Intoxication's Fake Feeling of Happiness<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Here are some numbers: 78% of emerging adults drink; 47% binge drink; 10% drink 5x a week or more; 12% smoke pot weekly; 20% use illicit drugs.\u00a0Here are\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2012\/12\/13\/intoxications-fake-feeling-of-happiness\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Intoxication's Fake Feeling of Happiness\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Here are some numbers: 78% of emerging adults drink; 47% binge drink; 10% drink 5x a week or more; 12% smoke pot weekly; 20% use illicit drugs.\u00a0Here are\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2012\/12\/13\/intoxications-fake-feeling-of-happiness\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-12-13T12:06:10+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2012-12-13T04:35:18+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/wp.patheos.com.s3.amazonaws.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/files\/2012\/12\/Screen-Shot-2012-12-04-at-7.49.06-PM.png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Scot McKnight\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Scot McKnight\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2012\/12\/13\/intoxications-fake-feeling-of-happiness\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2012\/12\/13\/intoxications-fake-feeling-of-happiness\/\",\"name\":\"Intoxication's Fake Feeling of Happiness\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2012-12-13T12:06:10+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2012-12-13T04:35:18+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/5919e847c58ffe6efb5899fb61797252\"},\"description\":\"Here are some numbers: 78% of emerging adults drink; 47% binge drink; 10% drink 5x a week or more; 12% smoke pot weekly; 20% use illicit drugs.\u00a0Here are\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2012\/12\/13\/intoxications-fake-feeling-of-happiness\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2012\/12\/13\/intoxications-fake-feeling-of-happiness\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2012\/12\/13\/intoxications-fake-feeling-of-happiness\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Intoxication’s Fake Feeling of Happiness\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/\",\"name\":\"Jesus Creed\",\"description\":\"Scot McKnight on Jesus and orthodox faith in the 21st century\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/5919e847c58ffe6efb5899fb61797252\",\"name\":\"Scot McKnight\",\"description\":\"Scot McKnight is a recognized authority on the New Testament, early Christianity, and the historical Jesus. 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{"id":35555,"date":"2012-12-13T06:06:10","date_gmt":"2012-12-13T12:06:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/?p=35555"},"modified":"2012-12-12T22:35:18","modified_gmt":"2012-12-13T04:35:18","slug":"intoxications-fake-feeling-of-happiness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2012\/12\/13\/intoxications-fake-feeling-of-happiness\/","title":{"rendered":"Intoxication’s Fake Feeling of Happiness"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

$\"\"$ <\/a>Here are some numbers<\/strong>: 78% of emerging adults drink; 47% binge drink; 10% drink 5x a week or more; 12% smoke pot weekly; 20% use illicit drugs.\u00a0Here are some facts<\/strong>: \u201cAlcohol consumption is a leading cause of death among youth, particularly teenagers, and contributes substantially to adolescent motor-vehicle crashes, other traumatic injuries, suicide, date rape, and family and school problems\u201d (113, from Christian Smith,\u00a0Lost in Transition<\/em><\/a><\/strong>).<\/p>\n

Why? What\u2019s going on? What to do?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Nonusers (22%) are of two sorts: the highly religious sort tends not to explain their nonuse on religion but on health concerns, potential damage, or the desire to control the body; the bad-family-experience sort tends toward concrete stories (\u201cmy dad\u2026\u201d).<\/p>\n

Occasional substance users (25%): seek to balance fun and responsibility while denouncing hard core drugs; their focus is on self-control as a choice they are empowered to control.<\/p>\n

Partiers (22%): drink often and often binge drink. About 50% smoke pot too. 17% have used harder drugs. They think this makes them more social. Alcohol relaxes. \u201cLife without alcohol is boring.\u201d Some say it is driven by stress, blues and boredom. Partiers report casual hook-ups; they take risks of many sorts (fights). The model for the partier is Animal House\u00a0<\/em>. Most think they are still under control of themselves. They distinguish themselves from hard drug addicts. Morally they tend to the tolerant side; don\u2019t step on the toes of others. Individualistic ethics.<\/p>\n

Recovering partiers (21%): something moves them away from the partiers; tend to be older emerging adults. They realize how out of control they were; or they now have to live a more responsible life; or they see potential damage in their partying. These tend to reduce drunkenness to not so often.<\/p>\n

The recovering partiers are a resource of revelation about what is going on: about insecurities, conformity, need to relax and relate, depression and struggles in life and school, hard to control that kind of life.<\/p>\n

Addicts: these emerge from the above partiers. The stereotype of a what an addict is fails the evidence. Most have regular jobs; most are in denial; appear normal; they see it as relaxing and normal, like taking a bath or a shower. These folks are \u201ccompulsively captive to chemically induced intoxication\u201d (135).<\/p>\n

They also sketch recovered addicts (among emerging adults).<\/p>\n

All of this must be understood within a social context and not just explain it by individual choice<\/em> . We need to perceive how they were socialized, what their networks were like, how social institutions work, where this all fits in culture. Decisions emerge in social contexts.<\/p>\n

A normative culture teaches young adults that partying is what you do when you leave home and go to college. That script also says you calm that down when you leave college and get a job. Intoxication is part of the cultural script for young adults. Some social institutions benefit from young adult intoxication: global black market of drugs, and that market is the norm for young adults today. Alcohol companies make billions. In 2009 Anheuser Busch spent 4.99 billion on marketing. Follow the money. Shady marketing is part of it.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, consumptive materialism shapes alcohol consumption as a kind of consumerism. Identity is marketed with product, people consume to gain that identity. Addiction to drugs is a kind of addiction to consumerism and materialism.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"