[HN Gopher] America has a drinking problem ___________________________________________________________________ America has a drinking problem Author : pseudolus Score : 186 points Date : 2021-06-01 16:54 UTC (6 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.theatlantic.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.theatlantic.com) | etaioinshrdlu wrote: | I also suspect that regular cannabis use is more harmful than | some of us would care to admit. | renewiltord wrote: | Probably, but American paternalism means that for someone to | take a hurts-self/adds-enjoyment tradeoff means that they have | to convince everyone that the thing can't hurt anyone. | | Because you aren't allowed to hurt yourself through consumption | of a substance, you have to perform bad science first to | 'prove' that the substance is good for you. | | If we would allow people to hurt themselves, we could be | truthful. But that much liberty is terrifying to many. | simonsarris wrote: | _The sound rule in the matter would appear to be like many other | sound rules--a paradox. Drink because you are happy, but never | because you are miserable. Never drink when you are wretched | without it, or you will be like the grey-faced gin-drinker in the | slum; but drink when you would be happy without it, and you will | be like the laughing peasant of Italy. Never drink because you | need it, for this is rational drinking, and the way to death and | hell. But drink because you do not need it, for this is | irrational drinking, and the ancient health of the world._ | | G.K. Chesterton, from Heretics | trts wrote: | I decided to give up alcohol for a year. That was three years ago | and doubt I will ever go back. | | Aside from having better sleep than at any other point as an | adult, I truly enjoy the activities I partake in just as much, if | not more, than when I still paired them with alcohol. It took | about 6 months to stop feeling like I was missing out, and now I | feel like everyone else is. | | Anxiety in general is noticeably lower (this was a huge windfall | for me when the pandemic started). | | Enjoyment of conversation, food, setting, all seem richer and | doesn't flag as quickly once the alcohol is metabolized. | | The end of the drinking activities don't leave me sleepy or | craving bad food. I can go home and read a book or get some work | done. | | General reduction in workout recovery time and aches and pains. | | Holidays are way easier to get through. | | The only drawbacks have been the situations you discover are | entirely dedicated to consumption, e.g. dive bars, beer gardens, | work holiday parties and happy hours. Without having dulled your | senses adequately, some of these things tend to be only loud, | smelly, or without much to offer besides booze and banter. | methyl wrote: | How much you used to drink before? | globular-toast wrote: | The last time I had a drink was a beer festival. I used to | drink beer a lot in my early 20s and beer festivals were | something I looked forward to. I slept terribly that night and | felt awful the next day. It suddenly dawned on me that this | happened every time and I realised alcohol does nothing good | for me at all. It's expensive, unhealthy, slows my senses, | makes me less funny, makes me worse at sex, makes me sleep | worse and often ruins the next day. | | I don't plan to ever drink again. It is necessary to have the | confidence to order something non-alcoholic and be straight | with people if they question it. I don't drink. If they ask why | (which is exceedingly rare), I ask why they don't smoke. That | usually gets the message across. | ckosidows wrote: | Curious about your age? Does this get easier as you get older? | I stopped drinking for 6 months and then a friend got a new job | and my birthday rolled around. I felt like the situations | called for celebratory drinking or that it was expected. | | I really enjoyed my period of non-drinking and I feel exactly | the same as you in regards to sleep, anxiety and well-being. | But being in my late 20s I feel like people around my age just | expect drinking and going out. | teachingassist wrote: | In my experience: some people may take it as a personal | reflection on them, if you stop drinking, and will react | negatively. | | (I don't recommend keeping those people in your life.) | RobotCaleb wrote: | I'm sure that it feels like a real problem, but it really | isn't. I haven't drank anything for my 39 years of life and I | have found most people to be quite accepting of it and those | that aren't aren't worth it. | tootie wrote: | I'm sure it just varies a ton from person to person. As much | as some people (notably alcoholics) find it extremely | difficult to stop drinking, I pretty much stopped without | even trying. Got married, had kids, stopped hanging out so | much with friends. I just didn't drink for months at a time | and didn't really notice. I never consciously quit drinking, | but I average maybe 2 drinks a month now and don't miss it. I | also never really found that alcohol really relaxed me | emotionally. | matwood wrote: | Part age and part friends. As people get older many stop or | cut back their drinking. Responsibilities means there's no | time. Real friends support you if not drinking is something | you want to do. | | It also doesn't have to be a binary thing. I go months | without drinking and then have a beer or wine because I want | one. | fokinsean wrote: | > The end of the drinking activities don't leave me sleepy or | craving bad food. I can go home and read a book or get some | work done. | | This is one of my biggest motivations for reducing my drinking | during the week. Even having just one or two beers after work, | the probability that I read or work on a side project drops | close to 0. | Rapzid wrote: | This is also why I very rarely day-drink. Couple beers in | afternoon and if I even stop nothing productive happens for | the rest of the day. Even if something productive did happen | I would get tired and have to take a nap. Now my sleep | schedule is even more wrecked. | | Strictly a night drinker. | WrtCdEvrydy wrote: | I got a drone pilot's license. 8 hour limitation after drinking | basically obliterated my drinking over night because the nieces | can immediately be like "Can we fly the drone?". | | Not for everyone, because 13 year old nieces can be dangerous | with drones. | graeme wrote: | Exactly the same experience. Gave it up after a concussion, | substantially happier now. I notice the effects of even a | single drink the next day. | leifg wrote: | Genuine question: what do you drink instead? Do you stick to | water or do you order any kind of soda/lemonade (or something | I'm not thinking about) | [deleted] | waterglassFull wrote: | Give quality sparkling water a go if you can, eg San | Pellegrino, Castello, Harrogate (glass only), etc. | coderintherye wrote: | As another non-drinker, Kombucha and occasionally non- | alcoholic beers. | | Kombucha has a tiny bit of alcohol (<0.5%) and tastes a bit | like a soda but has a tiny amount of sugar (usually only 8g / | serving). | dlp211 wrote: | I also gave up most drinking where I drink probably 5-6 times | a year, usually with a dinner where I want a nice mixed | cocktail or at a large holiday party/wedding, where again I | can enjoy mixed cocktails. I personally drink soda as a | replacement since I drink almost strictly water otherwise. | ohazi wrote: | Tangentially related anecdote: | | I went from always ordering a soft drink at restaurants to | only drinking water. The swich occurred almost overnight, and | I ended up losing about 25 lbs. | | The _reason_ I did this was entirely social, and it happened | by accident. My parents didn 't have soft drinks at home, | except occasional leftovers after a party, so ordering a soft | drink at a restaurant was sort of a "special treat," even if | it was an infinitely refillable fountain drink. It turns out | 3 glasses of soda have a metric fuckton of sugar. | | Anyway, when I went to college, literally none of my friends | would order soft drinks when we'd go out to eat. I'm not sure | if it was because people were being thrifty, or for ease of | splitting the bill, or maybe they just knew more about sugar | than I did, but being the one person to order a soda felt so | awkward that I just stopped and eventually never went back. | 1980phipsi wrote: | I lost five pounds or so switching from Coke to Diet Coke. | phkahler wrote: | There is more weight loss to be had switching from Diet | Coke to water. It's obviously not the calorie content, | but the insulin response from sweet tasting things that | will occur even with artificial sweeteners. | silviogutierrez wrote: | Do you have a link to a reputable source? I've heard this | a lot, and have a company in the nutrition space, but I | haven't seen anything conclusive | koolba wrote: | Does that apply to all artificial sweeteners such as | sucralose or is it specific to aspartame? | lotsofpulp wrote: | I have yet to find a single study confirming any rumored | ill effects of artificial sweeteners, including | aspartame. At least in any reasonable consumption amounts | since you need so little of the sweetener. | heavyset_go wrote: | I'm not sure about insulin resistance, but sweet-craving | builds a tolerance kind of like spicy foods. That is, the | more you eat sweet things, the more sweetness your body | craves. | | I've been using erythritol and stevia as sweeteners for | years, and even with those, I find myself craving sweet | things after consuming them more than when I go | relatively long periods of time without eating sugary | things or using sweetener. | | The end result, at least for me, is that I crave sweet | food more even when I use artificial sweeteners, making | it harder to say no to eating shitty food later on. | rhcom2 wrote: | I don't think there is scientific evidence to back that | up from what I could find: https://www.oatext.com/Blood- | glucose-and-insulin-response-to... | phkahler wrote: | Thanks! While that is a very small study, it seems pretty | convincing. | jjeaff wrote: | I haven't read that it affects insulin response. But I | have heard that it can cause you to crave more calories | because it gives you the perception of consuming | something but without the calories. I'm not sure what the | mechanism is here or if maybe it is just psychological. | crackercrews wrote: | I prefer to eat my calories rather than eat them. So I drink | water and soda water 95% of the time. | tingletech wrote: | a lot of beer places near me carry lagunitas hop water. It's | zero calorie sparking water with a hoppy flavor. | philips wrote: | Dry kombucha is a really nice alternative at 50 - 100 | calories a can. My go to this summer | https://www.lionheartkombucha.com/flavors/ | yojo wrote: | I'm also a fan of kombucha (and make it at home), but it's | not quite a non-alcoholic beverage. | | Commercial kombucha is generally < .5%, homebrew can be up | to 10x that. It's a two step process - yeast ferments the | sugar into alcohol, then bacteria digest the alcohol into | acid. If the bacteria fall behind, the ABV goes up. | | The yeast can work anaerobic, the bacteria need O2 to get | the job done. Anything not pasteurized is likely going to | increase in ABV some in the bottle, since the yeast are | active and the bacteria aren't. This is also why I force | carbonate my home-brew - when you build CO2 with a | secondary ferment you're also building alcohol. | smegger001 wrote: | yup. I ferment craft soda in my cellar. root beer, ginger | beer, cream soda, and I have to be careful or it starts | to get a noticeable alcohol content. most of my friends | drink when we get together and I am not fond of the | flavor of beer. But home brew ginger beer seems to fill | the space and I can drive home after as the sodas when | done properly have like 1% or less abv. just have to | pasteurize it at the right point or drink it soon enough. | TheTrotters wrote: | Flavored sparkling water | graeme wrote: | If available, sparkling water with lemon. Another commenter | mentioned bitters, I plan to add that. They're fine as long | as the incredibly tiny alcohol amount won't cause any issues. | | If that isn't available, some sort of soda or tea or coffee. | Or, just water. No one really cares, though to be polite to | the bar you're at it's good to try to buy something. | mumblemumble wrote: | I've also discovered that my favorite gin and tonic doesn't | actually contain any gin. Tonic water and lime suits me | just fine. | globular-toast wrote: | Not OP, but I've also stopped drinking entirely and my | standard go-to is a lime soda. I've never been somewhere | where this is not known and it's not overly sweet or | expensive. It looks enough like a drink to be a drink, if you | know what I mean. | paulgb wrote: | I've replaced the beer in my fridge with Athletic Brewing's | non-alcoholic beer. | crazcarl wrote: | Hoplark Hoptea (sparkling hoppy tea) is another good | alternative I have found, and is lower in calories and | comes in varieties that are caffeinated or not. I'll note | that I tried Athletic's hoppy sparkling water and | Lagunita's and neither was nearly as good. Though I will | say overall, all of them seem too expensive to be buying on | a regular basis unless they can really cut out more | expensive beer for you. | matwood