dodging a bullet

Yesterday afternoon/eveningish I spent some time working on my thesis. Or at least ostensibly working on the thesis. As part of my delaying I spent some time on the website of the NIAAA (the NIH branch that funds most of the research going on in my lab). Said website contains a lot of information aimed at a lot of different groups of individuals from middle schoolers right up through alcohol researchers. Whilst piddling around on the site I found the following:

"However, whether an individual will drink in response to stress appears to depend on many factors, including possible genetic determinants of drinking in response to stress, an individual's usual drinking behavior, one's expectations regarding the effect of alcohol on stress, the intensity and type of stressor, the individual's sense of control over the stressor, the range of one's responses to cope with the perceived stress, and the availability of social support to buffer the effects of stress."

(from here, because all good little graduate students cite their sources).

Basically that paragraph is a clear description of my life. Upon moving to Austin the amount of alcohol I consumed in a given period of time was indeed directly proportional to the quality of friends I had. The level of stress I'm under certainly hasn't decreased since those early days of graduate school. It has changed (and if anything increased to the "who would willingly do this to themselves?!" level). However, I do not spend weekday evenings at home depressed on my sofa watching movies like Nora while drinking copious amounts of wine like I might otherwise. Because I now have absolutely awesome friends and my my perceived stress has dropped considerably. You all (and you know who you are) are my buffer. Thank you.