
Smart people are drunks - bd
http://www.drinksafterdark.com/smart-people-are-drunks/
======
quantumhobbit
At first I interpreted this as wishful thinking, but there may be a bit of
truth to it. To some extent intelligence can breed disillusionment and along
with that depression. I don't think that I need to convince anyone in this
crowd that smart creative types tend to be stifled and frustrated in most of
today's institutions; school, office jobs. The associated depression can
easily manifest itself as a drinking problem.

The concept of emotional intelligence, while buzzwordy and overused, goes a
long way to explain this as well. IQ doesn't correlate with or slightly
negatively correlates with EQ. Self control is supposed to be an element of
EQ. Higher IQ students can often coast though school without developing self-
control and healthy coping mechanisms needed in later life.

~~~
pm
"Higher IQ students can often coast though school without developing self-
control and healthy coping mechanisms needed in later life."

I second this sentiment, having experienced it myself. I coasted through high
school while many of my peers had to work extra hard to get good grades, and
it subsequently took me seven years to finish a three year degree (an
illustration degree, no less, which requires patience far greater than what I
had).

I don't consider it a failure - I consider it a lesson well-learnt, and don't
regret the time it took - but if I had developed that discipline earlier, it
wouldn't have taken nearly so long nor been so difficult.

~~~
dangoldin
But at the same time you may not have appreciated it as much. Of course that
doesn't change how you feel but it just comes to show that almost everything
has both a cost and a benefit.

~~~
pm
Agreed, and I now appreciate the determination it took to complete the degree
considering the spectacular number of failed courses on my academic
transcript. It was a humbling experience, and for someone of my hubris at the
time, really the only way I could have learnt persistence and followthrough.

------
jd
Lisa Simpson: "As intelligence goes up, happiness goes down. See, I made a
graph. I make lots of graphs."

~~~
tel
Makes me think of that Einstein quote: "It has become appallingly obvious that
our technology has exceeded our humanity"

------
thomasmallen
Probably because you're more likely to be unhappy with the state of things if
you understand them well.

~~~
yters
My professor tells me of a fellow PhD student that fits the study well. He was
absolutely brilliant, way above any of the other students, but he would spend
all his time in the bar and ended up dying from drinking too much. I think he
didn't even get the degree.

~~~
silentbicycle
Smarter people will stop before it has a chance to ruin their lives.

I remember Feynman mentioning that once, when walking past a bar, he realized
that he had considered going in and drinking (he was alone, it was in the
middle of the afternoon), so he decided it would probably be better to quit
entirely.

~~~
dgabriel
What was easy for one exceptional person doesn't invalidate the research.

~~~
silentbicycle
I never said it did. If drinking excessively is gradually killing somebody,
though, it might not be a bad idea for them to stop drinking, you know? Seems
like the smart thing to do.

As far as I can tell from the summary (has anybody actually read it? I don't
have a subscription...), the point the research makes is that people who have
tested as having above-average IQs at the age of 10 also have a higher-than-
average incidence of problems with alcohol as adults (meaning what, I'm not
sure: arrests and/or medical problems, I assume). That could be read as,
"smart people don't necessarily have smart coping behaviors".

I'm flabbergasted by the people in thread going, "Smart people have a
statistically higher incidence of winding up dead in ditches due to alcohol
poisoning! Go us!". But then again, the top level post was summarized as
"smart people are drunks", so maybe I'm being naive in expecting people to
respond to more than just a summary-of-a-summary in a post about alcohol.

~~~
bd
_"Smart people have a statistically higher incidence of winding up dead in
ditches due to alcohol poisoning! Go us!"_

Who actually said that? I'm sorry if the anecdote I mentioned was
misinterpreted. It was just one data point. Just like the one about Feynman
:).

BTW the original article had 8170 datapoints. And in the free abstract they
tell that higher childhood mental ability scores were related not just to
incidence of the problems but also with "to higher average intake of alcohol
and to drinking more frequently".

<http://www.ajph.org/cgi/content/abstract/98/12/2237>

~~~
silentbicycle
It wasn't yours, and the ones I had in mind (in tone, not verbatim) seem to
have been deleted or rephrased enough that I'm no longer reading them that
way.

As for your anecdote, sad indeed. I was also thinking of the post about Phil
Katz's death on here a few weeks back. It's a horrible way to die.

------
trapper
The key is to not let your kids know they are smart. Challenge them, and
encourage failure. Get them outside their comfort zone. Everyone's a "moron"
at something.

It's those people that have high IQs and think that's enough that I know that
have the problems with substances. A gift is useless sitting in the closet.

How many "gifted" people you know that are kicking ass every day are substance
abusers? None that I know!

~~~
helveticaman
I don't abuse _substances_ , but I'm definitely addicted to the internet.

~~~
blogimus
Do you do any packet sniffing?

------
mironathetin
In german there is a proverb which says (roughtly): smartness drinks,
stupidity eats (too much in both cases).

