Latest news with #bingeDrinking
BBC News
29-05-2025
- Health
- BBC News
'Ultra-running helped me find sobriety' says Isle of Wight woman
A long-distance runner said the sport has given her a better life after she struggled with binge drinking and her mental Fisher, from Newport on the Isle of Wight, has been running for two years and finished third in a 100-mile race in Snowdonia in Wales on 17 podium finish means she has now qualified for the Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc, often called the "Olympics of trail running".Reflecting on her running journey, she said: "It has put me on a positive trajectory in life." The 31-year-old said she was inspired to sign-up for her first charity run after her aunt became terminally ill with bowel cancer two years Fisher said before her aunt died she asked her to challenge herself and raise money for the hospice that cared for said before this point she had struggled with her mental health and binge drinking."I've found sobriety and I just feel I'm living a much healthier and happier life now," she said. Ms Fisher signed up for an Isle of Wight ultra race, having never taken part in any form of running event before, and after only undertaking 12 weeks of won that race and said: "Since then my life has just been running."There was a lot of moments where I thought 'why am I putting myself through this?'"The length of the trails means that often she can be alone on the track, she said."I had some hours where it's just me and my own brain. Those times can be quite hard," Ms Fisher said."It's kind of like a meditational state where my inner monologue is just constantly talking to itself. "But then sometimes there's just aspects of calm, when I am just focused on the climb or on the descent because it is so difficult and I kind of get that peace." You can follow BBC Hampshire & Isle of Wight on Facebook, X (Twitter), or Instagram.
Yahoo
27-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Young men are binge drinking less than young women for the 1st time. What's going on?
Gen Z has been hailed as the 'sober-curious' generation, with rates of risky behaviors such as drinking alcohol, as well as having sex and using drugs, falling to historically low rates. But one study recently put an even finer point on the trend: Young men in particular are the ones giving up binge drinking, defined as having five or more alcoholic beverages in one sitting for men, or four or more for women. Fewer Gen Z men than women reported binge drinking in the last month between 2021 and 2023, according to the April 2025 study in JAMA. Though the gap between men's and women's drinking rates has been narrowing over the past several decades, in recent years women's alcohol use has outpaced men's for the first time ever. The findings have raised alarm bells over women's high binge-drinking rates. But a closer look shows that the closing gender gap is driven as much, if not more so, by falling bingeing rates among men, especially young adult males. So what's inspiring young men to drink less or not at all? We looked into it. All young adults were drinking less between 2021 and 2023, compared with the 2017-19 period, according to the study. Young women were binge drinking 13% less, but young men saw an even bigger drop — nearly 21%. So it's not that more women are necessarily binge drinking now — it's that fewer men are, and that shift has made women's rates seem higher in comparison. Why young men are drinking less is still up for debate, notes study author and University of Pittsburgh internist Dr. Bryant Shuey. Though he sees the declining rates of binge drinking among young men as a 'public health success,' Shuey wonders if it's more complicated than a pure win. 'Are young people happy, socially connected and drinking less, or is it that middle-aged and young men are more lonely, less social and less willing to call up a friend for drinks,' he says. 'There's potential that there is a tradeoff here: Less alcohol and more loneliness, and we need to think about addressing both.' There's no shortage of theories behind Gen Z's relative sobriety: Young people are big on prioritizing their health, and there's a booming health and wellness industry to meet the demand; the loneliness epidemic that Shuey noted; rising rates of young people choosing cannabis over alcohol; and Gen Z-ers choosing to scroll on a smartphone rather than partying with friends. A recent Dutch study suggested it may be simpler than all that: Young people are just too broke to buy drinks (and costs are rising). Dry January and "sober-curious" posts on social media may also play a role, experts and men who have gotten sober suggest. Brandan Saho, a sports journalist and host of the podcast The Mental Game, says both trends have inspired a lot of young people to not drink. 'And once they see that their personal life is better and their physical health is better and that no one cares that they don't drink,' then picturing a sober life becomes that much easier, says Saho. 'It's not a defining thing like it would've been 10 or 15 years ago, when you weren't cool if you didn't drink.' Fellow podcaster Shane Ramer says there was a 'lack of the cool element' to sobriety when he quit drinking. A decade later, he's hosting the That Sober Guy podcast and thinks that 'people are waking up to the fact that … it's so much cooler and respectable and how many more opportunities there are,' when you don't drink, he says. Ramer, 43, and Saho, 31, are recovering alcoholics. Both grew up in households where drinking — often heavy drinking — was the norm, but it wasn't talked about. While they're not part of Gen Z, Ramer and Saho suspect that some of the younger generation had similar experiences. 'It took me hitting my rock bottom and almost not being alive for me to tell my dad,' says Saho, referring to his drinking. 'You should be able to talk to the men in your life, but until the past five or 10 years, no one did.' That's changing with social media, podcasts and vodcasts, especially given that many influential (and, in some cases, controversial) male podcasters with large followings of young men are sober and vocal about it: Joe Rogan, Theo Von and Andrew Huberman, for example, have all quit drinking. On Reddit, several people said that Huberman's episode on the effects of alcohol have gotten them to quit drinking. Hearing some of them talk about giving up alcohol to focus on the work they enjoy doing resonated with Saho. As he says in one TikTok, it helped inspire him to stay sober. While social media certainly has its downsides and dangers, Ramer describes a 'cultural shift' around drinking that's having a positive effect on young men. 'You have a lot of media and podcasts and celebrity people who are sober and open about it,' he says, adding that this openness provides a sense of community and a path forward for people, including young men, who are considering drinking less — or not at all.
