M.D, a woman, said therein “Alcohol can permanently harm a developing baby before a woman knows she is pregnant. About half of all pregnancies in the United States are unplanned, and even if planned, most women won’t know they are pregnant for the first month or so, when they might still be drinking. The risk is real. Why take the chance?”

Since then, the blogosphere has exploded with cries of sexism, gender bias, and a call to arms, or at least to raised glasses, as women clamor to fight for their right to drink alcohol, even if potentially pregnant. 

What seems to be lost in all the shouting is that, like putting calorie counts on menus or suggesting that drinking 48-ounces of soda at a time is a health choice worth taxing, the CDC here aims to provide information to women, and to their sexual partners, about the potential risks for birth defects from drinking alcohol while pregnant. Women can do as they will with the information, but would it not be gross negligence for the CDC to withhold this information?  

As the director of CDC’s National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities Coleen Boyle, PhD, another woman, says: “It is critical for healthcare providers to assess a woman’s drinking habits during routine medical visits; advise her not to drink at all if she is pregnant, trying to get pregnant, or sexually active and not using birth control; and recommend services if she needs help to stop drinking.”

This seems like reasonable advice to me. Sensible advice. Potentially life-saving advice. And yet, my social media feeds tell me, I must be either sexist or deluded by gender bias to believe such “crazy” recommendations coming from the CDC. For reasons that baffle me, many women have taken the advice as a “patronizing and condescending lecture.” Let’s see. I’m a woman. I’m of childbearing age. I sometimes drink alcohol. Where is my outrage? Why am I not furious at the patriarchy? 

Perhaps because I’ve seen too much alcoholism. Perhaps because I’ve seen too much collateral damage from the type of drinking warned against in the CDC flyer. Perhaps because I agree that the 1 in 10 women the CDC says drink while pregnant may benefit from this information and make different choices, since fetal alcohol syndrome is no laughing matter. So, edgy quips like “your drinking is a type of witchery that can whip babies into existence out of nowhere” may get some laughs, some retweets, and some (misplaced) self-righteous anger stirred up, but do they help?

Consider:

More than 38 million US adults binge drink, about 4 times a month. Of that group, nearly 14 million US women binge drink about 3 times a month, at an average of 6 drinks per binge.

Short-term health risks from overuse of alcohol include:

> Injuries, such as motor vehicle crashes, falls, drownings, and burns.

> Violence, including homicide, suicide, sexual assault, and intimate partner violence.

> Alcohol poisoning, a medical emergency that results from high blood alcohol levels.

> Risky sexual behaviors, including unprotected sex or sex with multiple partners, which can result in unintended pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV.

> Miscarriage and stillbirth or fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASDs) among pregnant women.

Long-term health risks from overuse of alcohol include:

> High blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, liver disease, and digestive problems.

> Cancer of the breast, mouth, throat, esophagus, liver, and colon.

> Learning and memory problems, including dementia and poor school performance.

> Mental health problems, including depression and anxiety.

> Social problems, including lost productivity, family problems, and unemployment.

> Alcohol dependence, or alcoholism.

> 2,200 Americans die each year from alcohol poisoning -- that’s about 6 deaths per day.

While these risks offer plenty of reasons to reconsider binge-drinking. They do not point to the collateral damage of problem drinking on the friends and loved ones of the drinkers, including emotional abuse, neglect, and strained relationships. Every person with a drinking problem, an estimated 18 million Americans, disrupts the lives of at least four other people, leading to problems including anxiety, depression, and difficulties at work and with friends. The loved ones of alcoholics report that they have experienced abuse -- emotional (95%), verbal (94%), physical (43%), and sexual (21%) --  at the hands of the problem drinkers in their lives.

Are you concerned that you drink too much? 

Are you concerned that a loved one drinks too much?

New Post has been published on http://www.therakyatpost.com/world/2015/02/14/off-wagon-vietnams-binge-drinking-problem/

Off the wagon — Vietnam's binge-drinking problem

HO CHI MINH CITY, Feb 14, 2015:

A SCANTILY clad DJ gyrates to ear-splitting music as the crowd of drinkers orders more towers of lager: welcome to The Hangover, one of a new crop of “beer clubs” raising concerns about Vietnam’s drinking culture.

