Wednesday, Dec. 07, 2011
Under Money Strains, Some Older Adults May Turn to Alcohol
Mm-hmm, and some younger and middle-aged ones too. For those not familiar with alcohol (AL-ko-hol), drinking it makes you feel good — at least until you drink too much and do dumb things like telling that joke at a dinner party about the cat and the horse and Angela Merkel and wake up the next day wearing somebody else's shoes. So it's got its drawbacks. Still, when people heave a pained sigh and say, "I could use a drink," it's usually not code for "Hey! I feel swell!" Being old and having too little money is probably one cracking good way to feel unswell, so thanks, State University of New York, for discovering what that can make people do. And hey, here's to you.