Sunday Telegraph for Sunday 10th May (http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,,25450673-5001021,00.html) reported that “nearly half of Australians have had a drunken sexual encounter they have later regretted”. Alcohol can be a part of a big night out but for some it can lead to regrets the next day. For some shy people alcohol is the way to fit in and it can work very well - so well in fact that you can come to rely upon it. Perhaps drinking is the way to put on a confident or funny mask - to be come the person that its hard to be sober?
For some shy or socially anxious people alcohol can start to be come a problem - perhaps you end up doing embarrasing things and cant just explain them by being drunk. Perhaps you get into other problems with alcohol - related to the Sunday Telegraph article might be unwanted pregnancy or sexually transmitited diseases? Perhaps its coments from family or friends or the boss. Maybe its drink driving or a health problem like being overweight or liver problems. Perhaps the mondayitis is getting worse?
This report is a good place to kick off this blog. I am an academic and a clinical psychologist and I’m interested in shyness and social anxiety and its relationship to alcohol and problems with alcohol. With my colleagues Claudia Sannibale, Maree Teesson, Ron Rapee, Paul Haber at Macquarie University, Sydney University, Royal Prince Alfred Hospital & University of New South Wales I’m conducting research into alcohol and shyness (http://www.psy.mq.edu.au/casp). On this blog I’ll try to track and comment on issues related to drinking and social anxiety that come up. Please leave your comments or visit our other sites.
By the way - Its not clear how representative the survey was of all Australians so I’m not sure how justifiable it is to say the results apply to all Australians.
Andrew
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