The Guardian
24-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
My cultural awakening: a punk band told me quit drinking. So I did
I started drinking when I was 14. It was how we'd have fun as kids in Aberdeen – I didn't come across any youth clubs or anything particularly productive. You drank beer or alcopops in some shady lane, and you drank so quickly that you'd get drunk but then be sober enough to get home at 11pm so your parents wouldn't notice anything. It wasn't drinking for pleasure: binge drinking was just what everyone – regardless of social groups – seemed to be doing. During my teenage years I worked at a newsagent and I would read Kerrang! every week, which was extremely formative for me in discovering music. It's incredible how many new bands I was introduced to, and just how my music taste evolved – from nu-metal bands such as Korn to Rage Against the Machine and, most influentially, Fugazi. One day in 1999, when I was 16, I read about the hardcore punk band Minor Threat. Ian MacKaye, a member of Fugazi, was an important figure for me: he had a very specific way of approaching music and was fiercely independent. I was inspired by him, shaving my hair and wearing a beanie. A friend even started calling me Bain MacKaye. His previous band, Minor Threat, were active in the early 80s and had been part of what became known as the 'straight edge' movement, a subculture of hardcore punks who turned away from drugs and alcohol in reaction to punk's excesses. In Minor Threat's song Out of Step, MacKaye sings lyrics such as 'I don't drink', but he shortens it to 'don't drink', so it sounds more like he's telling you to do the same, which to some degree he is. It wasn't so much the music itself that grabbed me, it was more that I became interested in this perspective of questioning the mainstream. I wasn't particularly rebellious: I didn't talk back to teachers or have a problem with my parents. So the concept of being straight edge and not taking drugs or drinking seemed like the most radical thing I could do in a middle-class environment. To begin with, not drinking was just experimental, then it became a challenge. With time, I started to see the good in it. You never know how you're going to react under stress or grief, and from an early age I had just ruled out drinking as a way to deal with these things. I had also developed an ability to speak my mind or just have the balls to speak to new people sober, not needing something to help ease social anxieties. I was the odd one out among my friends. They'd wonder why I was doing it and probably made fun of me, but I was never excommunicated from my circle. Still, when I went to university in around 2003, one guy said to me: 'You shouldn't come inside a pub if you're not ready to drink and smoke in it'. People would often ask me if I was religious or if there were alcohol problems in my family. There always had to be a reason, like it wasn't a choice to be sober. That's what was so appealing – it just seemed so radical to be sober. And I have been ever since. It is largely a force of habit nowadays, not the teenage rebellion I felt back then, though I do still listen to Minor Threat from time to time. Sobriety has given me a very different experience in life. At university I spent a lot of time with foreign students who were slightly older than me. Alcohol was still a part of their social circle but in a more sophisticated way. That group included the person who became my wife. I now live with her in Finland, where I work as a lab technician. In Finland the phrase straight edge, or streittari, is well known to describe the lifestyle of those who don't drink or do drugs, but not many people know its roots – an 80s hardcore punk band. Did a cultural moment prompt you to make a major life change? Email us at
