From the abstract to Associations of child and adolescent anxiety with later alcohol use and disorders: a systematic review and meta‐analysis of prospective cohort studies:
Background and Aims
Despite a wealth of literature, the relationship between anxiety and alcohol use remains unclear. We examined whether (a) child and adolescent anxiety is positively or negatively associated with later alcohol use and disorders and (b) study characteristics explain inconsistencies in findings.
Design and Setting:
We conducted a systematic review of 51 prospective cohort studies from 11 countries. Three studies contributed to a meta‐analysis. We searched PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science and PsycINFO databases, and studies were included if they met the following criteria: English language publication, human participants, anxiety exposure (predictor variable) in childhood or adolescence and alcohol outcome at least 6 months later.Participants:
Study sample sizes ranged from 110 to 11 157 participants. Anxiety exposure ages ranged from 3 to 24 years, and alcohol outcome ages ranged from 11 to 42 years.Measurements:
Ninety‐seven associations across 51 studies were categorized by anxiety exposure (generalized anxiety disorder, internalizing disorders, miscellaneous anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder, panic disorder, separation anxiety disorder, social anxiety disorder and specific phobias) and alcohol use outcome (drinking frequency/quantity, binge drinking and alcohol use disorders).Findings:
The narrative synthesis revealed some evidence for a positive association between anxiety and later alcohol use disorders. Associations of anxiety with later drinking frequency/quantity and binge drinking were inconsistent. Type and developmental period of anxiety, follow‐up duration, sample size and confounders considered did not appear to explain the discrepant findings. The meta‐analysis also showed no clear evidence of a relationship between generalized anxiety disorder and later alcohol use disorder (odds ratio = 0.94, 95% confidence interval = 0.47–1.87).Conclusions:
Evidence to date is suggestive, but far from conclusive of a positive association between anxiety during childhood and adolescence and subsequent alcohol use disorder.
From the open access journal Addiction, 2019; DOI: 10.1111/add.14575.
Or, maybe, if you don't enjoy the feeling of being drunk, you're not likely to abuse alcohol, no matter your anxiety or circumstances?
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by Runaway1956 on Saturday March 23 2019, @04:21AM (20 children)
Where does free will fit into psychological views of the human animal?
I often get the idea that they think they can map out the human mind, and explain everything there is to know about a human mind. Sure, I get it - a child growing in an insecure environment has many challenges to overcome. A child in an outright dangerous, abusive environment has even more challenges. But, can the shrinks accurately tell you what a child will become, if they can just identify and evaluate half a zillion variables?
Or, does free will have more to do with who you become, than all of these variables?
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 23 2019, @04:27AM (16 children)
There is no free will. Everything was predestined long ago (including this post), we just can never know what the future holds because it is impossible to ever know the current or past state of the universe in high enough detail.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Runaway1956 on Saturday March 23 2019, @04:36AM (15 children)
Yeah, uhhhh-huhhh. Predestination presupposes some guiding force in the universe, like, maybe a god. Well, who am I to argue with god? When I'm tempted to abduct, use and abuse some nubile female, I'll know that it's the will of god that I do so. Sounds like at least half a dozen religions already in existence, doesn't it?
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 23 2019, @04:41AM (14 children)
How so? AFAICT it only assumes the universe works only according to deterministic laws. As I said, the sensitivity to the precise "initial" conditions still makes the future unpredictable.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday March 23 2019, @04:57AM (13 children)
Your deterministic laws are in and of themselves a guiding force. How did those laws come to be? It's all a big accident?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 23 2019, @05:20AM
So if the universe has a random element that requires no explanation?
(Score: 3, Informative) by fyngyrz on Saturday March 23 2019, @02:36PM (11 children)
Yes, certainly. Many guiding forces, in fact. But not detectably intelligent in any way. So not a guiding force in the sense that superstition attempts to paint reality.
No one knows. There are guesses, but very little data to back them up, and most of that so indirect as to be of little use in determining any actual answer to that question.
The deterministic view, extended to the maximum, takes the opposite stance. Things are the way they are because that's the way things are. Z follows from Y, Y follows from X, X follows from W, etc. All the way down to A, where A follows from ZZ, ZZ follows from YY, and so on, and there is no end at all to that, nor is it one dimensional.