wrote: | How do you like it? I like the taste of beer, and often | want something more than water at night. But, I don't | typically have alcohol except on the weekends (my wife and | I joke about 2 beers and things are getting crazy lol). So | during the week I often drink milk or a sugar free sports | drink. Tea is also ok, but I try to avoid all caffeine late | in the day. | meheleventyone wrote: | There's a couple of really good non-alcoholic beers here | in Iceland. For want of a better explanation the flavour | is really there but it lacks the edge or bite of real | beer. I don't know if it's flavour or feel but it's | noticeable. That said due to recent medical stuff I've | been drinking it and think I could stick with it long | term. | paulgb wrote: | It's not exactly the same taste as beer but they satisfy | my cravings. They've completely replaced the occasional | beer I have with dinner in the evening, and if I drink | socially I often alternate between them and "real beer" | so that I don't pay for it the next day. | sciurus wrote: | They're decent, and definitely towards the top of the | pack of non-alcoholic beer brands. Clausthaler is also ok | if you prefer a lager to an ale. | | (I spent a couple months trying every variety of non- | alcoholic "craft" beer that I could get my hands on | earlier in the pandemic) | losvedir wrote: | I'm in a similar position, and lately I've been having | flavored sparkling waters (Mmm Orange Bubly) and herbal | (i.e. non-caffeinated) teas, depending if I want hot or | cold. Obviously they don't taste like beer, but what I | found was at least for me after doing it a while, it's | not _really_ the taste I wanted; that was just the | association I had with the ritual I enjoyed of a | nightcap, and now I 'm happy with my new ones. | bitcurious wrote: | Usually seltzer, coffee, tea. Recently I discovered Hoplark | "hop teas" which (to my tastebuds) separate the best parts of | beer from the alcohol. | sciurus wrote: | If you like hop-flavored beverages, definitely try | Lagunitas Hoppy Refresher. | kevinmchugh wrote: | Club soda (or flavored seltzer) + bitters. There's alcohol | there still but less than half a percent ABV. Not enough that | it tastes boozy or impairs my judgement. Drinking one | relatively low ABV beer impairs my judgement enough that a | second drink sounds like a good idea, the soda and bitters | never does that for me. | czbond wrote: | I've loved club soda - and dislike alcohol; however, never | thought of adding bitters. I like this idea a lot. | crackercrews wrote: | How are bitters with plain seltzer? I have a sodastream and | am looking for some good flavors. Can't figure out anything | that tastes as good as flavored bubly or lacroix and that | doesn't have lots of sugar. | Epenthesis wrote: | I personally like it a lot. It's my go-to at a bar when I | don't feel like drinking | | That said I also like plain seltzer and bitter flavors | generally (dark chocolate, black coffee, IPAs), so YMMV. | germinalphrase wrote: | This (or similar) is my go-to. In a rocks glass, it also | looks enough like a cocktail that no one makes a point of | asking (if that matters to you). | carlmr wrote: | >no one makes a point of asking (if that matters to you). | | Actually it does kind of annoy me when I just drink water | that people will ask all the time. My go to has been | seltzer + lime + wedge because I do like to have some | taste, and it does look cocktail-ish. | agumonkey wrote: | > Anxiety in general is noticeably lower | | you were more anxious when you were drinking ? that's a first | | not to look naive, but there was a period of my life having a | beer [0] was really the only way for me to exist outside my | bedroom walls, i wasn't even tipsy.. I was just able to sit in | a room without crippling dread. | | [0] I didn't drink, but the few times I did at parties I | realized how drinking a bit was lifting me up to ~people's | normal | tw600040 wrote: | > you were more anxious when you were drinking ? that's a | first | | drinking habit increases baseline anxiety. it's not that | having a drink will make you more anxious in next few hours. | meowfly wrote: | My anecdote here is, I quit drinking temporarily three years | ago to lose weight. My blood pressure went through the roof | (Hypertension II) and I had extreme general anxiety. My | physiological response was so intense I started thinking I | might be in danger level of addiction. As I researched this | more, it turns out high blood pressure and anxiety are normal | responses. | | Most people I know would not think I had a problem because I | was functional and I didn't day drink. I might have two or | three strong (> 7%) IPAs in the evening daily before bed. I | would also on occasion binge pretty hard on weekends with | friends. | | After some time of not drinking my anxiety actually got | better and I decided to keep it that way. I'm not a | teetotaler but I have completely stopped bringing alcohol | home and binge drinking in general. I still find that 2 | drinks is harder than none, however. | | My own take away (which may be different for everyone) is | that alcohol is a reasonable way to make uncomfortable social | situations tolerable but when used to treat a more general | anxiety, it will likely make it worse. | Jarwain wrote: | There's a bit of a rebound effect. Alcohol can decrease | anxiety while drunk, while increasing baseline sober anxiety. | | This is, of course, in the absence of other factors that may | influence an individual's anxiety | altcognito wrote: | Conditions like GERD where stomach acids come up into the | esophagus can be mistaken for anxiety or panic attacks. | Alcohol can make GERD type symptoms a lot worse. | trhway wrote: | it isn't necessary mistaken. The issues like GERD and some | other around stomach/digestion affect how your muscles | handle the diaphragm and that may strangle the breathing in | various ways and also obstruct heart beating movements - | that all limits the oxygen supply, and while sitting | relaxed doing nothing the oxygenation may be sufficient it | struggles to cover any additional increased requirements | which spike due to increased body and/or brain activity, | and that insufficient oxygen delivery naturally makes one | feel anxious. | ryantgtg wrote: | Interesting. If I get drunk two nights in a row, there are | high chances that I'll wake up the night with a panic | attack. | | I grew up with panic attacks, and they were random and I | had no clue what was happening to me until college when I | first learned of the phrase (prior to that I just referred | to it as "the chaos"). | | I can control and fight them off them now. But if I drink | too much, then my mind and body are weakened and I can't | fight them off (while sleeping!). | | Anyway, I'll look up this GERD thing. | heavyset_go wrote: | This is actually quite common because alcohol consumption | effects GABA and serotonin levels in the brain, as well | as the sensitization of GABAergic and serotonergic | neurons, and both neurotransmitters are involved in | anxiety and panic. It can also be the result of a very | light kindling[1] effect. | | The colloquial term seems to be "hangxiety" if you want a | term to search for. | | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kindling_(sedative%E2%8 | 0%93hyp... | ckosidows wrote: | I'm glad someone has mentioned this. After a night of | drinking I always feel nauseous to the point that it ruins | my whole day. Even after a moderate amount of alcohol or | any kind of mixing. | | I'm not certain I have GERD, but it's been my hypothesis. | Anyone else have similar experiences? I can never go to a | brunch/lunch after drinking in fear that my nausea will | turn into something worse. | meheleventyone wrote: | Just for another perspective I have GERD spurred on by a | hiatal hernia and don't experience nausea this way after | drinking. I only really get nauseous if I drink to | excess. | nick__m wrote: | GERD made me quit Scotch (other spirits are probably | forbidden but I love undiluted scotch) , red wine, dark | beer, black and white tea and dark chocolate. | | I used to have a glass (2oz) of undiluted high proof scotch | a few times a week after a good workday but around 37y I | had to stop. | | I wish something could replicate the taste and the warmth | of the Aberlour A'bunadh but alas I fear that replicating | the feeling of +60% ABV without using something even more | deleterious than ethanol is impossible. | roywiggins wrote: | Alcohol can reduce anxiety in the short term, but it can bite | you in the ass in the mid-to-long term by making you even | more anxious the next day. | | https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/jan/27/hangxie. | .. | grumple wrote: | I went to a party the other night and didn't drink at all. Very | unusual. I brought a bottle of tequila for the host and | friends. | | Strangely, I didn't feel anxious at all, despite having pretty | high general anxiety. My energy levels were higher than usual, | which I felt was connected to not drinking. I felt totally | normal in my social interactions, didn't force anything, felt | good. I kept my water bottle in hand and never felt out of | place. | | It was a good lesson that alcohol is not needed to have a good | time. | heavyset_go wrote: | I stopped drinking because I wasn't going out due to the | pandemic. I've come to a similar conclusion, and intend to make | this a long-term decision. | PragmaticPulp wrote: | The statistics about alcohol consumption are so stunning that I | often wonder how accurate they are. | | If these numbers are correct, the top 10% of alcohol drinkers | consume the equivalent of 10 drinks _per day_ : | https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/09/25/think... | | The unit for a single drink is a fixed measurement, so someone | pouring a tall glass of wine or a very stiff drink could be | consuming 2-5 "drinks" in a single glass, but regardless the | consumption is extremely high. | sjg007 wrote: | Like everything alcohol consumption is a power law. | ska wrote: | > but regardless the consumption is extremely high. | | It's high, but not even close to some of the historic records. | In early 1800s the _per capita_ consumption was roughly | equivalent 90 bottles of whisky per year. And that counts a lot | of non drinkers in the denominator. | willis936 wrote: | For those curious: | | 1.5 ounces per drink | | 1.75 L per bottle (assuming a handle) | | 33.814 ounces per liter | | 59.175 ounces per bottle | | 39.450 drinks per bottle | | 3550.5 drinks per year | | 9.720 drinks per day | jhickok wrote: | It sounds like a lot but I know lots of people in rural areas | with extreme poverty (grew up in one of the poorest counties in | the midwest) where this sort of drinking was commonplace. They | drink as soon as they wake up and don't stop until they fall | asleep. Anecdotal I know but certainly believable for me. | [deleted] | s5300 wrote: | Yeah, I'm from the poorest county in my state and 10+ beers a | day is honestly absolutely nothing to quite a decent part of | the population out here. | soperj wrote: | My uncles were 2 bottles of rye a day guys. 10 drinks seems low | honestly. | ufmace wrote: | FWIW, there definitely are people who drink 10+ drinks a day | every day. The top few percent of drinkers in the country drink | an epic shitload. | [deleted] | ip26 wrote: | It's easy to understand when you realize that certain types of | alcoholics can't bear to be sober. That is to say, they are | drinking around the clock. An all-day buzz would take ~16 | drinks a day to maintain. | | One of the "tells" of this class of alcoholic is drinks stashed | all over the place to facilitate this round the clock buzz. | akiselev wrote: | Even those are at the extreme end of the extreme. It doesn't | take long to develop a tolerance that allows one to function | the next morning with 10-15 drinks/night, which is two to | three wine bottles. I've seen several people fall into that | trap out of desperation due to insomnia, since the never- | ending hangover can be preferable to chronic extreme sleep | deprivation. That's easily 3500+ drinks a year and all it | takes is one of those per 9 teetotalers to get 1 drink/day | average. | [deleted] | swiley wrote: | 10 drinks of 100 proof vodka is ~200 ml (less than two thirds | of a coffee mug.) That sounds like what I did pretty often in | college (I remember saying I liked college at the time, in | retrospect I may have been lying.) | rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote: | Honestly, as someone who has 2-3 drinks per day, I've always | been more surprised by the amount of people who basically don't | drink at all. In that chart it's over half of Americans. | | Travel a bit, any you'll quickly discover that a couple drinks | in the evening is basically normal in much of the world. I'm | not arguing that it's healthy (it's not), but the median | American really doesn't drink much - our Puritan values run | deep. | PragmaticPulp wrote: | > but the median American really doesn't drink much - our | Puritan values run deep. | | For many of us, it's not about Puritanical values. We simply | choose healthier behaviors. | | It's true that the median alcohol drinkers in America doesn't | drink much at all. The vast majority of alcohol is consumed | by 10% of the