Society & Culture - Posted by Timothy Wall-Missouri on Tuesday, April 17, 2012 9:40 - 2 Comments 
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(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...To feel more mature, cut back on booze
“But by 29, when many of their peers have settled down, individuals who still drink heavily may start to view themselves as ‘Peter Pans’ of partying, who never fully matured,” says lead author Rachel Winograd. (Credit: iStockphoto)
U. MISSOURI (US) — Young adults who continue drinking heavily into their 30s may feel psychologically immature, according to a new study.
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The text of this article by Futurity is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivatives License.
Helping young adults acknowledge their mental impulse to “sober up” as they mature can improve substance abuse intervention programs, say University of Missouri researchers.
“When a heavy drinking 30-year-old comes in for therapy and says he doesn’t feel like an adult, we can present this study and suggest that cutting back on alcohol could help him feel more mature,” says lead researcher Rachel Winograd, a doctoral student in psychology.
“People in their early 20s who accept their own heavy drinking and experience alcohol-related consequences may not realize that these behaviors can be associated with identity issues later on,” says Winograd, whose findings are published in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research.
“We can apply this research to nip the problem in the bud and help young adults become aware that their alcohol use behaviors may conflict with their long-term goals.”
When more than 400 25-years-old adults were interviewed, some showed signs of alcohol use problems, but their problems didn’t correlate to self-reported feelings of immaturity. When surveyed again four years later at age 29 and then again at age 35, subjects expressed different sentiments: individuals who showed signs of alcohol abuse or dependence also self-reported feeling immature for their age.
“We interpreted our findings to suggest that, at 25, drinking is more culturally acceptable,” Winograd says. “Young adults are out at the bars with their friends and drinking is a bonding experience. They also view blacking out, vomiting, and drunk driving as more acceptable because peers are behaving similarly.
“But by 29, when many of their peers have settled down, individuals who still drink heavily may start to view themselves as ‘Peter Pans’ of partying, who never fully matured,” Winograd says.
The study relied on data collected from a group, which was studied since they were college freshmen in 1987 by Kenneth Sher, Winograd’s adviser, study co-author, and professor of psychological sciences. Previous studies examined this group’s attitudes toward drinking when they were younger.
“This study picked up where studies of adolescents left off,” Winograd says, “There seems to be a window of time in the early to mid-20s when drinking is not associated with immaturity. Before and after that window, excessive alcohol use is associated with a lower self-reporting of maturity, according to our results and previous studies.”
Having data from previous studies going back to 1987 about the same group of young adults was an important resource for the new study. Unless there has been a major cultural shift in attitudes, examining the same group as they mature over the years is almost always better for this type of study than surveying different age groups at the same time, says Sher.
“Most critically, it allows us to assume that age differences in the size or direction of an effect is associated with developmental change and not related to sampling biases associated with sampling two different age groups,” says Sher.
In addition to Winograd and Sher, psychology doctoral student Andrew Littlefield also was an author.
More news from the University of Missouri: http://munews.missouri.edu/
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2 Comments
Mark Granger
Uhh No, It has absolutely nothing to do with drinking and absolutely everything to do with the fact that life in this country is, unlike many other countries, absolutely no pleasure at all. Have I used the word “absolutely” enough? I hope so because I am dead certain about this. Life in the United States for all intensive purposes is MISERABLE.
Because of our sex hating, fun hating, party hating culture it is no fun to be a teenager anymore. Wonder why people have a hard time growing up?! Because they never got to be kids. There is absolutely no place for them to BE, just BE anymore without them having to pay for it.
I recall this anti-social disease of society all started around when I was about 15 or 16 years old. My friends and I would hang out at the beaches, hoping to make new friends and meet girls. Summers were amazing. But things started to change. The police starting getting more facist and totalitarian. At first we would enjoy ourselves by outrunning, outbiking or outswimming them, but after a while they started to get out of control. We’d have to hide our bikes from their view or duck behind docks. Eventually 10pm no park, no beach curfews were imposed. Central park in NY may be open at all hours but not the parks around here.
If beaches weren’t available kids would want to throw parties at home. Then that started getting broken up by police. Now you can turn on the tv and watch “campus cops” where police are now harassing college students. Want to cause an absolute alcholism epidemic then start blocking people from what they have done for MILLENIA and that is experiencing and learning about alcohol in their YOUTH.
Yes and this rolls on into people in their 40s, 50s and beyond. I am in my 50s and have friends in exactly this position. They feel “lacking” and “lost.” They still get into fights and sleep with the wrong people, they underachieve in their lives, they eschew therapy, and they struggle through bad relationships. I suggest they kick the booze, and they cite everything else except that as a nexus for their misery. Then the pathology of long term brain damage, organ dysfunction, various cancers, even among so- called “moderate” drinkers begins to set in, as it has among too many of them. Short-term, or long-term: if you booze, you lose.