Certainly the current circumstances we observe seem to consistently turn upon deterministic processes, at least as far as we understand them. Things that appear to be random to us also consistently arise consequent to processes we do not fully understand — many quantum observations made thus far are of exactly this nature. Inasmuch as no process we actually understand has actually turned out to have at its basis a truly random source as yet, the bet goes to it not being very likely to happen in the future, either. But again, we don't know that.
--
When I get a headache, I take two aspirin and keep away from children.
Just like the bottle says.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday March 23 2019, @03:49PM (10 children)
Long story short, we got no idea, but we continue to try to figure things out, and we continue to try explaining shit, despite our awareness that we are really ignorant.
Sounds a lot like a church service to me.
(Score: 4, Touché) by fyngyrz on Saturday March 23 2019, @05:14PM (8 children)
Okay, I can clear that up for you.
At a church service, you will be informed of some variation of "The answer is definitely God, because it's a mystery. Here's the book that says so. Which is also a mystery. Let us pray." This tends to lead directly to more nearly- or perfectly-identical copies of the associated dogma being produced, theist fucktards flying into buildings [wikipedia.org], creative people burned at the stake (e.g. Giordano Bruno [wikipedia.org]), women and non-co-religionists being treated as chattel (or worse) because some goat-age writings say that's all just fine, and people suffering from things like polio because "let us pray" is not actually an effective method for interfering with the spread of polio, as confounding an idea as that might seem to some theists.
WRT science, you will be informed that "We have these ideas laid out, and we're trying to figure more things out, and verify the ones we have worked through so far as extensively as possible through continued experimentation and attempts at falsification. You can contribute by either falsifying an existing idea, extending the means to increase confidence in such an idea, or providing a new one that can meet the bars of consensually experiential, experimentally repeatable, testable." You can also just support the process, because it (obviously) actually works. This tends to lead to things like the aforementioned ideas (scientific method, etc.), polio vaccines, determination that women are actually, you know, people of equal potential worth and merit, microprocessors, the Internet, jet engines, and people not suffering anywhere near as much from polio.
A church service is, outside of a (somewhat) friendly social clique structure where one can bask in the presence of like minded and (at least pretending to be) sympathetic folk, pretty useless, except where it's harmful due to dogmatic idiocy instructing its adherents to go out and do wrong. Which is quite often.
Science, OTOH, has the potential to be really pretty good, because it actually addresses real-world questions and challenges in such a way as to actually enable us to advance our individual and collective lots through understanding and associated development of technology and improved procedure.
It is of course fair to say that scientific results can be used for harm; but that in and of itself doesn't invalidate the science. There's nothing about science that instructs one to do harm. Notably unlike, for instance, most religions.
TL;DR: No, not even remotely similar.
--
The three Functional Retardations:
traditional, jingoistic, and religious.
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by Runaway1956 on Saturday March 23 2019, @05:27PM (7 children)
Well, I'm sure glad that there are no non-theist fucktards, aren't you?
https://www.nytimes.com/1989/02/04/world/major-soviet-paper-says-20-million-died-as-victims-of-stalin.html [nytimes.com]
https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/maos-great-leap-forward-killed-45-million-in-four-years-2081630.html [independent.co.uk]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by fyngyrz on Saturday March 23 2019, @06:15PM (6 children)
Here's the difference. It's quite simple:
Stalin's fucktardness did not come about because of his atheism, to whatever extent he actually was atheist and not just using his anti-theist stance to shut down competition for control of the populace.
How do we know this? Because atheism has no dogma, no book of rules, no instructions, no nothing, because it is nothing: It is the lack of belief in a god or gods. No more, no less. Anything more, in fact, is something else entirely. Correct attribution of Stalin's fucktarded actions is to the fact that he was a drooling psychopath. He didn't get those things from atheism, because atheism doesn't speak to those things in any way, shape, or form.
Whereas when a theist does something awful specifically because their dogma told them to do it, the blame is clearly laid directly at the feet of the dogma. Such as the examples I provided above, and many I didn't go to the effort of pointing at, though they are equally worthy.
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I had the house child-proofed. But they must
have done it wrong. Kids still get in somehow.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday March 23 2019, @06:34PM (3 children)
Not many non-believers are especially discerning, in that respect. I've not read of very many people who have been murderered and/or genocided at the direction of Buddha. The Native American Great Spirit seems to be innocent of such directives. At the other end of the spectrum, you have Islam, and the Old Testament Jews. Christians have often performed atrocities, and tried to use the Bible to justify those atrocities, but that dog don't hunt. There is nothing in the New Testament that directs people to kill other people.