population. | | Drinkers tend to cluster with other drinkers, and non- | drinkers tend to become less interested with attending | gatherings that revolve around alcohol consumption. This can | lead to misperceptions that either everyone is drinking a lot | or no one is drinking much depending on which cluster you end | up in. It's strange to hear some of my heavy drinking | acquaintances insist that everyone drinks heavily, because | that's what they see in their personal bubbles. | tolbish wrote: | How recent is your data? As of 2015, 18% of Americans are | binge drinkers: | | https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/americans-are- | dri... | panzagl wrote: | > We simply choose healthier behaviors. | | Hmm, I wonder where your desire to choose healthier | behaviors came from... | czbond wrote: | Mine came from feeling like junk even after 1 | beer/wine/cocktail the next day. I experimented with | thinking it was an allergy to grains, allergy to hops, | wine quality - but I think it's just alcohol. | panzagl wrote: | Could be, but in general Americans obsess more about | health than other nations, which also can be traced back | to our Puritanical heritage. | [deleted] | tomjakubowski wrote: | I'd never heard that Puritans had any obsession with body | health. What is the connection? | adventured wrote: | The parent is entirely wrong about it being puritan based. | The US long ago lost its puritan influences as a primary. | The US is a very different place today vs the 1960s or | 1980s culturally. Puritanism is a small fraction of | influence in the US at this point culturally. | | The reason Americans drink less alcohol at the median, is | due to how American populations are heavily distributed in | housing developments, in suburbs, versus the higher density | & primate cities that you see in nearly all of Europe. We | gather less frequently European-style, we don't walk or bus | or train nearly as much, so the majority generally avoids | drinking & driving. In the US if you're going somewhere, | the odds are high that you're driving to and from; drinking | and driving is an incredibly high penalty risk to take now. | panzagl wrote: | Anti-alcohol movements have been a feature of the US | since the 1800s, I doubt a social historian would have | difficulty drawing a line from the Puritans, to the | Women's Temperance League to MADD. It's MADD's lobbying | for laws against drunk driving that put the nail in the | coffin of 1960's Mad Men style 3 martini lunches and | 1980's high school ragers. | rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote: | Religion can fade away while its values endure. | | Most "American Values" are basically just puritan ethics. | In America, you won't see someone sipping a beer on the | subway for the same reason you see someone take take a 4 | week summer vacation, or a nipple on TV. Most of the | quirky values that separate us from western europe (like | hard work, temperance, abstinence, etc.) can be traced | back to our puritan roots. | coherentpony wrote: | > our Puritan values run deep. | | Not at all. It's expensive and very harmful. Why would I | drink alcohol when I can enjoy a meal out with friends | without drinking at all? | finiteseries wrote: | One could easily see this as deeply Puritan reasoning in | comparison to e.g. a stereotypical Southern European | culture where the question is rather something like | | "It's cheap, and we all live to be 80 anyways. Why wouldn't | I casually drink alcohol while I enjoy a meal out with | friends?" | pie420 wrote: | 1. The lucky ones make it to 80, lots die to unimaginably | painful cancers, let's not increase our odds by drinking | volatile solvents | | 2. If you have a drink every night out with friends you | build a tolerance to it, and you put stress on your body | for no gain. | | 3. Dehydration, sleepiness, and worse sleep and cost are | big downsides | | 4. You can have better, cheaper effects with edible weed. | matwood wrote: | It's mentioned in the article, but Europeans tend to look | down on being drunk and view wine/beer as just part of | the meal. | dukeyukey wrote: | Unless you're British. Or Scandinavian. Or big swathes of | Eastern Europe. Basically anywhere with atrocious | weather. | jjgreen wrote: | Two Finns are in a bar. After hours of silence, one man | raises his glass to the other and says, "Cheers." The | other man snaps back, "I didn't come here for | conversation." | | https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2009/great-directors/aki- | kaur... | robocat wrote: | My experience of Spain was that people didn't drink to | excess. I specifically recall Feria de Abril where | alcohol was abundantly available. It turns out being | social is the focus, and the only inebriated people I saw | were foreigners and a few teenagers. | | New Zealand was culturally very different, where | excessive drinking was strongly encouraged in the social | groups I saw in my early 20s, and across a variety of | social groups as I got older. | brnt wrote: | South Euros have no binge culture like the North Euros. | While they are not abstaining, somehow overconsumption | seems to be far less of a problem down there. Be it | alcohol or food. | r00fus wrote: | As someone who doesn't drink more than 2-3 per week and have | in the past been in the 2-3 per day category, perhaps it's | related to age and/or kids. When kids were tots, I couldn't | afford the time to socialize, and now I'm older, consumption | has dietary/sleep impacts and I can't afford that too much. | Also weirdly I simply don't enjoy the buzz as much. | namdnay wrote: | I think having children limits serious partying, but what | do you drink when you're eating your evening meals? Only | water? | | Maybe it's a southern European thing, but I can't imagine | eating a heavy meal without the acidity of a red wine, for | example. | flatline wrote: | I often drink flavored fizzy water - they are a great | alternative to soda: no caffeine, no sugar, but some | flavor and carbonation. Other times I drink water, or | juice because it's there for the kids. Sometimes alcohol | too, it really depends on the circumstances. | lotsofpulp wrote: | All the pediatricians and dentists I meet say juice is | basically as bad as soda due to sugar content. I never | imagined juice falling victim to new knowledge about | health, but it makes sense considering sugar (and carbs) | are basically public enemy number 1 for almost everyone | in the world. | lotsofpulp wrote: | I can't imagine drinking anything but water 99% of the | time. Or milk if you're a kid. | throwaway894345 wrote: | I also drink about this much per week. I like a beer or | wine or whiskey every now and again, but I've never really | seen the point in getting buzzed or drunk (or high for that | matter). When I do drink, I only have 1 or 2 at a time, not | out of an express desire to stay sober, but because I'm | usually pretty naturally satisfied by that amount. | | For whatever reason, I _like_ sobriety. It 's strange to me | that people should think we need a religious motive to | prefer sobriety, as though escaping or distorting reality | is inherently preferable. Maybe I equally misunderstand the | motives of the heavy drinker? | kjeldoran001 wrote: | Speaking only for myself, it isn't about escaping or | distorting reality. When I'm sober, I have zero desire to | talk to strangers or people I'm not close with. I | instinctively view it as an unwelcome intrusion when | someone approaches me in public. Come to think of it, I | get bored pretty quickly even in conversation with | friends. | | After a 3 or 4 drinks, the extroversion switch flips in | my head and suddenly I want to stop and chat with just | about anyone about any topic imaginable. This adds value | to my life, and so I drink regularly and have a few at a | time (not 10+ drinks a day though. That's probably more | on the escaping reality level) | lovegoblin wrote: | > It's strange to me that people should think we need a | religious motive to prefer sobriety | | I would not at all be surprised to see a strong | correlation of people who are religious and people who | _never_ drink. Even "one drink a week" or whatever is a | significantly different category than "zero drinks, | ever." | saalweachter wrote: | Eh, you throw out the 1/3 of the religious who have a | direct religious prohibition against drinking and the | correlation probably goes away. | | Maybe depends on whether "would never drink _again_ " and | " _basically_ never drink " are included in your | definition of "never". | | There are a lot of non-religious reasons people don't | drink, and a lot of daylight between "one drink a week" | and "zero drinks an ever". I fall into the "maybe 3-4 | drinks per year" category. It could be more, it could be | less -- alcohol just doesn't really occupy a different | space for me than, say, pickles. I like pickles well | enough, if one comes with my sandwich at a diner I'll eat | it. But I only think to get a pickle from the jar in my | fridge like once or twice a year, and eating pickles and | drinking alcohol have about the same impact on my life | and happiness. | throwaway894345 wrote: | I think I agree, but I'm not sure how that fits into the | conversation. The OP was marveling at people who don't | drink heavily (and attributed their casual drinking to | puritanism), not those who abstained altogether. People | who abstain altogether in my experience are either | religious, recovering alcoholics, or people who have been | close enough to alcoholism to keep a wide birth. In my | experience the latter camp is significantly bigger than | the others, but that could be unrepresentative for any | number of reasons (e.g., I don't happen to hang out with | many devout Muslims). | Jetrel wrote: | One reason some folks gravitate to mild-altering | substances is "transcendent understanding"; drugs put the | mind in enough of a different mode of operation that very | frequently, it can enable you to understand things you | can't understand, sober. And I don't just mean "fuzzy | unprovable emotional things", I also mean concrete, | empirical stuff like science, math, and programming. Some | of this comes from "disinhibition"; some drugs like | alcohol can remove various "writer's block" types of | things where the mind (under normal, sober conditions) | obstinately refuses to consider what, in retrospect, end | up being painfully obvious solutions to a problem. | | Some of it, though, genuinely comes from causing the mind | to operate in a rather different mode and make | connections and "leaps of understanding" that it just | can't do under normal circumstances. It essentially | forces a sort of "educational learning-difference" on | you, and if you manage to muscle through and learn how to | solve a problem in that state (and get the empirically | correct answer), you've essentially allowed your mind to | come up with a totally different approach to a problem it | would never normally take. | | Having previously been one of those programmers chasing | the "Ballmer Peak", it definitely was more than just an | XKCD joke; the joke worked because it was documenting a | real phenomenon that's been known for ages. Several | recreational drugs, like alcohol, marijuana, can also be | used as "performance-enhancing" drugs in the same way | things like Adderall can; it's down to careful dosing and | discipline - you have to carefully stay in the "eye of | the storm" and not get too inebriated, and you also need | to exercise a careful awareness of how the drug's effects | can "lead you astray" (i.e. something like Adderall can | give you a rush of manic hyperfocus, but it's easy to | waste this on irrelevant details, instead of focusing on | something productive. There have been plenty of comedic | stories of people taking Adderall and ... instead of | doing their homework, doing something daffy like | carefully organizing all the books on their shelves ... | _by color_.) So you have to be aware of the drug 's | "biasing" effects and carefully wrangle your behavior | during it. | | All that said, I definitely recommend against long-term | use of alcohol in particular, just due to the chronic | toxicity of it. For a while it's great, but over time, it | really starts to wear you down, and do more harm than | good. Eventually you're so damn tired all the time, that | any productivity gains from mental breakthroughs are | wiped out. If it was used on rare occasions for | breakthroughs/inspiration, it might be viable, but using | it as an anti-adhd/procrastination drug (for which, | anecdotally, it was very effective) just isn't | sustainable, long-term. | piyh wrote: | Take it to the extreme of an LSD trip, you can get | something out of it that you can't get any other way. You | take a day to mentally dig into your psyche and cut | through so many of your mental ruts, while having some | crazy hallucinations. | | Sobriety is great and preferable 99% of the time to me, | but your framing of "escaping or distorting reality" is | founded on a trust that your senses and current mental | processes are objective reality and that reality is | desirable. | | Going away from the psychedelics, if I want to have an | afternoon where I'm more giggly and enjoying of food, | chemical enhancement for that experience seems like way | to go, same way someone would