Is "hangxiety" real? Is a water bottle an open container? Are there serving sizes on a solo cup? In this episode, we cover more facts vs. myths relating to alcohol, e-cigarettes, and solo cups.
Is "hangxiety" real? Is a water bottle an open container? Are there serving sizes on a solo cup? In this episode, we cover more facts vs. myths relating to alcohol, e-cigarettes, and solo cups.
Marissa: On today’s episode, we are going to be covering another myth or fact - volume 2. So we did one last semester and we're bringing you another one this semester. So, I guess we can hop right into it.
Sarah: Yeah, sounds great. Here's the first one – fact or myth: the notches on a solo cup were designed to measure serving sizes for alcohol.
Marissa: I would say, that's a fact. I mean, I thought that my whole life is that true?
Sarah: It's actually a myth! It's very interesting, when we were doing some research for this podcast episode, and in teaching students about serving sizes, I thought that this was why the lines were designed. But actually, it just ended up being a coincidence that the lines ended up measuring out certain serving sizes, and matching up to certain serving sizes of alcohol.
This is not an exact science, but if you have nothing else available, you can use a red solo cup to determine out pretty accurate serving sizes of alcohol. So when you're looking at a solo cop at the very bottom lip is equivalent to about 1 ounce. So this would be of your standard proof liquor.
So that 2nd rung on a red solo cup can be about a glass of wine. So the serving size is about 5 ounces and now it's important to know there are more than one kind of marking on a red solo cup. So, depending on what you're looking at, you could end up with less than one serving, you could end up with more than 1 serving.
The 3rd rung from the bottom going up is the beer line - that's about 12 ounces, if you have a standard 5% beer. I'm not talking about natty daddy. I'm not talking about anything with extra alcohol in it. That's just your standard Bud light, something like that.
The safest way is to measure it before you start eyeballing. I always like to talk about this with students and ask how they're measuring alcohol and they'll tell you like the counting method. So, I'm counting 1..2..3.. and that's a 1 shot.
And I'm like, have you ever counted to 3 and actually known about how much alcohol you're pouring? Like, there's a whole bunch of different things that come into play with that. It's also important to know that most of the time when you've already started drinking, you're eyeballing these drinks for yourself and your friends and in reality, you're ending up pouring out more than what 1 serving size is.
So, if you have nothing else available, a red solo cup is a good tool to use, but it's not exact and it was not made that way on purpose, so that 1 is a myth Mariss.
Marissa: I've been wrong about that my whole life. I always thought it was designed that way on purpose. So I guess we're all learning something today.
Okay, so switching gears a little bit. Speaking of solo cups, here's our next one… An open container does not count as long as it's in a different cup.
Sarah: I would say fact, Mariss. How would it cop know what was in my cup, if it wasn't the container that it came in?
Marissa: Well, you caught me off guard a little bit there Sarah - I thought you were gonna say that that was a myth.
Sarah: Had to keep you on your toes!
Marissa: Well, you got me good on that one! Yes, that is a myth. We covered that briefly last semester, but we just really want to reiterate what that means. So an open container is truly an open container of alcohol, regardless of what it's in.
This has come up a lot at some outreach events that I've done and that's why I think it's really important to go over. So, whether that's the solo cup that we just reference, whether that's a Poland spring water bottle, whether it's a thermos, whether it's that bottle of alcohol in a paper bag, still all open container.
But it also counts if you're crossing the street…If you're just going a couple houses down the road to your friend's house, still open container. If you see a police officer or someone approaches you about an open container and then you throw the cup…Open container and littering so that can add up pretty quickly.
Sarah: It's interesting too Mariss, I've had conversations with students who are from areas where they might see people walking down the street with a drink in more crowded areas like a New York City type area, and to them, it's not that big of a deal to do something like this.
But you have to understand that when you're coming into a smaller town, like Syracuse, or like Cortland when cops see you walking down the street with a pink water bottle. You might think that you're being the smartest person in the world…Most cops know what you're doing, and that's a ticket and some potential court time and fines for you.
Marissa: A college town, on Saturday night, a group of 6 people walking together, all carrying solo cups…Doesn't take some serious detective work to figure out there could perhaps be alcohol in there.
Also note that it's illegal to drink alcohol in any vehicle, regardless of if you're the driver or not. So open container in a car also counts. This is applicable too to cannabis. So you can't be a passenger in the car using cannabis, can't be a passenger in the car drinking alcohol -open container, open, blunt, same thing. Can't be doing it in a car either.