Some religions teach murder and mayhem, others don't. You don't get to paint all religions with the same broad brush. Isn't that like, raciss, or something? What are you, a homophobe, afraid of people?
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Saturday March 23 2019, @07:25PM (2 children)
Quite correct. It's in the old testament, of which Jesus, in the new testament, specifically says is still in force and will remain so. [biblegateway.com]
Absolutely correct. I try to mindfully use qualifiers, but sometimes fail at it. My apologies. I was thinking of Christianity and Islam, and my mind ran away with itself. Thank you for the correction.
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I invented a new word today: "plagarism."
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday March 23 2019, @11:21PM (1 child)
You're too nice to him. He's riding the "I'm not a Christian but butbutbut MUH WESTERN CIV!1111ONE" meme for all it's worth, and you're validating him.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Sunday March 24 2019, @02:38AM
I try to be nice to everyone.
It's just that sometimes I fail at it. 😊
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Head: Cannot open 'brain' for reading. No such file or directory.
(Score: 2) by Teckla on Sunday March 24 2019, @01:41PM (1 child)
I think you're conflating "theism" and "religion." While they do tend to overlap considerably, they're different.
For example, I self-identify as a theist, but I'm not religious. And, some religions have no God or Gods.
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Sunday March 24 2019, @07:11PM
In this thread, I specifically meant theism: that form of superstition specifically characterized by belief in a god or gods.
Religion, that is, in its uncommon but certainly valid meaning of "a pursuit or interest to which someone ascribes supreme importance", is all over the map, and may very well be founded on objective reality, quite unlike theism, which never is.
Religion's other meanings are essentially synonymous with theism; so actually using the term theism covers the ground I mean it to cover in the above discussion without mistakenly including dearly held core behaviors like vegetarianism, liberty, equality of opportunity, raising families, primacy of political systems, and so forth.
Exactly so. As in the examples of my previous paragraph. Theism, being founded upon superstition, incorporates an inherent vulnerability to arbitrary dogma presented as having been handed down from (entirely imaginary) authority. We see this in Christianity and its mutations such as Islam, Anglicanism, Mormonism, Catholicism, Christian Scientists and so forth, as well as in Hinduism and other equally baseless theistic systems.
There are plenty of other harmful 'isms that are taken to religious levels out there based upon nonsensical beliefs, such as homeopathy, anti-vax, crystallomancy, various forms of extremism... some of them are certainly quite awful in and of themselves. There are many tiny instances of harmful 'isms, such as the Heaven's Gate crew.
But when the discussion devolves to citing Stalin (or any other apparently atheist psychopath) as a supposed example of how atheism supposedly causes as much harm as theism, as it did when Runaway1956 ill-advisedly went there, the difference between the positive advocacy commonly instructed by all of the major theistic systems and the complete lack of any kind of advocacy at all WRT atheism becomes the critical issue at hand.
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Knock softly, but firmly. I like soft, firm knockers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 23 2019, @10:40PM
Speak only for yourself, Runaway! You are projecting again.
(Score: 3, Informative) by AthanasiusKircher on Saturday March 23 2019, @12:37PM (1 child)
Not sure anyone is claiming anything like what you state -- no psychologist is saying they can predict an outcome of an individual with 100% certainty, nor is anyone denying the validity of individual choices.
Studies like this are just looking for overall patterns from a statistical standpoint. If you flip a fair coin, over a large number of flips, approximately 50% will be heads. You may not be able to predict an individual outcome, but the large stats are clear.
And if you weight the coin a tiny bit on one side, maybe it comes up 75% heads. Similarly, if you put a child in an anxiety-ridden environment, maybe it "weights" the chances of alcoholism later in life.
Nothing in that denies the role of free individual choices or even the random encounters of life -- it just notes a bit of tweaking in the odds. Why would it need to deny free will?
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 23 2019, @07:49PM
Why wouldn't you deny free will? I do and it feels great.
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 24 2019, @01:59AM
If you really sit down and think about it for a while, there is no such thing as free will. Free will is a meaningless concept.
Either an action flows on from a cause, or it is random.
Your mind state is determined by the physical state of your brain and body, and your 'decisions' likewise are determined.
There is no ghost in the machine to have free will, no free-willed little homunculus in your head pulling the little levers to control you.
You are a biological machine of astonishing complexity, but you are still a machine. And machines don't have free will.