Where the Biggest Drinkers Are - And Why?

What drives people to drink? For some, it can be quite a costly habit. Tolerance builds up over time and those 3 mikes hard lemonades you used to steal from the 24 pack in your parents basement no longer suffice. You appease your stirring vice with a lager, or an IPA, inviting another 6 or seven of its friends. This no longer does the trick in elevating your head enough to get out of the cloudy monotony of everyday life so you climb a bit higher. You switch to liquor, brandy, scotch, dripped over a few cubes so you can still tell yourself its a cocktail; water and booze.

Eventually, whatever way you want to sling it to make yourself feel better about a liver pinching habit, your favorite cocktail becomes booze and air, and a lot of it at that.


If I can quickly digress, I think I am giving off a negative impression of alcohol. I for one think it is a necessary evil. Some can do without it, but I don't really trust them. Frank Sinatra was quoted famously by stating, "I feel bad for people who don't drink...When they wake up in the morning, its the best they are going to feel all day." I fear that this is true, and blessed be the word of thy lord Jesus. Yes, I just confirmed the fact that Sinatra is a biblical character to me.

The above rant came from a survey I read today about Where the Biggest Drinkers Are Located. The survey found that Washington, DC singles, are among the heaviest of drinkers in the nation. Not surpisingly, cities like Boston, Manhatten, Chicago, all the greats fall only slightly behind. One interesting aside is that Las Vegas, is amongst the lowest drinkers. Truly this does not make sense to me. The only way I can rationalize this is that the city is filled with too many men. Men who are too busy pissing away their money at the tables, and the chlamydia they received from the hooker named Geneveve' who tits were able to lure him away from a watered down cocktail.

Why are the heaviest drinkers located in my humble city? Why are they single? Well, I can tell you that DC is saturated with men and women who have overpaid for multiple degrees only to find themselves working 8am-Midnight cleaning up spit from overzealous politicians, while working weekends at a dive bar, collecting, in fact, more spit. They are underpaid, overworked and mal-appreciated. Those who have enough time for find a spouse or significant other, find themselves alone again shortly after due to "not paying enough attention," or "being too devoted to their job." It is a sad thing really, when you think about it, and a good excuse to drink heavily.

I for one don't really sympathize. I mean, I am struggling to find the bad here. What I am able to gather and assemble from this survey along with my social observations is as follows:

You have a bunch of men and women who are smart, articulate and well fashioned. They are in decent shape since appearance matters, and stress levels keep them thin and eating light. They have little time to date, so settling is an option for those less fortunate in the looks catagory. They drink because they are unhappy, and they are unhappy because they drink. This means, that on any given night of the week you could stumble into a bar, find a girl (or guy) who is pissed off at the world, hates their job, and their significant other just decided to date the guy/gal at the mall since they have more time for them. They're feeling insecure and have little time to make an educated decision about sex, or at the very least heavy petting with a complete stranger in the next hour that follows. So, you take them home, you screw like rabits, wake up and put whiskey in your coffee cup to keep you smiling into the day. Then you part ways without exchanging numbers because you both know neither of you has the time to save the contact let alone meet again.

Good lord. Drink up.