map of binge drinking

I wrote a book chapter celebrating (?) the 75th anniversary of the publication of Andrew Carnegie's commissioned book, "Alcohol Control."  His book was written by his commission, funded by him, to show state governments how they could control the sale and distribution of Alcohol once prohibition was repealed.  He was an alcoholic, leading member of the anti saloon league.  (I got paid $3000 for a  31 page chapter, the most i have ever made at writing.) anyway, as you can see from the map, Pennsylvania is one of the biggest binge drinking states in the US.  Who cares?  ATOH (alcohol) is one of the few drugs that can penetrate the blood brain barrier, the only drug i believe that can be purchased over the counter, if you are 21 yrs old, or have a fake ID.  So what?  Alcohol can sedate the vagus nerve, which controls breathing.  so you can die from binge drinking, because you can stop breathing.  as someone who once had an allergic reaction and almost stopped breathing, i can testify that breathing is very important, especially if you ever faced not breathing and lived to tell about it.  Woody Allen once said that his brain was his second most favorite organ:  after my anaphylactic shock, i can safely say that my brain is my third most favorite organ, and my lungs my most favorite.  you can guess at number two.  anyway, binge drinking is a killer, and anyone who binge drinks needs counseling fast.  binge drinking is 5 drinks for a man, or 4 for a woman, drunk in a short period of time.  binge drinking can be minutes (chugging contests) or days.  binge drinking can be a measurement of society's decay, or social depression or social anxiety; for example, after the fall of the soviet union, binge drinking in Russia dramatically increased, life expectancy decreased, diseases of alcoholism (coronary and heart disease, cirrohsis), increased.  So what is wrong Pennsylvania?  how come so many of us are sedating ourselves with over the counter alcohol?  state wide depression?  Social anxiety?  Freud wrote a book, "Civilization and its Discontents" about societal mental illness, how a society can become psychotic (think Nazi Germany, think.....Khmer Rouge, the 700 club, Oral Roberts University, PA state system of higher education....)  can there be a societal anxiety in PA that leads its citizens to sedate themselves?  jesus, just writing about this makes me want to drink, but i am trying to lose the 8 lbs i gained last semester so nooooooo)

Just noticed: binge drinking increases with longitude.  binge drinking increases the further north you go.  this is also true around the globe: highest levels of alcoholism in countries closest to the artic circle.

And south dakota and tennessee have no data, i guess the state statiticians were too drunk to send in the numbers.