listen to music to get in a | work mood. | throwaway894345 wrote: | > Take it to the extreme of an LSD trip, you can get | something out of it that you can't get any other way. You | take a day to mentally dig into your psyche and cut | through so many of your mental ruts, while having some | crazy hallucinations. | | Maybe. I'm unconvinced that this is the only way to | achieve any kind of insight. In particular I'd be | surprised if it outperforms a cup of coffee or a | rhapsodical conversation for any type of insight. | | > your framing of "escaping or distorting reality" is | founded on a trust that your senses and current mental | processes are objective reality and that reality is | desirable. | | How can a high be "more real" than what you perceive | through your senses? That seems almost incorrect by | definition, so I guess I plead guilty to the charge of | believing that sober experiences are more real. | | With respect to "I'm assuming that reality is desirable" | --yeah, if you think reality isn't desirable, then you're | _escaping_ , so I think you're [agreeing violently][0] | with me here. I am guilty of the charge that I think | escapism is bad and confronting reality is good. | | [0]: http://joe.blog.freemansoft.com/2020/02/recognizing- | violent-... | bitbuilder wrote: | >as though escaping or distorting reality is inherently | preferable. Maybe I equally misunderstand the motives of | the heavy drinker? | | You understand the motives just fine. Reality for many | people is some combination of boring, stressful, | depressing, etc. | | So yes, escaping reality is very much preferable to these | people. And alcohol and other drugs are very effective at | this. | | To state the obvious, improving your situation so you | don't want to escape reality would be preferable. But | that takes a hell of a lot more time, motivation, | resources, and effort than just cracking open that next | beer. | 0xcde4c3db wrote: | > To state the obvious, improving your situation so you | don't want to escape reality would be preferable. But | that takes a hell of a lot more time, motivation, | resources, and effort than just cracking open that next | beer. | | And sometimes when you try anyway, the universe decides | to punish you for it. Some people experience this | multiple times. I don't blame them for wanting to escape | reality. | throwaway894345 wrote: | > To state the obvious, improving your situation so you | don't want to escape reality would be preferable. But | that takes a hell of a lot more time, motivation, | resources, and effort than just cracking open that next | beer. | | To that extent, I've gone through some very hard times | (for me anyway--not interested in comparing traumas), and | for whatever reason much of my cultural upbringing | suggested I should reach for some whiskey; however, | ultimately I was just too aware that that wouldn't fix my | hurt and that "the only way through it was through it" | cliche was ultimately true. What really got me through | was accepting reality and acknowledging that even though | reality was painful, avoiding pain isn't the objective in | life (or that's my moral philosophy, anyway)--enduring a | trial _well_ is life-affirming. Embrace reality, truth, | etc even if it sucks. | | EDIT: "everything in my cultural upbringing" -> "much of | my cultural upbringing". On reflection, I think the | philosophy which allowed me to be successful was largely | traditional, Judeo-Christian philosophy which permeates | much of American culture. Credit where due. | silicon2401 wrote: | > To state the obvious, improving your situation so you | don't want to escape reality would be preferable. But | that takes a hell of a lot more time, motivation, | resources, and effort than just cracking open that next | beer. | | I would argue this isn't universally true. As I shared in | another comment, I recently took a month-long break from | drinking. For me it hasn't been difficult, but it's made | life seem to explode with excitement and energy, just | from taking alcohol out of my life. I think many people | would benefit more than they expect just by cutting out | alcohol for a month or even just a week. | [deleted] | phd514 wrote: | > our Puritan values run deep | | The Puritans drank plenty. I suspect that many such | misconceptions about them are derived from HL Mencken's | (wildly inaccurate) quip that "Puritanism is the haunting | fear that someone somewhere may be happy." | thrower123 wrote: | It's more the fringe offshoots of the congregationalists | that shattered off in the Great Awakening as they moved | west. There's also a strong current of xenophobia in many | of the 19th century abolitionist movements, as the Germans, | Irish, Italians, Poles, etc brought their drinking cultures | with them. | ksd482 wrote: | I just grew up hating alcohol by looking at grown ups acting | stupid and mistreating their wives and children. | | That's why I never developed a taste for alcohol. I sometimes | drink socially but that is very rare: 3-4 times a year, 1 or | 2 drinks each time. That's about it. | MattGaiser wrote: | Basically why my Mom's side of the family barely drinks, | myself included. My great grandfather was a drunken gambler | who managed to drive the family into poverty to the point | the only things the family owned were two chairs. | czbond wrote: | A version of this caused my grandfather and father to | never touch the stuff - and acted like it was kryptonite | when I grew up. | epicureanideal wrote: | > mistreating their wives and children | | ...and husbands. Not all people who drink alcohol to excess | are male. | mywittyname wrote: | The _average_ of the top 10% of anything is going to be absurd | compared to the population average; probably around 2 standard | deviations over the mean. If you looked at the average caloric | consumption at the top 10% of people, you 'd probably find the | amount similarly unbelievable. | | Ten drinks isn't that much hard liquor: it's about 450ml. | That's a little more than a can (392ml). | mulmen wrote: | That's 60% of a fifth/750ml "regular" bottle of liquor. It's | an enormous quantity of hard alcohol. If I drank that much in | a day I would never be sober. | mywittyname wrote: | You just described alcoholism. | [deleted] | hervature wrote: | > Ten drinks isn't that much hard liquor: it's about 450ml. | That's a little more than a can (392ml). | | Sure, the volume isn't unfathomable. But most people drinking | a Mickey (13 ounces ~ 9 drinks) would render them useless. | soperj wrote: | Not if you regularly drink much more than that. | hervature wrote: | Yes, obviously weight also plays a big role in my | previous statement. But the statement is still true: | given that over half the population doesn't drink daily, | if they decide to drink 10 drinks, it will have drastic | physical effects. For what it's worth, the modern day | description of "tolerance" is merely the individual's | ability to mask their inebriation. There is a big | difference of not being affected by something (being | tolerant) and fooling others that you are unaffected. | ragona wrote: | I think you're incorrect about a few things. | | First, tolerance to substances is more physiological than | simply learning to hide it. | | Second, consider one drink an hour ten eight hours. You'd | barely be inebriated. It wouldn't be particularly | drastic. | hervature wrote: | Again, the modern view on _alcohol_ tolerance is that | people develop masking abilities. Their BAC and | physiological effects remain relatively constant from | [1]: | | > Functional tolerance refers to a phenomenon where a | person can ingest significant amounts of alcohol - either | at once or slowly over time - and not appear to be | intoxicated. A person who has developed a functional | tolerance to alcohol may be under the influence of | alcohol without it being noticeable, thus allowing them | to participate in certain daily activities in a manner | that appears normal to others. | | This is also what TIPS, the training given to bartenders, | teaches [2]. Finally, to the point about spreading out | the drinks. Yes, this is how people consume large amounts | of alcohol daily. I maintain that someone who barely | drinks or never drinks will be incapable of doing their | job after 4 hours, even after spreading out the drinks. | They certainly shouldn't drive a vehicle. | | [1] - https://americanaddictioncenters.org/alcoholism- | treatment/th... [2] - https://www.tipscertified.com/ | pedroma wrote: | Worked at a startup with beer stocked in the fridge. I enjoyed a | beer several times a week once it hit 4-5pm. This behavior | started as an intern and I still got brought back for full time | so apparently they didn't care. | pengaru wrote: | A few beers cost almost nothing vs. paying overtime to have you | in the office longer for those hours spent starting your night | of drinking. | | And if the employer is lucky, your coworkers become your | drinking buddies in the process. Before you know it you're now | spending all your waking hours with your coworkers. Makes | quitting your post a lot more difficult. | throwaway1777 wrote: | I don't really think america has that big of a problem with | alcohol. If anything the stats indicate drinking is dying out | among the youths compared to previous generations. Fentanyl on | the other hand, that is a real problem. | olivermarks wrote: | The title is wrong imo because drinking is an intensely personal | thing. | | I don't drink for one year every four years and have been through | this cycle multiple times. I have one year where I drink quite a | bit and my current year is the weekends only drinking cycle. | | Some observations: I don't miss alcohol at all when I don't | drink, but in dry years I can get quite depressed. | | As soon as I do have one drink my mind immediately goes to having | more, plans change - I grew up in a binge drinking culture (UK) | and that never seems to go away. | | I body check myself socially to see if I've drunk too much even | when I'm not drinking. I think a lot of social drinking is | actually psychological. | | Hangovers suck but are a great safeguard. If you don't have them | be alarmed. The year when I drink a lot I get overtired, | generally puffy skinned feeling and lacklustre. | | Most important tip: don't drink pints of mineral water instead of | beer: I got terrible kidney stones | gwbennett wrote: | I stopped drinking 30 years ago. Haven't missed it a bit. | tmm wrote: | I've never been much of a drinker, generally preferring soda, | sports drinks, or sweet tea to stay hydrated. In my experience, | this is unusual. | | My friends, relatives, etc. all exclusively drink beer when doing | yard work, home improvement projects, or hobbies like working on | cars. When I'm at the marina, I'm the only one not drinking beer | while working on their boat. Maybe all of these people stick | exclusively to water in private, but I doubt it. | | Given that, I can see how it's quite easy for someone to consume | 5-10 drinks per day. I'll easily drink the equivalent of a six | pack if I'm working outside, and if I were a beer drinker I don't | think I'd find it excessive to drink at least that much over the | course of a day. | | However, it wouldn't surprise me to learn that the group drinking | a six pack of 90-calorie light beer over the course of a day is | healthier than people like me drinking a six pack of Dr. Pepper | in the same timeframe. Cirrhosis on one hand, diabetes on the | other. Pick your poison, I guess. | sjg007 wrote: | There's non alcoholic fatty liver disease too. | neither_color wrote: | You're kind of like me, I simply do not enjoy doing any sort of | work in a "buzzed" state so I never day drink at all. Not once | have I been working on something in the middle of the day and | thought "a beer would make this better" because I find the | state to be distracting and the opposite of what coffee does | for me in terms of motivation and focus. I spent years in co- | working spaces with beer on tap and simply didn't indulge, it's | not a will power thing or discipline I just don't want it. I'm | not an alcohol hater either I'll still "go wild" with friends | once in a while at a bar or club to make myself extroverted. | silicon2401 wrote: | This is similar to my experience. I enjoy the state of being | drunk so I would get drunk for its own sake, not to make work | bearable or something; I could never focus whenever work had | an in-office happy hour and went back to work. I actually | also quit caffeine for similar reasons; I loved coffee but | got distracted whenever I wasn't drinking coffee because I | was just looking forward to having more. | PragmaticPulp wrote: | > However, it wouldn't surprise me to learn that the group | drinking a six pack of 90-calorie light beer over the course of | a day is healthier than people like me drinking a six pack of | Dr. Pepper in the same timeframe. Cirrhosis on one hand, | diabetes on the other. Pick your poison, I guess. | | Most people choose neither option. | | Drinking a 6-pack of beer every day and drinking a 6-pack of | sugary sodas every day are not normal behaviors. We shouldn't | try to normalize things like this when they're clearly | unhealthy and definitely outlier behavior. | ska wrote: | TFA states that top 10% is at least equivalent 2 bottles/wine | per day, which