http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/1 ... ing-binge/
It's striking (though I guess not surprising) how closely it correlates to cold climate. I'm guessing that would work on a global level as well (not many teetotalers in Russia, from what I hear). I was an undergrad at UW Madison in my pre-glass ceiling youth and am not surprised at (and probably helped to contribute to) Wisconsin's distressing preeminence in this department.
It's a little shocking how much of total alcohol consumption in the US is done via binge:
Since " binge drinking accounted for more than half of the 80,000 annual deaths associated with excessive drinking" and "most people who binge-drink are not dependent on alcohol," it seems like a system like glass ceiling might be much more broadly desirable than I'd originally imagined (I thought I was unusual in being neither alcoholic yet still problematic -- looks like that's the rule rather than the exception for those with drinking issues).Notably, most of the alcohol consumed in the United States is consumed during a binge. Binge drinking accounts for more than half of the alcohol consumed by adults and 90 percent of the alcohol consumed by youths.
Another interesting tidbit is that their definition of a binge "five or more drinks on a single occasion for men or four or more drinks on a single occasion for women" means that even the vast majority of my glass ceiling failures don't "officially" count as binges (almost all are 3-4 drinks total).
Reinhard