Sans Booze, Death Doesn't Seem So Bad

The irony of crying in your beer is, when there's no beer, there's more crying. So say UNC Chapel Hill researchers, who linked cessation of drinking—even moderated, "healthy" levels of drinking—to mid-term depression.

Well, sort of. In fact, what they found is that enforced sobriety makes mice welcome death.

They found this by making mice drunk, then miserable. If you haven't figured out how to go about the former, then you're probably going to heaven but arriving very bored. The latter, however, is a bit trickier, since you can't just mock their love for Tokio Hotel, or take away their Wii, or confound them with evil proto-Roombas.

Instead, scientists used what's known as the Porsolt swim test. In brief, this involves dropping mice into an escape-proof, water-filled vessel and making them ratty-paddle around for a while, then taking them out. Then doing it again. How depressed the mice are is measured by how well they handle the, "Oh my fucking god not again why me!" factor.

A well-adjusted mouse will keep swimming for it. A depressed mouse will just bob there for a while before reluctantly making an effort.

The mice still boozing it were happy to swim in the hopes of seeing another day and another mojito, maybe catching a band later (though they never do get around to swinging through Cat's Cradle...).

The mice hung out to dry—um, so to speak—realized they were stuck in Chapel Hill ("...the southern part of heaven!" ) with nothing to drink, and decided maybe drowning wasn't such a bad option after all.

{from the UNC News website, through a simply delightful hangover}