is more than your 6-pack, closer to a 12-pack. | | 10% is not outliers. | | edit to avoid confusion: this wasn't an average, this was the | bottom of the 10% decile. So clearly there are bigger | drinkers out there, but 10% is a lot of minimum 10-drink-a- | day people. | kelnos wrote: | I think the error we're making here is that the top 10% | doesn't all drink the same amount. The top 1% might drink | 20 drinks per day, while someone in the 91st percentile | might drink 7 or 8. | ska wrote: | That claim was for the _minimum_ of the top 10%, being 2 | bottle wine equivalent per day, which is about 10 | standard drinks. | | Undoubtedly there are far heavier drinkers in the top end | of that 10%; but 10 drinks is a lot, and 10% isn't | outliers. | quickthrowman wrote: | 20 drinks/day sounds about right for the top 1% of | alcohol drinkers, I've been at that level before. | rdruxn wrote: | Unfortunately, it isn't outlier behavior | TheCapn wrote: | I think its about a long term tolerance thing that people | build. Couple anecdotes: | | I was invited to my friend's bachelor party weekend. We rented | a cabin in a fairly remote area of our province for an extended | weekend with plans to golf, fish, campfire, and...drink. | | I think by the time the first day was over, the majority of my | buddies had each done 12 beer plus several mixed drinks or | shots. No mistaking, we were all drunk. But what sort of set | things apart was the next day. I basically just nursed a few | beers/drinks through the day, probably 6 _max_ while the rest | of the guys were easily 12+ a piece, I know one of them had | cleaned off his first 24pack by that night. | | By the next day I was _miserable_. We were golfing in 30+ | weather and I had 1 beer for the entire 18 holes, they were 6+ | each. The heat, the hangover, I don 't know how they do it. But | it slowly dawned on me that they do this _frequently_. Most of | their weekends are getting tankered at the lake or going | through a case of beer in the yard doing chores and having | impromptu bbq with the neighbors /buds while I pretty much | _only_ drank while at social outings (once a week top) and even | then I never had more than 2 or 3 drinks. | | When lockdown started a couple of the same buds got laid off | from their jobs and mentioned how much they were drinking in | isolation. Again, the quantities they drank were fucking | astounding while I pretty much stopped drinking entirely due to | the social outings coming to an end. | | I've tried the "grab some beer and do the oilchange" type work | myself but I find by the end my beer is warm, half drank and I | was too involved in the work to think about stopping to drink. | Even when I did stop, it was because I was thirsty so I'd be | seeking water, not alcohol. | | After all the experience with this lifestyle from friends I can | see where its left us (we're mid 30s now). They're overweight, | a few of them struggle with health issues while I'm the same | weight I was 10 years prior and healthy as ever. I just think | centering your activities around having a beer is something | that these people do _long term_ and what seems wild to you or | me is normal for them. | spankalee wrote: | Why don't you drink water to stay hydrated? | | Sodas are liquid candy. I don't think many people eat 6 | Snickers instead of food to get calories while they work. | tayo42 wrote: | I found it pretty amusing to see how drunk our founding fathers | were. I think being drunk played a huge role in the American | revolution | cobaltoxide wrote: | Reminds me of the article "Were Early Modern People Perpetually | Drunk? (2016)" | | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13535868 | drewcoo wrote: | I'd love to see a drunk history about drunken Washington | infecting his drunken troops with cowpox (sober cows). | pseudolus wrote: | Going back further, I'd love to know the source of the claim | that the Mayflower was diverted from the mouth of the Hudson to | Plymouth Rock because the ship was running low on beer. It | seems like the sort of thing that would be more widely known. | sdenton4 wrote: | The framing is a bit dubious, at the very least... The | statement about 'preferring beer to water' ignores cholera, | and the general difficult of keeping water potable over | months at sea. Fermentation was, believe it or not, a public | health strategy for ship voyages. | lupire wrote: | "When Britain taxed our TEA we got frisky/ Imagine what gon' | happen when you try & tax our whiskey" | | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whiskey_Rebellion | barbazoo wrote: | Obviously not not just the US. Drinking "culture" is too | ingrained in our everyday lives. Alcohol addiction is totally | normal, socially accepted and legally encouraged. I was appalled | when our city allowed drinking alcohol in some of our parks as a | Covid-19 measure to give people an alternative to drinking in | restaurants or pubs. It makes me so sad that we realize we have a | drinking problem and our solution is to give people spaces | outside to indulge. In parks, right next to playgrounds. People | here in Canada often point to Germany or Europe in general and | say, well they're doing it and it works. No it doesn't work. | Germany has a massive alcohol addiction problem, you can see it | in families, at festivities but also in public. Sure it's nice as | a young adult to be able to get alcohol 24/7 from a Kiosk or gas | station but it's really is a symptom of a gigantic problem. | paxys wrote: | Lots of countries have an obesity problem, but the solution | isn't to outlaw eating food in parks. If you are sitting | outisde with friends having a beer shouldn't be a criminal | activity. Addicts need help, and the justice system cannot | offer that. Let the majority of the population who can control | themselves live a normal life. | mellosouls wrote: | Can the majority of people control themselves though in the | view of social normalisation of a poison like alcohol? | | The very fact that you (as do most of us) consider it a | "normal life" activity indicates a very skewed and unhealthy | perspective has taken hold at a fundamental level. | croutonwagon wrote: | > The very fact that you (as do most of us) consider it a | "normal life" activity indicates a very skewed and | unhealthy perspective has taken hold at a fundamental | level. | | I would argue it and the stats answers your own question. | By in large yes they can. And personally I'm not one to | judge peoples lifestyle decisions provided it's not an | epidemic of people doing things like b&E to hawk a motel | microwave to get their next fix. | mellosouls wrote: | How do it and they answer the question in another way to | mine given that it is a toxin and millions are using it | to damage their health every day? | | How many of those millions using could genuinely give up | today forever easily if they wanted to? | [deleted] | barbazoo wrote: | I'm not suggesting outlawing. I'm suggesting no longer | supporting. Looking back at the smoking problem, to me it | seems that we managed to "fix" by doing exactly that, no | advertising in public spaces, no smoking in public spaces. | Make it less "normal", less convenient to do something that's | objectively harmful to you and a burden on society. | paxys wrote: | > I'm not suggesting outlawing. I'm suggesting no longer | supporting. | | That sounds like doublespeak. Either you allow something or | you don't. Not allowing drinking in parks falls firmly in | the "outlawing" category. | | I can't speak for other countries but in the USA smoking | has always been allowed in open public spaces and still is. | In fact most states don't even have laws banning it in | indoors. Cigarette boxes have no graphic warnings. Yet the | smoking rate in the USA has consistently been among the | lowest in the world. | barbazoo wrote: | My example was of a municipality (Canada) that designated | a place where it previously wasn't allowed to drink | alcohol to be allowed. That's what I meant by | "supporting". At least don't expand the options. | lupire wrote: | Due to COVID-19, people couldn't drink their healthy | moderation where they usually do. | barbazoo wrote: | No amount of alcohol consumption is "healthy". There | might be an amount up to which it's not considered | harmful. | system16 wrote: | Not all countries have a binge drinking culture that they are | introduced to in their teens like Canada, the UK, the US, | Australia, etc. where it's celebrated for young people to get | totally intoxicated. | | In many countries, you have a couple of social drinks - even | _gasp_ at lunch or in public - and it 's not a problem. Being | falling down drunk isn't considered 'cool' - it's pathetic and | embarrassing. Drinking isn't a competition to see how much you | can consume before you either lose consciousness, make idiotic | decisions, or start street fights. | | That said, I absolutely see no problem with drinking in parks | or in public and this works fine in Montreal. We have laws | already for public drunkenness. We don't need a nanny state. | tqi wrote: | "Media coverage, meanwhile, has swung from cheerfully overselling | the (now disputed) health benefits of wine to screeching that no | amount of alcohol is safe, ever; it might give you cancer and it | will certainly make you die before your time." | | This back and forth cycle in media coverage on any health topic | is so predictable. At this point can any study be taken at face | value, or is the only real answer "it varies?" | notlukesky wrote: | I would highly recommend everyone to watch the documentary | Prohibition by Ken Burns: | | https://www.pbs.org/kenburns/prohibition/ | | https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1950799/ | floatingatoll wrote: | ADHD folks, I'm pretty sure (but I don't have hard science) that | alcohol depletes your precious and limited store of dopamine. For | normal people, the hangover is just "my head hurts" and such. For | ADHD people, the hangover _also_ includes "my willpower is | reduced", potentially for days while the brain sloooowly | replenishes dopamine. | tablespoon wrote: | America needs alcohol control and a ban on high-capacity assault | beverages. | offtop5 wrote: | Why not let everyone do what they want? | | I hate these moralizing articles, if we have a drunk driving | problem then write an article about that. But if people want to | drink in their own homes let them be. | agogdog wrote: | We live in a society | tjs8rj wrote: | Are you saying there aren't downsides inherent with drinking | itself? I'm onboard with letting people do what they want, but | if what they want to do has negative effects the least we | should do is make them aware of that. | theandrewbailey wrote: | Doesn't society already tell everyone that alcohol abuse is | bad? | offtop5 wrote: | There are downsides to eating Oreos, but we don't need | articles which state obvious facts. | | Much wrong has been done in this country by telling people | their behavior is a moral. As long as you don't hurt me or | anyone else do whatever you want, you're free to drink | yourself silly every night | vinay427 wrote: | I would argue that benefits have also come from moralizing | about certain practices. Consider smoking cigarettes, for | instance, which has seen dramatic decreases in use over | several decades in the US [1]. I suspect that the large | amount of moralizing in schools, on TV and in movies, and | other places had something to do with this given that it's | still more common (perhaps because it's less taboo and | still seen as "cool") in certain European countries [2], | not to mention many other places around the world that | weren't significantly different from the US some decades | ago. This has public health benefits that everyone at least | indirectly benefits from, without mentioning the more | direct issues such as second-hand smoke or, in the case of | alcohol, drunk driving or other crimes exacerbated by its | use. | | [1] https://news.gallup.com/poll/237908/smoking-rate-hits- | new-lo... | | [2] https://ourworldindata.org/which-countries-smoke-most | tjs8rj wrote: | These aren't so obvious facts, and we DO write articles and | run campaigns about the harms of junk food and overeating. | | None of this is "moralizing", its simply reiterating the | harmful effects of behaviors so others can make balanced | decisions. Nobody is born aware of the dangers of junk food | and alcohol, and they're easy to forget too unless one has | personal experience with it (by then the damage is already | done). | Barrin92 wrote: | Article mirrors my experience. For context I'm German, my wife's | French and we've got family in Croatia who own a vineyard so I'm | used to being around alcohol and people drinking. My first | impression when I spent time was in the US was indeed how bipolar | drinking is compared to Europe. | | We probably drink a hell of a lot more in raw terms than the | average American does.Two glasses of wine for dinner, another one | in the evening, maybe some cognac to wind down, and so on. But | it's for the most part not about getting drunk or coping with | stress. I've got no illusions about the physical effects but | speaking about addiction or being dysfunctional I've seen very | little of it despite some people I know drinking enough to stun a | mule probably. | | The things that I noted were different in the US is how solitary | everyone is, overworked and how little time people take for | preparing food and just sitting at a table having a drink over | conversation. People seem to drink to cope more, use it as a | medicine rather than for pleasure or to enhance meals, and I | think that turns very badly very quick. | | That said I don't think solitary drinking is necessarily as bad | as the article makes it out to be all the time, but it takes a | certain personality. When you take drugs alone, not just alcohol, | you need to be more mindful about why you do it. | TameAntelope wrote: | I'm going to generalize, but the US is more diverse (rank #90 | vs #151 for Germany, #169 for France, #111 for Croatia [0]) and | we also have a very painful past and present that makes us | _acutely_ aware of our inability to socialize. | | America also has a cultural obsession with self- | reliance/liberty/frontier-as-a-virtue which makes "socializing" | a bit of a taboo concept, in a weird way. It's a crutch to | "need" to be around others, despite it being fundamentally | human to feel this way. | | When you combine these two things, I think you get a group of | people who _need_ to interact with one another, but also kind | of hate one another, and refuse to admit the dichotomy. What we | 've discovered then, is by heavy drinking we can start to pick | at those barriers, though maybe that is, itself, part of the | problem. