Comparison Between Drinking Alone and Drinking While Smoking

Young adults who are drinking while smoking. Social smoking, or smoking while drinking alcohol, is not a new trend. According to University of Missouri graduate student, many light up in order to increase the positive psychological effect of alcohol

In order to track how participants felt while they were drinking, a personal digital assistant (PDA) will be used, that would randomly ask them how they were feeling, how much alcohol they had consumed and how much they had smoked, five times each day. If a person started drinking, they would note it on the PDA. This way, respondents could describe exactly how they were feeling at the precise moment, instead of trying to recall it days or weeks later. This also provided an anonymous, unbiased reporting of the data; it was processed without knowing the identity of the participant.

They believe that by combining nicotine and alcohol, a person can increase the amount of relaxation, happiness and stress relief that normally occurs after consuming alcohol.

While they are drinking, smokers self report that they are less happy than non -smokers who are drinking. In other words, smoking does not enhance drinking pleasure, b ut makes it harder to attain. Smokers need to drink more to feel the same psychological

effects as non-smokers. Others also found that heavy smokers need more alcohol. In short, the more you smoke, the more you must drink.

The idea that smoking doesnt improve the drinking experience goes against what most social smokers think about how alcohol affects their mood. Instead of giving them an at ease feeling, they tend to be more negative and less happy, according to the research. If the main goal of alcohol consumption is to relax and increase feelings of elation, it seems that those who combine smoking and boozing are inhibiting their goals.

Why is this study important? Up to 90 percent of alcoholics are also smokers. This combination increases the health problems for these people. It has been shown that alcohol and cigarette abuse can independently lead to obesity, diabetes, lung cancer, liver cancer, heart disease and many other chronic diseases. Moreover, in states like Missouri, where the excise tax on cigarettes is only 17 cents, there is nothing discouraging some drinkers from taking a puff or 20 as well.

"At the same number of drinks, people who smoke more that day are more likely to have a hangover and have more intense hangovers," study researcher Damaris J. Rohsenow, of Brown University, said in a press release.
A group of 113 university students took a daily web survey for 8 weeks. They recorded how many drinks they had in a certain amount of time, how many cigarettes they smoked, and the severity of their hangover symptoms: nausea, weakness, headache, tiredness, and difficulty concentrating.

Obviously, they found that more alcoholic drinks made hangovers worse, but surprisingly found that more smoking did too. When the students smoked more during a night of heavy drinking (equivalent to five or six cans of beer in about an hour) they had worse hangovers. How cigarettes worsen hangovers isn't clear, but previous studies have shown that using nicotine and alcohol together boosts the release of dopamine in the limbic system of the brain an area involved in emotions, motivation, and memory. Dopamine is a brain chemical which gives you feelings of pleasure and reward, which is probably why so many people smoke when they drink, and why smokers reach for their packs more when at the bar.

Prevalence of tobacco use among the college-aged population is approximately 30%; a significant percentage of students initiate use or transition to regular use during their college years. This study examined the relationship between drinking and smoking rates, subjective reactivity of concurrent effects of alcohol and tobacco use, and expectations of smoking while under the influence of alcohol in first-year college students. The sample consisted of ever-smokers (n=217), who had smoked at least once in the past year, with a mean age of 19.67 years. Weekly alcohol consumption was 18.53 standard drinks per week, with 2.95 drinking episodes per week. Of the sample, 54% were classified as smokers (smoked more than 100 cigarettes in their lifetime) and 46% were classified as experimenters (smoked less than 100 cigarettes in their lifetime). Results demonstrated that 74% of all smoking episodes occurred while under the influence of alcohol. Smokers had higher levels of alcohol use and reported greater subjective effects from the simultaneous use of alcohol and tobacco. Smokers

also were more likely to generate expectancies acknowledging an increase in smoking while drinking and for smoking to enhance reinforcement from alcohol. Experimenters were most likely to report positive reinforcement from smoking while under the influence of alcohol. Overall, smokers experienced stronger subjective effects of concurrent alcohol and tobacco use; however, results suggest that smoking while under the influence of alcohol is a positive experience even for relatively inexperienced smokers