Scientists Have Proved That Getting Drunk Makes Us Happier

We've all had those days. Your job's a joke, you're broke, your love life's D.O.A. and you can think of nothing sweeter than crawling back to your cramped flatshare and downing a glass of that £7.99 Pinot Grigio you splashed out on last payday.

That first glorious, post-work sip may taste even better tonight because according to a new study, alcohol really can make us happy. And not just because it doesn't taste like paint stripper.

Released this month by the social research and economics departments at the University of Sussex and the University of Kent, the joint study found that drinking alcohol significantly increases happiness levels. We were right all along.

Published in the Social Science and Medicine journal, the study saw researchers ask 31,302 Brits to rate how happy they were on a scale of one to 100. They did this over a period of three years, and collected thousands of observations, also asking participants to report what they were doing at the time.

To collect the data, the researchers used Mappiness, an iPhone app developed by the London School of Economics as part of an ongoing research project into how environment impacts happiness levels. After downloading the app, participants were asked to rate how happy they were at different points during the day using the scale, as well as what they were doing at that moment in time. Not entirely different from answering your mum's texts, then.

Using results from the app, the researchers found a "strong and consistent moment-to-moment relationship between happiness and drinking events."

Now we know why drinking events are always our favourite kind of events.

Researchers did note, however, that happiness levels were dependent on what participants were doing at the time of drinking. Quite predictably, hanging out with your mates—whether sober or smashed—makes you pretty happy, either way.

The study notes: "Drinking had the greatest impact when it came alongside other unenjoyable activities (travelling, commuting, waiting), and only increased the happiness of already enjoyable activities by smaller amounts (socialising, making love)." Probably tricky to balance a bottle while doing the latter anyway, to be honest.

But whatever drunken shenanigans you're getting up to, they won't last long. The study also found that "while iPhone users are happier at the moment of drinking, there are only small overspills to other moments" and "changing drinking levels across several years are not associated with changing life satisfaction."

Basically, don't go too crazy on the Margaritas.

Ben Baumberg Geiger, co-author of the study, tells MUNCHIES that he hopes the research will encourage people to take the link between alcohol and happiness more seriously.

"Elite policymakers usually discuss only the health and social welfare impacts of alcohol policies, and happiness is left to the alcohol industry to talk about—often in an unhelpful way," he says. "But some alcohol policies will reduce wellbeing, while others might even improve it. We need to debate this if want the alcohol policies that will help us get the best balance in our drinking."

There you have it: science says that booze equals happiness. Crack open that six pack and turn that frown upside down!

Just remember that you ain't gonna feel so hot the morning after.