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li | st_of_countries_ranked_by_ethnic_and_cultural_diversity_level | Bostonian wrote: | "we also have a very painful past and present" | | I don't see why that is more true of the U.S. than say | Germany, Japan, Russia, China etc. | TameAntelope wrote: | We've both refused to own our past like Japan and Germany, | have more diversity than all of those countries, and have | also not scrubbed all mention of said painful past from our | national history like Russia and China. | jeffreyrogers wrote: | > we also have a very painful past and present that makes us | acutely aware of our inability to socialize. | | This is only a real problem for a small, but vocal part of | the population. Most people don't think about these issues | much at all. | ashtonkem wrote: | > That said I don't think solitary drinking is necessarily as | bad as the article makes it out to be all the time | | One of my great bugaboos is these cultural definitions of | alcoholism that are independent from the actual amount of | alcohol consumed. You know "you're only an alcoholic if you | drink alone" or "you're only an alcoholic if you pour your own | drinks" (apparently this is a meme in Japan?). Every culture | that consumes alcohol seems to have these, and they're all | laughably naive and easily gamed. Alcoholics can and do drink | heavily together, and they can pour each other drinks if that's | what it takes to sidestep some silly taboo. The only definition | of this that's meaningful is how much alcohol you drink and how | often, nothing else. | lhorie wrote: | > to enhance meals | | Can you clarify what you mean here? I was under the impression | european habits of alcohol pairing takes much more space under | this umbrella than, say, whether an american associates junk | foods (pizza, wings) with beer. | k__ wrote: | I'm German, and I'd consider drinking 2-3 glasses of wine plus | a glass cognac a day quite much. | | But I'd consider drinking daily or even weekly much. | azinman2 wrote: | Having lived in the UK and the US, I firmly disagree. I had | never seen drinking at the extreme levels until I went to the | UK. | | I seriously doubt the entire articles premise that somehow | alcohol binging is unique to the US. There are a lot of | counties with a lot of forms of alcohol out there... | FridayoLeary wrote: | Don't really get pubs outside the UK. A pub is basically a | place where you can sit and enjoy yourself and chat with | mates. Sometimes people can get outrageously drunk. | | Also in UK you can buy alcohol from 18, (and if you go to the | right places younger even...). It seems totally absurd that | in the USA even a 20 YO can't buy himself a drink. | azinman2 wrote: | Bars exist elsewhere. It's the same function, just | positioned differently culturally. Yet many people across | the US treat bars the same as they do in the UK. | | That said, I see way more people absolutely trashed at | night walking around cities in the UK than I do the US. I'm | not saying no one is trashed in the US, I'm just saying the | frequency, percentage of people, and "normalcy" was way | higher in the UK. | StavrosK wrote: | It's not unique to the US, but the US shares a culture with | the UK in this regard. It's not similar to other countries | I've been to (or lived in). In Greece, for example, it's not | uncommon to see teenagers being served/sold alcohol, just | because it's not a big deal. People go out, they have a drink | or two, and they go home. | | In the US and the UK, if you aren't drunk when you get home, | it wasn't a good night. Nobody here "pregames", simply | because getting drunk is mostly something to be avoided. | rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote: | The UK is an outlier in western europe (I think this is | your point), but having lived in both countries, they | definitely binge drink more than Americans. | StavrosK wrote: | Agreed on both points. | ipaddr wrote: | The happy hour culture and early closing time force binge | drinking. | Metacelsus wrote: | Yeah, I've lived in both countries and UK is worse for sure. | vmception wrote: | What I got out of this was that you were around well-adjusted | people in Europe and were around less well-adjusted people in | the US. | | How do you even know about solitary drinking in the US? Why are | you unaware of solitary drinking in France/Germany/Croatia? | | I have no way of quantifying any of your observations. | | I am aware of people with drinking problems in France, Germany | and Croatia. It is easy for alcohol to periodically become a | problem in people's lives. | | I'm not trying to defend American culture at all. These | observations read kind of comically though. | throwaway0a5e wrote: | This trope needs to die. Europe doesn't have drinking problems | because it mostly draws the line for "problems" in what would | solidly be "functional alcoholic" territory in the US. | fantod wrote: | Noticed this when I was in Germany/Austria as well. In America, | if you go out drinking then that's the primary activity. It's | what you're doing. But in central Europe socializing and seeing | friends is the activity and you just happen to drink because | that's what you do when you see your friends. | vdnkh wrote: | This makes no sense. Do you think that Americans go out | drinking to get drunk arounds friends, but not to socialize | with them? | elliekelly wrote: | It definitely depends on the type of bar/club you're at but | a lot of them have music so loud it's impossible to hold a | conversation. | sidlls wrote: | I've noticed that any bad habits or behaviors Americans | have tend to be misunderstood when they aren't being | misrepresented or exaggerated in order to pile on. | C19is20 wrote: | From my (not op) experiences, oh yes. Just last night I was | talking to a potential bar investor and one of the huuuuge | talking points was " how do we cater for the americans?" | TameAntelope wrote: | I think Americans just aren't used to _saying_ we 're out | to socialize. It's what's happening, but we're bad at it | and we're not used to being explicit about it. | | As a member of this target demographic, I would say that | catering to American drinkers would be to provide a | pretext to be at your establishment. You don't have to | actually provide all that much, but if you provide a | reason for being there that isn't, "Socialize with | others" I bet you'd attract more Americans. In America we | do "brewery tours" for example, but it doesn't even have | to be related to alcohol itself ("good" music, board | games, axe throwing, bumper cars, pub quiz, karaoke, | etc.). What matters is that you're plausibly not there to | "socialize", even though that's actually why you're | there. | ipaddr wrote: | We went out to get drunk and socializing happened. Without | the going out to get drunk part the socializing doesn't | happen. | | Getting beer was always the event. | | Like going to a weekly bowling game. Socializing happens | but you go there for bowling. | OminousWeapons wrote: | I disagree with this. Americans go out drinking with friends | because alcohol helps you cut through the bullshit small talk | and get to the real talk that everyone is afraid to initiate | but eager to take part in. If we could all have perfectly | candid conversations surrounding sensitive topics without | alcohol, there would be no need for most bars to exist. | bitexploder wrote: | It's kind of amusing when you think about it like a | philosopher. I'm a bit older than the average HNer, | probably, at 41 this year. It's all the same fears and | doubts. The human condition. Finding love, acceptance, | belonging. Not facing down the human condition alone. That | is what "big talk" is about to me. | qeternity wrote: | Where in Germany? I find this surprising. As an American expat | who has spent a lot of time in Germany, I'd agree that the | German relationship with alcohol is less taboo, but Germany/UK | have pretty big binging cultures. The Mediterraneans definitely | do it more responsibly though. | PragmaticPulp wrote: | It's hard to reduce the US to a single culture. Alcohol | consumption habits vary greatly from region to region, or even | city to city depending on where you live. | | I've noticed that heavy drinkers tend to cluster with other | heavy drinkers. The more you see your friends and coworkers | binge drinking regularly, the more you feel it's an acceptable | and even common behavior. Likewise, non-drinkers tend to | cluster with each other because it gets tiresome to have | friends who want every event to revolve around alcohol. | | Statistically, the median drinker in the US doesn't drink much | alcohol at all. The vast majority of alcohol is consumed by the | top 10% of drinkers. You may have simply ended up with a | cluster of heavy drinkers that aren't representative of the | median US alcohol consumer. | | Statistic here: | https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/09/25/think... | Note that the median US alcohol drinker consumes less than 1 | drink per week. | root_axis wrote: | Nice comment. I also want to emphasize that your point about | regional variance is true in Europe as well, this without | even mentioning several well known European drinker | stereotypes. | bradleyjg wrote: | That's a great (surprising) reference. Intellectually I know | functional alcoholics exist but it's still tough to come to | grips with that many people drinking that much alcohol. | | I'm curious what it looks by age, geography, and household | income. | tolbish wrote: | And yet one year later we learn that 18% of Americans are | binge drinkers: | | https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/americans-are- | dri... | throwaway0a5e wrote: | If approximately one in five people are doing it then | either it needs to lose the "karen clutching her | pearls"-esque stigma or the definition needs to change. | bart_spoon wrote: | Stigma doesn't exist simply based on how many people do | something. | spoonjim wrote: | I think the US is a land of "extreme" personalities so I | would guess that across a broad range of metrics (alcohol | consumption, wealth, number of text messages sent per month), | the ratio of the Top 1% to the median is probably higher in | the US than in most other countries that the US considers | "peers" (i.e. Western Europe, Australia, and Canada). | quadyeast wrote: | that chart does not make sense to me unless >10% of Americans | are AA. I can't think of anyone, besides non-drinking | Alcoholics, that have less than 1 drink/wk | barry-cotter wrote: | I live in a rather special world. I only know one person | who voted for Nixon. Where they are I don't know. They're | outside my ken. But sometimes when I'm in a theater I can | feel them. Quoted by Israel Shenker, "Critics Here Focus on | Films As Language Conference Opens," The New York Times | (1972-12-28) | | Often quoted as "How could Nixon have won? Nobody I know | voted for him"; referring to George McGovern's loss to | Richard Nixon in in the 1972 presidential election. | bitexploder wrote: | I do pretty demanding sport as a hobby. Even one drink | during the week greatly impacts recovery and ability to | perform and lessens my enjoyment considerably. It's rather | commons in my circles for people to probably average a | handful of drinks per year at most. | throwaway0a5e wrote: | If one drink/wk is noticeably affecting you then you're | either a professional athlete who's got world class | people monitoring their performance or you need to see a | doctor. | DeRock wrote: | I have many friends (and family) most of whom are in no way | an alcoholic in AA, that hardly ever (or never) drink. Some | just don't enjoy the effects, some prefer not to for health | reasons, some just honestly prefer to smoke a joint. The | fact that you can't think of a single person like that is | equally surprising to me. | dylan604 wrote: | Hi! Nice to meet you. There are weeks when I have 0 drinks | per week, and then others where I have lots more. It all | depends on mood and activities. Specifically if the smoker | is running. | hpoe wrote: | Well for starters you've got all the Muslims and members of | the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints sometimes | know as Mormons. That's two big ole' swathes of people who | probably don't drink at all. | hellbannedguy wrote: | A lot of people don't like alcoholic beverages at all. | | I have member of my family that despise the taste of | alcohol. | | Then, we have people like myself, and my father, whom self | medicate. | | (I hate the taste of all alcohol. I only drink it for the | effect. To the problem drinkers out there, don't even think | about going to hard alcohol. Stick to low alcohol beer, and | wine. Box wine can have as little as 9% alcohol. Naltrexone | seems to help with the cravings if you need to stop.) | PragmaticPulp wrote: | > I can't think of anyone, besides non-drinking Alcoholics, | that have less than 1 drink/wk | | Most people I associate with don't drink anything on an | average week. | | It's likely that you're in a bit of a bubble if you can't | think of anyone who doesn't drink in an average week. | Wohlf wrote: | Is it really that hard to imagine some people just don't | have much of a desire to drink? I go pretty long stretches | without drinking. | thaumasiotes wrote: | > Note that the median US alcohol drinker consumes less than | 1 drink per week. | | The article says something else: | | >> the median consumption among those who do drink is just | three beverages per week. | | You might get less than 1 / week by including non-drinkers, | who are (according to the article) at least 30% of American | adults. But they're 0% of American alcohol drinkers. | [deleted] | maya24 wrote: | Alcohol is a harmful drug much worse than some of the other | banned drugs on the market. | jmcdl wrote: | This is a common refrain but at the same time it seems to be | the one substance commonly used across most of the world | since ancient times. None of the other supposedly less | harmful, banned drugs are so ubiquitous. Perhaps there's a | good reason for this (besides varying availability of other | substances)? | gilbetron wrote: | It's a really interesting question. Maybe the benefits of | having something to drink that has alcohol to kill of | pathogens outweigh the negatives? | quickthrowman wrote: | Alcohol is more dangerous than all other drugs, in my | experience (been addicted to alcohol and heroin in the past, | and have abused every common drug) and in my opinion. | | The addiction rate for cocaine/heroin/meth may be higher, but | the negative effects of those drugs mostly stem from the high | cost (theft) and insane profit margins (murder). If a heroin | addict could get their supply for $5/day (and have it be pure | heroin w no fentanyl) then nearly all of the negatives would | disappear. | bsder wrote: | I wonder how much of the increase is due to ridesharing. | | The US basically requires that you drive everywhere. The | penalties for DUI are incredibly stiff. So, you are forced to | choose and most people had to choose driving over drinking. | | Now, with ridesharing, you can choose drinking over driving. | wly_cdgr wrote: | Not as big as The Atlantic's relevance problem | silicon2401 wrote: | Title is definitely true (america has a drinking problem), in a | way. Excessive drinking is normalized, though not as common as | problem drinkers think. Since college I always drank too much, | but my real issue was that I assumed everybody drank as much as I | did (maybe 20-30 drinks per week). Since I wasn't drinking as | soon as I woke up or getting shakes without drinking, I thought I | was fine. It wasn't until I realized that I drank waaayyy more | than most people that I started working on reducing consumption. | Thankfully I only drank that much because I just have fun being | drunk or enjoy the taste - I've never used alcohol to cope with | stress, anxiety, shyness, etc - so it was easy when I decided to | go cold turkey for a month. So I'm sharing in hopes that I can | help someone else realize they drink too much even if they don't | think they do, and that it's totally doable to cut back. | | Just in this one month, I've already noticed a huge difference in | my life. It's amazing to wake up rested and energetic every day, | never having that dread about a hangover, being groggy, or | wondering if I did something embarrassing last night. I feel | present in everything I do, rather than having my routine and my | attention thrown off by alcohol. Saving calories makes my weight | more stable and lets me indulge in more food if I want to. I'm | saving tons of money, especially at restaurants. I'm already | regaining the hyperactivity and excitement towards life and | events that I had in grade school before I started drinking, | because now I can look forward to stuff other than getting drunk. | It feels great to go to parties, restaurants, watch a movie, go | on a date, do anything, and not even think about alcohol. For me | drinking was fun and easy, but now I've learned that drinking is | shallow and comes at way too high of a cost compared compared to | the deep joy of living sober and enjoying life for its own sake | again. | | I wouldn't hesitate to recommend drinking less to anybody who | does drink. You don't need to be black and white and think that | it's either cold turkey or stay where you are. You don't need to | worry about the "benefits" you get from red wine and whatever | other stuff people love to talk about. Just try drinking less. | Maybe don't drink on weekdays, set a maximum number you can drink | in a day, take a 1-day break, take a 1-week break, start drinking | lower-percentage drinks, set a maximum number of drinks per week, | there are tons of options. I tried them all and over time I was | able to consistently reduce how much I drank. I used to have | trouble imagining not drinking during a weekend, and now I'm | already having trouble imagining wanting to drink more than a few | times a month at most. | | Alcohol is like junk food or soda. It's fun and it's easy. But | life is a lot better if you can break the habit and stop making | it part of your life, or at least make it a once-in-a-blue-moon | indulgence rather than a regular thing. Learn to love things with | deeper and healthier value. If you don't control these things, | there's the risk that you'll gradually get worse over time. You | don't want to look at yourself in 20 years and realize you gained | 50+ lbs and don't recognize yourself because you didn't take the | chips or chocolate seriously. You don't want to look at yourself | in 20 years and realize you have cirrhosis or heart disease | because you didn't tone down the drinking. You don't have to be | obese or an alcoholic to benefit from making healthy lifestyle | changes. | paxys wrote: | When we are no longer restricted by resource limits as a society, | _everything_ quickly becomes an addiction. Food, alcohol, | cigarettes, caffeine, sex, drugs, gambling, shopping, TV, video | games, social media. I 'm sure people a lot more qualified than | me will be able to talk about it in scientific terms, but I feel | like a certain category of species (maybe all of them?) simply | never ran into limiting excesses as part of their evolution. | There are animals that will literally eat themselves to death if | given the chance. | kevinmchugh wrote: | Alcohol withdrawals are serious enough that they can be fatal. | This isn't true for cigarettes, opiates, or cocaine. | | Breaking habits is hard, but usually doesn't risk | hospitalization or death. | kiwih wrote: | Nitpicking, but though rare, people can die from opiate | withdrawal [1]. | | The point of your comment still stands however. | | [1] https://ndarc.med.unsw.edu.au/blog/yes-people-can-die- | opiate... | laurent92 wrote: | My mother worked in a alcohol rehab center. People who drank | up to 12L of wine a day (I still wonder how that works) would | turn to window cleaning liquid on withdrawal. | | She said no-one ever quit the alcohol addiction by choice, | all of them were brought here by court, generally after | killing people in an accident. | | I sure hope people can quit alcohol addiction by choice. But | you do need to rebuild all the friendships that only existed | around drinking routines. I for one have quit a coworking | space that revolved too much around beer. They were good | business contacts and that is why it's hard to walk away. | ufmace wrote: | I'm suspicious of bold claims like that from people | observing a selected subset of a population. An alcohol | rehab center, particular the type that accepts people | sentenced there by a court, is likely to get few to no | voluntary patients. Therefore, somebody working there will | only see the people who have a serious enough alcohol | problem to get in enough alcohol-related legal trouble to | get sentenced to go to rehab. | | I've known some people who would probably qualify as | functional alcoholics, and none of them have ever got into | legal trouble for it. IME, you generally have to be a | wildly out of control drunk to get into legal trouble from | it regularly. | | I've also known plenty of people who stopped or cut back | alcohol consumption voluntarily, with no help from any | organized programs. It's quite doable for many people, once | you decide that you genuinely want to stop, though I | acknowledge that some people genuinely can't. You may | infact have to change friendships and routines if some of | the old ones are too conductive to binge drinking, but do | what you gotta do. | [deleted] | handrous wrote: | I have some similar thoughts about this. Take Internet media | streaming: am I happier being able to watch any of 10,000 | things with no effort, rather than having maybe a couple dozen | at hand and the ability, with some time and effort, to acquire | one or two more if I really want them enough? Or is the ability | to select _exactly_ a certain thing to watch with low effort | just scratching an itch that only exists _because_ I can do | that, and I 'd be exactly as happy watching whatever caught my | eye on the public library movie shelf earlier that week? I | suspect, for most people, it's the latter. Am I happier with | Spotify or whatever, than I would be with a smallish but well- | used record collection that I add another entry to only a | couple times a year? I suspect not. | | Am I better off with 2-day shipping and the easy ability to | read the opinions of enthusiasts and experts for any product I | have a small interest in, then order it immediately? Does the | change in what I buy actually pay off given the extra time-cost | of that research, the extra brain-clutter of knowing things | about products I'd probably never have though much about | otherwise, and the extra money I'm _sure_ I 'm spending because | of those factors? I kinda doubt it, but it's so damn hard to | resist finding out what's _the best_ way to do [thing] or _the | best_ product for the best way to do [thing] when you _can_ do | that, even if the result is that your life-satisfaction meter | doesn 't budge versus some hypothetical alternate universe in | which, for anything you're not an actual enthusiast about, you | just buy whatever looks good out of the selection at a local | non-specialty store. | | [EDIT] and yes I'm aware I'm dangerously close to realizing | that _almost everything_ "good" in life is just removing an | irritation that only exists in the first place because of _how | life is and is structured_ , and how I'm choosing to respond to | life and its typical structure, and then abandoning the | material world to become a Buddhist monk or something. | jodrellblank wrote: | Two of my favourite TED Talks are Barry Schwartz and the | Paradox of Choice, where he says "in the past, you went to | the store and there was one jar of peanut butter or one pair | of jeans, and you bought them. If they weren't good, well, | you had no choice. You demand choice. Now you go to the store | and there's 30 jars of peanut butter or pairs of jeans - | chunky, smooth, sweet, plain, large, small, organic, popular | brand, niche brand, imported brand, etc. Now whatever you | choose, you will have doubts, and if it isn't good, well | there were so many choices it _must_ be your fault, so you | feel bad ". | | And Dan Gilbert on Happiness, demonstrating with studies that | no, you are not happier with more choice, you are | objectively, measurably, unquestionably, happier with _no | choice_. 10,000 films that you can stop watching and change | for another as soon as you are unhappy - > unhappiness. 