Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Alcoholism in Antarctica

funraniumlabs.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 34 posts

Re: Alcoholism in Antarctica

#11

Post by DanBC »

dbarlett wrote: post #8
GoodIntentions wrote: post #6

This post reminded me of an antarctica blog I stumbled on years ago: http://www.bigdeadplace.com/welcome-to-the-program/ The Q & A bit here ("what are things you wish you brought?") seems to list a fair amount of booze/booze related items. http://www.bigdeadplace.com/ask-an-antarctican-2/

It's worth noting that Nicholas Johnson, author of the book Big Dead Place [1] and editor of bigdeadplace.com, committed suicide [2] in 2012. He had just been rejected [3] from another contract in Antarctica. [1] http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0922915997/ [2] http://www.albedoimages.com/blog/2012/12/06/death-of-antarct... [3] http://feralhouse.com/nick-johnson-rip/

That is very sad.

> You may believe that you are only going to Antarctica for one season. Though that may be true, it is not. Antarctica will pierce you in the heart, and even if you don’t come back, you will think about it off and on, probably for the rest of your life.

Re: Alcoholism in Antarctica

#12

Post by tommi »

marvin wrote: post #4

The interesting part of this story, for me, was how Antarctica is for some the ultimate, final destination for people escaping from themselves. If anything, this only highlights the need to improve awareness and treatment of mental illness in the United States. It is obvious to anyone who has first-hand experience with these issues that you can never outrun your own problems. Some people flee for a while before reali…

Actually you shouldn't totally dismiss fleeing. It modifies the environment and that is a major component in a mental change.

Re: Alcoholism in Antarctica

#13

Post by ableal »

The casual reference to "hypothyroidism in Antarctica" got me curious. Apparently there's a link with working in low temperatures, and research on it, e.g. http://jcem.endojournals.org/content/86/1/110.full

P.S. also bumped into yesterday's jwz post http://www.jwz.org/blog/2013/06/how-to-drink-in-antarctica/

Re: Alcoholism in Antarctica

#14

Post by seszett »

rdl wrote: post #10
pc86 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fairness though, and this is mentioned briefly in the article, you'd be there to do science. Many of the people passing out in a bar alone by 8pm are doing physical labor and not interested in or qualified for the science.

I'd be support staff (running the satellite network, or maybe other IT stuff). That falls in the "support" vs. "beaker" camp. I just happen to also like science more than most forklift operators or electricians do, I think.

I've been on Kerguelen island (which isn't quite Antarctica, but not that far either, and rather isolated too with four or five ship passages per year).

You wouldn't "fall in the support vs. beaker camp", you would be firmly in the beaker camp. It's more of a "somewhat intellectual" vs. "manual" camp (also vs. "military" in our case, but it might not be the same for US stations). I was right between beakers and support myself, by the way.

In our case, alcoholism was a problem for some of the manual labourers, but it never went as far as what I read from this article (I didn't read everything though), probably in part because they had more restrictions on alcohol consumption than the others, and because they were only there for shorter (three-six months depending on available transportation) missions, while most everyone else have 12-14 months missions.

Re: Alcoholism in Antarctica

#15

Post by seszett »

tommi wrote: post #12
marvin wrote: post #4

The interesting part of this story, for me, was how Antarctica is for some the ultimate, final destination for people escaping from themselves. If anything, this only highlights the need to improve awareness and treatment of mental illness in the United States. It is obvious to anyone who has first-hand experience with these issues that you can never outrun your own problems. Some people flee for a while before reali…

Actually you shouldn't totally dismiss fleeing. It modifies the environment and that is a major component in a mental change.

The problem with Antarctica is that you cannot stay there forever. It's not an effective way to flee.

Re: Alcoholism in Antarctica

#17

Post by base698 »

tommi wrote: post #12
marvin wrote: post #4

The interesting part of this story, for me, was how Antarctica is for some the ultimate, final destination for people escaping from themselves. If anything, this only highlights the need to improve awareness and treatment of mental illness in the United States. It is obvious to anyone who has first-hand experience with these issues that you can never outrun your own problems. Some people flee for a while before reali…

Actually you shouldn't totally dismiss fleeing. It modifies the environment and that is a major component in a mental change.

That doesn't mean there isn't an active role you have to play in making yourself better. Moving may get you over a hurdle of feeling hopeless, but if you aren't active in pursuing self improvement you'll quickly find yourself in the same spot.

Re: Alcoholism in Antarctica

#19

Post by tommi »

base698 wrote: post #17
tommi wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually you shouldn't totally dismiss fleeing. It modifies the environment and that is a major component in a mental change.

That doesn't mean there isn't an active role you have to play in making yourself better. Moving may get you over a hurdle of feeling hopeless, but if you aren't active in pursuing self improvement you'll quickly find yourself in the same spot.

Of course it doesn't, that is why it's just a component of the change. And it's not only about getting over of feeling hopeless. Change in environment helps you to break routines and create new ones. Hopefully ones which guide towards a better path.

Re: Alcoholism in Antarctica

#20

Post by raverbashing »

pc86 wrote: post #9
rdl wrote: post #7

Doing satellite tech/eng stuff overwinter in Antarctica is one of my dream jobs (along with obviously doing the same thing for Mars, which would be even better). 9 months isn't that long, and I can't imagine wanting to spend all the time drunk, rather than learning about all the interesting science going on. Plus, obviously, Internet.

In fairness though, and this is mentioned briefly in the article, you'd be there to do science. Many of the people passing out in a bar alone by 8pm are doing physical labor and not interested in or qualified for the science.

Yes, but

- You can't go see a movie at the cinema

- There's no new bars in town

- You can't go for a walk, ride a bike, go to the gym, go shopping, etc

- There's nobody besides that (small) group of researchers. People you'll have to see/tolerate every single day.

- Food is pretty much the same always

Really? That's not for me

Post reply on HN