Sarah: All right Marris, I have the next one. Here's one that I've heard quite a bit. Is it a fact or a myth that anxiety can be a hangover symptom?
Marissa: Yeah, I've been hearing a lot of this too, and it is new research. So let's, let's go with fact. We can go down the neurotransmitter route, talking about GABA and its involvement in brain functions like motor control, memory, stress. - and how alcohol impacts these functions. We can talk about serotonin and its impact on mood, but I'm gonna read the room on this one and let's just talk bigger picture with some of this stuff.
So, like I said, a second ago, the concept of having, hangxiety is relatively new research, and I didn't find a ton in the way of peer reviewed articles. There’s an abundance of anecdotal and self-reported evidence about having that anxiety. There was a really cool study done out of the University of London. They found that increased anxiety was observed during hangover amongst those scoring more highly on a shyness scale. They also found that “hangxiety effect” observed suggests that highly shy individuals might be at an increased risk for alcohol use disorder.
*Another HUGE disclaimer here* That does not mean that if you're a shy person, you're going to develop alcohol use disorder. There may be correlations, but they're not causations. It is worth exploring the bigger picture of the links between alcohol use disorder and then its potential overlap with social anxiety.
Sarah: So, yeah, it definitely makes sense. Those who use alcohol as a social buffer could potentially develop problematic use. You know, if you need multiple drinks before you can even approach a person. You know, those feelings of anxiety, I think, absolutely makes sense. So, you know, what does that look like for you?
Maybe that means cutting back a couple drinks, not drinking as much as you did. Thinking about what causes you to be shy in the first place, or maybe it's going out with people that you can trust and that you can have fun with, without needing to consume a significant amount of alcohol.
It can absolutely be hard to put yourself out there, but if you're using alcohol as a crutch to talk to someone or to get to know people, this isn't sustainable long term.
Marissa: Yeah, and I'm glad that you bring that stuff up because there's the physiological stuff of what your body's doing. You know, recovering from drinking too much but then there's also like, the social side of things aside of from your body.
What did I do last night? Did I black out? I can't remember... I also left my credit card at the bar. All of that stuff is really stressful in, like, anxiety provoking as it is on top of what's going on within the body. So yeah, more research needs to be done, but I would say that that's more of a fact than a myth.
Sarah: Absolutely, and it's also interesting too - we're not going to touch a lot on this because we've talked a lot about mixing substances together, but if you already have anxiety and you're consuming alcohol and you're on some sort of an anti-anxiety medicine that is only going to amplify the effects of alcohol.
Marissa: Let's throw a depressant on that - that'll make it better.
Marissa: So our last question of the day… Sarah, is it a fact or a myth that e-cigarettes are part of a smoke free campus?
Sarah: This is a fact. So both Onondaga Community College and SUNY Cortland are both entirely smoke, tobacco and nicotine free. So, this includes e cigarettes - so we're talking about JUULs, puff bars, any type of electronic nicotine delivery system. It also includes smokeless tobacco.
So this is anywhere on campus: indoors and outdoors, including college owned vehicles, or any vehicle on campus property.
So even if you think you're being slick in the parking lot, you're still on your college campuses properties, and technically that's considered a smoking area. Marissa does this also include off-campus events?
Marissa: Yeah, so on SUNY Cortland campus, this also includes all college sponsored off campus events. Keeping that in mind for Cortaca 2022, if it's something that’s campus sponsored, it doesn't necessarily matter if it's on campus or not. That's still part of our tobacco policy.
Sarah: That's really interesting. And if you have any questions about your schools tobacco or smoke free policies, please take a look at the website or contact your schools Conduct department and they would be happy to let you know exactly what the policy is, and where it is online, so you can take a closer look at that.
One thing I wanted to throw in their Mariss, is that the bottom line is - we really talked about this a lot with weed, but it comes down to respect. So not everyone wants to smell your fruity pebbles flavored vape when they're walking through the hallway of school, and your professor definitely does not want to know that you're puffing on your vape, blowing it into your sleep or your hoodie when they turn their back during class. So, it's a respect thing.
If you need to puff on your pen while you're sitting in class for an hour, and you can't go an hour without it, that might be a good time for you to sit down and talk to someone about nicotine dependence and some ways that you can cut down or cut back.
Marissa: And in talking about dependency, on our next episode where we're going to address some of the long term implications from substance use. It might not feel like it's a big deal right now, but what could this look like 10, 20, 30 years down the line?
So that's the end of our episode today. Thanks so much for joining us, and we will see you next time!
Sarah: Bye