Let's look at and near the bottom. A huge factor is "life expectancy at birth", which may have personal habits as a contributing factor. As an example, Kentucky is extremely friendly to alcohol (because of the whiskey business) and tobacco. Some states (California, Michigan, and New York -- probably Connecticut) tax the Hell out of cancerweed and distilled liquors. Kentucky doesn't. If you are a chain smoker, Kentucky is paradise. But if you drink heavily you will mess up your liver, and if you smoke at all you will hurt about every organ in your body; either way you will have a shortened life expectancy. That's not to say that if you drink heavily and smoke while living in Connecticut you will somehow be exempt from the consequences of such bad behavior.
Education matters greatly, and in general the Southern states fare badly. A high level of formal education might expose one to better habits -- or it might cull out people with bad habits. Alcoholism is incompatible with completion of college. It could also be that some states just don't attract people with high levels of education. New Mexico fares badly in about everything else, but it seems to be in the middle of the pack for people with graduate degrees. Ski slopes (northern New Mexico) is somehow more attractive than jazz on the street (New Orleans)? Go figure. I might visit New Orleans once, but I could imagine living in parts of New Mexico. So it is with people who have spent considerable time in either California or Texas.
Nice post WASPboy, but a few notes:
1. On the "Alcoholism is incompatible with completion of college": I got a Bachelor's degree with an over 3.0 GPA (sure, on this website it probably doesn't mean much, but it's still a finished four year degree) while having one hell of a drinking problem. Sure, it probably makes college harder, but it by no means is impossible to get a college education if you are a drinker.
2. "Kentucky is extremely friendly to alcohol". . . . . . umm look at the map provided by Memphis.
3. The really weird "Southern states have drinking problems" stereotype. Really, I don't know where you and others get this idea. In fact, this study that I found on statemaster.com (Source: CDC, you know the Center for Disease Control?) shows that if anybody has a binge drinking problem, it's northerners:
http://www.statemaster.com/graph/hea_alc_con_bin_dri-health-alcohol-consumption-binge-drinkersOf course this makes a ton of sense as one would expect states with high populations of German and Irish Catholics to be more into drinking than say states with high populations of Southern Baptists. But, our enlightened red avatar from MI friend here, despite living in Michigan and being next door to Wisconsin, seems to have never seen a bar or pub before (or he lives in a weird "Catholic free zone"). . . .. . . . so I felt the need to add emphasis.
Oh and what's this? Those hillybilly hellholes are at the bottom of the list? Say it isn't so! But I thought everyone north of the Mason Dixon Line and west of Texas were fitness buffs who were religious vegans who ate protein shakes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner! Surely this study is lying, or else your snobbish worldview is blinding you to simple things like statistics.
Of course, this isn't to say that this study doesn't bring up relevant points. It does, like the gap in education and decent labor laws in certain states. However, your points are a vomituous combination of obnoxiously stupid and glaringly sneering culturalism that had to be addressed. And I make no apologies for calling you out on it, since it's embarrassing to practically everyone else in this thread who have raised relevant points about things that matter.