Beer goes for as little as 30 US cents (RM1.70) a glass in Vietnam, making the communist country one of the cheapest places in the world for a tipple. And over the last few years, alcohol consumption has been rising at one of the fastest rates anywhere.

Vietnamese used to mainly enjoy their booze perched on the small plastic chairs that festoon curbside beer joints.

But increasing wealth has brought new drinking options to a country that has no real notion of alcoholism and no specific word for a hangover.

Bars are still mainly the preserve of well-heeled expatriates and the Vietnamese elite. So beer clubs — with their music and air-conditioning — have sprung up over recent months as funkier alternatives for young, local drinkers, many of them committed to the cause.

“The purpose of drinking is to get drunk. It will be a waste if you are not drunk,” 21-year-old Vo Van Bao told AFP outside The Hangover, where he had come on a recent Thursday evening with friends.

Despite the well-used “vomit sink” in the bathroom, The Hangover’s owner, who declined to give his name, said he was aiming to create a family-friendly establishment.

“I want my people, my clients, to come into my club and have a little food, have a little beer, have a little fun and go home,” he said.

Vietnam is the third-largest beer consumer in Asia, behind Japan and China, and the leading consumer in Southeast Asia, out-drinking even wealthier Thailand, according to industry figures.

The rate of beer drinking in Vietnam has increased by more than 200% over the past 10 years, state media recently reported, due in part to rising disposable incomes and to demographics — a million people reach the legal drinking age of 18 each year.

Trouble brewing 

For now Vietnam barely makes it into the world’s top 100 per capita alcohol consumers, according to World Health Organisation statistics, far behind big-drinking Russia, Britain and France.

But the statistics are skewed because fewer than 2% of Vietnamese women drink alcohol at all, according to WHO technical officer Phuong Nam Nguyen.

That leaves it to the men, one-quarter of whom drink at “harmful” levels — defined as six or more drinks per session, WHO research indicates.

“It is becoming a serious health challenge in Vietnam,” Phuong said.

“There are many associated problems — liver cirrhosis, road traffic accidents, domestic violence.”

Sixty percent of domestic violence incidents in Vietnam are linked to alcohol, government research shows, and excessive alcohol consumption is resulting in rising incidents of diseases such as cancer and diabetes.

Efforts to restrict consumption — from a proposed 10pm alcohol sales ban to plans to limit beer sales to air-conditioned venues — have been widely mocked in the state-run press and rapidly abandoned.

State media reports say drinkers in Hanoi alone are expected to down nearly 200 million litres of alcohol for the forthcoming Tet lunar new year festival.

It is all part of Vietnam’s robust drinking culture — one local saying declares: ‘A man without alcohol is like a flag without wind.’

“This (idea) is deeply rooted in our culture and will take a long time to change,” said WHO’s Phuong.

What’s your poison?

Beer is particularly big business in Vietnam, which consumes around three billion litres annually.

The market is dominated by three companies and every major town has its own brew — from Beer Saigon in southern Ho Chi Minh City, to Beer La Rue in the central areas, to Hanoi beer in the northern capital.

International drinks giants are hoping to persuade Vietnam’s beer drinkers to move onto harder liquors, despite heavy taxes and a ban on advertising spirits.

With a population of some 90 million, half of whom are under 30, and a rapidly expanding middle class, Vietnam is a key market for companies such as Diageo, which produces Johnnie Walker whisky among other brands.

The company says consumption is not actually that high, with Vietnamese drinking less than the French per capita, but the country remains an enticing business prospect.

“There is a fake perception that Vietnam is drinking too much, it isn’t true,” said Stephane Gripon, general manager for Diageo in Vietnam.

“They drink in a reasonable way and their consumption of spirits is… still very low,” he added.

That is not always the case for Vietnam’s beer boys.

On a recent Wednesday lunchtime in the capital Hanoi, 42-year-old construction engineer Nguyen Van Thanh sat with a friend drinking at a bia hoi — a roadside restaurant serving fresh-brewed beer. Around 10 empty beer bottles were on the table.

“I drink every day, beer or spirits. I know it is not good for my health, but it’s hard to give up this habit.