Researchers used data from the Nord-Trondelag Health study that included information about the drinking habits and mental health of more than 38,000 participants. They found that those who reported no alcohol consumption during a two-week period were more likely to report depression than moderate drinkers (defined by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services as drinking no more than one drink a day for women, and no more than two for men. Of course, standards may be different in Norway).

The highest risk for depression was found among the group who called themselves "abstainers." Researchers are not sure how to explain this. Indeed, it seems strange that depression would be found among those who do not self medicate with alcohol. We have become used to associating alcoholism with depression, so it is surprising to have abstinence linked to mental illness as well. Researchers also found that 14% of the abstainers had previously been heavy drinkers, which kind of makes sense, but does not explain the connection for the other 86%. The only explanation suggested by the authors of the study is that, in societies where drinking is common, even normal, abstinence may be associated with the socially marginalized, or with particular personality traits that are associated with depression.

But all hope is not lost for the non-drinking depressed folk: Some scientists believe that depression may serve an evolutionary function. Various studies have found that people in a depressed mood are better at solving problems, both social and mathematical. An article published last week in Scientific American expounds on the theory that the tortuous ruminations that characterize the severely depressed may in fact aid in problem solving. The critical thinking involved in depression may have lead our brains to evolve with a predisposition toward sadness. "The capacity to feel presumably helps us solve problems and survive, and is essential for group living, and perhaps inconsolable depression is simply emotional baggage that tags along with the good stuff. Or maybe unhappiness and a tendency towards suicide is the product of the uncontrolled nature of our quicksilver minds," wrote Meredith Small in an article for LiveScience last year.

Alcohol Abstinence Linked To Depression [UPI]
Why Did Evolution Produce Depression [LiveScience]
Depression's Evolutionary Roots [Scientific American]

And anyway, more stringent controls on drinkers isn't getting at the root of the problem. The problem is a culture of alcohol consumption. Williams posits:

The factors motivating drunkenness, or rather militating against a mature, long-term attitude to consumption and wellbeing, are vast and global and complicated. You could blame the 60s for destroying a shared understanding of morality, or the 80s for creating the financial disparities that make society functionally meaningless to people anywhere near the bottom.

Binge drinking doesn't even cause destructive behavior in all cultures, the New York Times noted yesterday. In a 1969 book called Drunken Comportment, social scientists Craig MacAndrew and Robert B. Edgerton wrote about drunkenness across the world, and according to the Times, they found " the Yuruna Indians in the Xingu region of Brazil would become exceptionally reserved when rendered sideways by large helpings of moonshine...In a Japanese island village, Takashima, people knew a drinking occasion had gone completely off the dials if villagers began to sing or, wilder still, to dance. Aggression, sexual or otherwise, was unheard of during these sessions."

More recently, social scientists in New Zealand studied the effects of drinking in teenage girls. The researchers observed two different cliques at a high school, according to the Times, and while both groups associated boozing with wild behavior, "one group considered being uninhibited to include making out, and the other considered it to include far more." In other worlds? If you're out flashing Joe Francis, it's probably the booze and the influence of your whorey friends in equal measures.

So what's the takeaway? A bottle of wine probably won't hurt you. A bottle of wine smashed over your head by a soccer hooligan will.

Sorry, I Binge Responsibly [Guardian]
When People Drink Themselves Silly, and Why [New York Times]

According to Science Daily, Buffalo researchers speculate that "The physically disinhibiting effects of alcohol for new drinkers may cause them to be more reactive, possibly verbally aggressive, or more likely to call attention to themselves, thereby putting themselves at risk for physical aggression in social drinking situations." And then there's the news that young women are out-drinking boys. James Garbarino, a member of the humanistic psychology department at Loyola University, tells the Washington Post, "When you take off the shackles, you release all kind of energy — negative and positive...By letting girls loose to experience America more fully, it's not surprising that they would absorb some of its toxic environment." We need those shackles to save us from ourselves, apparently! But Deborah Prothrow-Stith, a professor of public health at Harvard, asks the question that's also on our lips: "'Why wouldn't you expect girls to behave [like boys]?' Girls and women are closing all the other gaps." Should this necessarily be a cause for alarm? Not that alcohol abuse is ideal or should be encouraged in young women, but why should women be expected to have fewer vices than men do?

Drinking And Abuse: Dangerous Transition From High School To College For Women [Science Daily]
Catching Up To The Boys, In The Good And The Bad [Washington Post]
Sex, Drugs And Alcohol: Parents Still Influence College Kids' Risky Behavior, Study Shows [Science Daily]