This is becoming more and more true. Being overweight is a social problem
nowadays.

~~~
dazzawazza
For a country with Beer better then it's food, that makes sense ;)

~~~
mironathetin
touché :o)

------
josefresco
In Tipping Point the author said that in a study they found that cool people
smoked. They weren't cool because they smoked, but the ones who did smoked
tended to be "cooler" than those that did not.

~~~
jwesley
Do not let the tobacco companies get ahold of that one.

------
danohuiginn
I don't have access to the full report (roll on open access!), but I'm
confused by this:

"Of the 3,895 men and 4,148 women _who reported drinking alcohol as adults_ ,
those with higher average scores on childhood mental ability tests were also
more likely to have indications of alcohol problems in adulthood"

How does the picture change if you include the teetotalers? Did they plan from
the start to exclude the non-drinker, or is that just being repeated because
it's a more interesting figures?

~~~
silentbicycle
Good observation. I wonder if anybody here has actually read the report. (The
author of the linked post writes a cocktail blog, so she's at least upfront
about her biases.)

"People of above average intelligence don't always have equally intelligent
coping mechanisms" isn't as punchy a headline, of course...and this is about
people whose drinking has caused them _serious problems_ (hospital visits?
incarceration?), as per the report, not people who just drink socially or
whatever.

------
DanielBMarkham
Couple of notes:

1) Some anthropologists see intoxication as the natural state of man since
fermentation was invented until just recently.(No, I don't have a link,
although there was a Scientific American article about this within the last
few years)

2) I have family (an uncle) who are active in AA. They tell me that this is
well known in the AA community. Instead of a lot of bums and ex-cons (which
there are), the most interesting observation is the number of doctors,
lawyers, professors, etc -- professions that usually require a high degree of
intelligence.

3) Freud was of the opinion that depressed/addicted people simply were better
at understanding how crappy life was than other people. Of course, Freud was a
coke-head, so take that with a grain of salt.

4) I've been toying with the idea that the junkie mentality produces more
creative and intelligent works than the sober one. Take, for instance, all of
the famous authors who are addicted. Or comedians. It seems like there is some
hunger, some desperate reaching out that comes with addiction that translates
well into creative efforts. It might sound bad, but I don't think Stevie King
is as good now as when he used to be a junkie. Sames goes for Robin Williams.
It's just a working hypothesis. I wouldn't use any of these observations to
justify addictive behavior.

~~~
rkowalick
Depression leads to amazing creativity. Just look as Eliot, who wrote his
masterpiece "The Wasteland" while in a middle of an extremely turbulent time
with his family and friends.

~~~
jaws
It's actually "The Waste Land". I realize I am being over-anal, but assuming I
am one of the few English graduates here I will grasp an opportunity to shine.
That said, I fully agree.

------
KirinDave
SCENE 1: A Party.

SCIENTIST IS TALKING TO A HOT LOOKING GIRL AND HOLDING TWO DRINKS.

SCIENTIST: Hey! CORRELATION! C'mere honey! You gotta see this?

CORRELATION WALKS UP IN A HOT RED COCKTAIL DRESS SIPPING AN APPLETINI

CORRELATION: What is it, darling?

SCIENTIST: Honey, this is CAUSATION. Isn't it amazing how much she looks like
you?

CAUSATION: Pleased to meet you! That's a lovely dress.

CORRELATION: Why thank you. You're right, dear, we do look an awful lot alike.

SCIENTIST GETS A WICKED GRIN

SCIENTIST: Hey, girls. Let's say we go somewhere more comfortable together. I
think we might be able to work with this.

CORRELATION AND CAUSATION, FURIOUS AT THIS SUDDEN TREATMENT, SPLASH THEIR
DRINKS ON SCIENTIST AND STORM OFF. HE LOOKS AT THE CAMERA THINKING "YES, I
DESERVED THAT."

------
pavel_lishin
You're besieged by idiots on all side. What else is there to do but drink?

------
shadytrees
> _Smart people are drunks_

And you don't understand correlation and causation.

~~~
ericb
Where do you see causality implied in that title?

Have you been drinking? :-)

~~~
yters
It looks like the title says being smart causes people to become drunks. To
see this, reverse the title:

"Drunks are smart people"

The reversal should be meaningless if the title only implies correlation,
since correlation is bidirectional. However, since the reversal is not
meaningless, then the title must imply causation.

~~~
grag
I think you've got it backwards. Since correlation is bidirectional then the
reversal should NOT be meaningless.

~~~
yters
Sorry, bad wording on my part. I don't mean the reversed phrase should be
meaningless, but that it should not mean something different than the
unreversed phrase. However, it clearly does mean something different,
therefore the implied relationship between smart and drunk is not
bidirectional.

That being said, I missed the possibility of a 3rd underlying factor. The
title is agnostic about this possibility.

------
light3
Interesting video:

[http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=fXIeFJCqsPs&NR=1](http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=fXIeFJCqsPs&NR=1)

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cabalamat
Turn this on its head: if people with higher IQs drink more, people who drink
more have higher IQs. While correlation doesn't imply causation, the
hypothesis that drinking alcohol makes you clever cannot automatically be
ruled out.

~~~
danohuiginn
"IQ scores obtained when 8,170 boys and girls were _10 years old_ and their
alcohol intake and any problems when they were _30 years old_."

[I'm assuming not many of them were heavy drinkers in kindergarten. Go on,
call me naive]

------
jwesley
I think it may be related to the drive for mental stimulation. The same way
smart people devour information and ideas they also devour other mental
stimulants like alcohol.

~~~
razzmataz
I wouldn't class alcohol as a stimulant. Stimulants are things like speed,
meth, etc. Alcohol is a depressant.

~~~
zacharydanger
And caffeine. :]