1 | film you have to watch all the way through and have no other | -> you'll grow to like it. You become happier with things | you're stuck with, and that even applies to people who are | disabled, missed out on fortunes, got imprisoned for crimes | they did commit, and for crimes they didn't commit, as well | as for everyday people who bought something they can't return | vs something they can return. | | Via PJ Eby, you care about what you care for. People have it | the other way round - "I'm not maintaining my car, but if I | had a Lambo _then_ I would care about my car ". Noooo, if you | start cleaning and maintaining your car, _then_ you will care | about your car because you 're investing time and effort into | it. | svachalek wrote: | There was a book about this called the Paradox of Choice. | Basically, that we want choices but they make us less happy. | | There's a related phenomenon, I don't know a name for it, | where given a choice between convenience and happiness people | will almost always choose convenience, generally without even | realizing they've made a choice. Our genes have a deep, deep | preference for minimizing energy expenditure. | [deleted] | Tyr42 wrote: | This happens with video games too. Players hate | restrictions, but if they were removed, would get board and | stop. | | For a recent example, look at Valheim. They explicitly | block you from using portals to move metal ore, which | forces you to use a cart or a boat to move it. Suddenly I | was a highway engineer for a few hours and pay more | attention to harbour than before and had a blast. | | Yet there are mods which remove this restriction, which | removes this experience. Why build a highway if I can just | drop a portal down? | birdyrooster wrote: | I like your comment because it pretty much answers itself in | the edit. | handrous wrote: | Yeah, the universality and unoriginality of the observation | isn't lost on me, but I _do_ think there 's some "the | medium is the message" stuff going on with the sheer | _quantity_ and low-friction to selection of media and other | options available to us now, with the Web and ubiquitous | always-online computing devices turning into an outright | _engine_ for itch-generation and itch-scratching-of-same- | itch. And that 's before you factor in adversarial actors | (marketers and such). | | Packages show up on the lawn it is astonishing how they | appear. | | They are astonishing surprises. | | It's what I ordered the cat food the espresso machine the | two new tables. | | Ordering things and how they appear basically I am a small- | scale sorcerer. | | On the road I press the button and the music goes. | | Air conditioning gas pedal restaurant take-out etc. | | It is my will being perpetually sated. | | Pretend we are writing a fable in which a sorcerer always | gets what he wants. | | Consider what happens to a soul which always gets what it | wants. | | - Emily Bludworth de Barios, from | http://www.forkliftohio.com/index.php?page=freight-31 | | That last line unsettles me every time. | jodrellblank wrote: | > " _Consider what happens to a soul which always gets | what it wants._ " | | In a popular Alan Watts talk he imagines a dreamer: | | "let's suppose that you were able every night to dream | any dream you wanted to dream, and that you could, for | example, have the power within one night to dream 75 | years of time, or any length of time you wanted to have. | | And you would, naturally, as you began on this adventure | of dreams, you would fulfill all your wishes. You would | have every kind of pleasure you could conceive. And after | several nights of 75 years of total pleasure each you | would say "Well that was pretty great. But now let's have | a surprise, let's have a dream which isn't under control, | where something is gonna happen to me that I don't know | what it's gonna be." | | And you would dig that and would come out of that and you | would say "Wow that was a close shave, wasn't it?". Then | you would get more and more adventurous and you would | make further- and further-out gambles what you would | dream. And finally, you would dream where you are now. | You would dream the dream of living the life that you are | actually living today." | | https://genius.com/Alan-watts-the-dream-of-life-annotated | nestorD wrote: | On the subject of addiction I highly recommend this comic on | the rat park experiment: | http://utw10426.utweb.utexas.edu/quest/Q3/ratpark.html | | It starts with the famous experiments where rats would prefer | drugs to food and water but goes on to further study that lead | to not so bleak conclusions. | grumple wrote: | The data seems to indicate that half of American adults drink | never or close to never. | | My lived experience is much different; friends in their | 20s/30s/40s drinking at every event and gathering. I live in an | area full of very busy bars and restaurants with people drinking. | Other wealthier areas are the same around the country. Traveling | internationally, the story is the same. And even people like | manual laborers drink a lot (I see construction workers regularly | drinking on breaks, and I've known some personally), so it's not | just a behavior amongst the college-educated professional crowd. | | Maybe cities attract and sustain this behavior. People want to be | around other people, to be around nightlife, etc. | Characterization of this as a purely American problem (or a | general problem America-wide) seems like a mistake given the | numbers though. | Diederich wrote: | Most of my male genetic relatives have/had a history of alcohol | abuse, so I decided from an early age that the best approach was | to not drink any alcohol at all, and I held to that until about | nine years ago. Long research has indicated that one cup of red | wine per day has measurable health benefits, so I started to | drink one cup, like medicine, immediately before bed. | | After doing that for a few weeks, I came home from work; my wife | and son weren't home at the moment. I sat down at my computer and | started working on my side project, as usual. | | I was shocked to see that there was a large plastic container on | my desk filled most of the way up with red wine, and I'd been | gulping it down. | | Honest to God, I had absolutely no recollection of getting that | container, pouring the wine, and putting it on my desk. | | That was very chilling, I poured the rest of it out and haven't | had a drink since. | smcl wrote: | That can definitely happen when you're focussed on something | else than what you're drinking (or eating!). It's gonna be even | more pronounced if you're drinking, distracted _and_ not | particularly experienced with alcohol. If you enjoy what you | 're drinking you just need to be conscious of when you refill | and you'll be fine. If you don't and you're just doing it as a | sort of health thing, maybe you made the right choice. As | someone who enjoys whisk[e]y, rum, gin, wine and beer, I think | it's incredibly enjoyable if you're able to keep on top of it | and I feel a little bit sad that there are some who won't enjoy | things like making cocktails or tasting wine due to abstinence. | I don't want at-risk people to descend into alcoholism against | their will, mind. | Diederich wrote: | > If you enjoy what you're drinking ... | | That's the thing: I hate the taste of wine. | TameAntelope wrote: | Just for clarification, no research (I'm aware of) has | indicated that one cup of red wine has measurable health | benefits _above not drinking at all_. The research suggests | that _if_ you must drink, _then_ one cup of wine will have | _some_ positive impacts _in addition to_ the negative impacts. | | That said, I dunno if I'd be so strongly swayed either way by | any single event without any real negative consequences such as | you say here. | Havoc wrote: | > (I'm aware of) has indicated that one cup of red wine has | measurable health benefits above not drinking at all. | | There are various studies floating about. The part that has | me sceptical is that they don't seem to account for whether | it's in a social setting. i.e. is it the wine or is the being | with friends and having a laugh | technocratius wrote: | Is it just me or all of the (many) ads on this page about | booze/liquor?? :') | antattack wrote: | From the (rambling) article: | | " beer sales were down in 2020, continuing their long decline, | Americans drank more of everything else, especially spirits and | (perhaps the loneliest-sounding drinks of all) premixed, single- | serve cocktails, sales of which skyrocketed." | | It's true that ready to drink cocktails are getting more popular | and according to some [1] trend will continue as people like | lower alcohol content and more flavor while consumption of beer | and hard liqueurs continues to decline [2]: | | [1] https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/ready- | to... | | [2] https://www.fooddive.com/news/report-us-beer-volume-has- | decl... | | If the article was really trying to prove that Americans had a | real drinking problem the article would cite stats on liver | cirrhosis or alcohol poisoning. | TameAntelope wrote: | Drunk Discord channels have re-created a _lot_ of the missing | "socialization" aspect of bar life I missed during the pandemic. | | I'm... not sure it's a good thing, but it was an | interesting/unanticipated development. I don't think the author | should be so quick to dismiss "Zoom" drinking! UX matters in this | space, in a weird way. | alexfromapex wrote: | Or is the drinking caused by a deeper problem? | topspin wrote: | Let's hope so. That way we can have two moral panics. | umvi wrote: | I was watching "Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist" with my wife the | other day and I commented "These characters seem to all be | alcoholics" because seriously they have a drink in hand nearly | every scene taking place outside of the workplace. I think part | of the problem is glorification of alcohol in pop culture. Heck, | at certain times of the year we _look forward_ to watching a | bunch of back-to-back alcohol advertisements (Super Bowl). | TameAntelope wrote: | They explain this in Lucifer by attributing Lucifer's higher | tolerance to his demigod status, but it's... kind of a problem, | especially for the not-deities who are seemingly _always_ at | his club, getting shitfaced. | stephen_greet wrote: | I noticed something similar. I quit drinking ~4 months ago once | I realized I was drinking way too much during quarantine. | | Since then I can't stop noticing the prevalence of alcohol in | nearly all aspects of pop culture. Even innocuous seeming | sitcoms have episodes where the whacky, lovable characters | drink to excess and have to deal with a hangover. | gv123 wrote: | I said the exact same thing with my partner, I was watching | true detective season 1, not one scene where the lead pair is | not in office is without smoking or beer in hand. | Ensorceled wrote: | > "But there's nothing moderate, or convivial, about the way many | Americans drink today." | | Today? Are Americans (and Canadians) actually drinking more than | they used to? Seems to me there was much heavier drinking in the | 70s and 80s and the stats seem to back it up. | a3n wrote: | When I worked in offices (sw dev and qa, _especially_ | executives), or at survival jobs that mixed with lots of people | (security guard, shelf stocking, etc), I was very often surprised | at how many people I could smell alcohol on. | | We're all drunks. | | I don't drink much anymore. I never went to work drunk, but I | used to drink a fair amount. Now that I'm a truck driver, it's | too inconvenient for me personally to manage drinking, so I just | don't drink. Others' mileage definitely varies. | billiam wrote: | I was working at Salesforce when they finally got rid of the | kegs and alcohol that were all over the engineering floors. | IIRC Parker was subdued about it, it happened overnight, I'd | guess in response to an alcohol-based HR issue. I laughed | because compared to every other company I knew no one ever | drank in the SFDC office and the kegerators were covered in | dust. I have one drink 3-4 times a week, but never connected to | work. | rootusrootus wrote: | Reading Europeans' comments on threads like this leaves me | wondering who is more ignorant about America, me (as an | American...) or them. | | I don't know anyone who goes out drinking to get drunk. I know | people who socialize with friends and drink alcohol while doing | it. I know some people who have a glass of wine or two with | dinner. I myself drink a couple microbrews once a week with | friends. | | But what I'm getting from our European friends is that everyone | they know from America is an alcoholic. | smegger001 wrote: | I knew people like that in our mutual early 20s a few years | have gone by and now nope. I may drink once every other month | or so on out D&D night. Much of that was because my mutual | friend group were all from a background of strictly religious | upbringings where alcohol was not considered acceptable so no | one had a model of responsible drinking. all of us having | gained independence around then I was the only one not getting | hammered every weekend. (mostly because i don't like beer). but | we have all aged and become more responsible and realized | throwing up sucks. | willcipriano wrote: | > I don't know anyone who goes out drinking to get drunk. | | I've never met anyone who admits it but I've seen plenty of the | "I drink it for the flavor" folks get the giggles seemingly by | accident night after night. | ardit33 wrote: | Selection bias, of where they stay. If you come as Tourist in | the US, and stay in the center of any large city you are bound | to see hordes of drunk people in the weekends... usually on | their 20s. | | But that's not what most of the US is though. 3rd ave in | Manhattan, from Lower East Side, to Murray Hill turns like a | zoo, (pre covid), around midnight, with drunken 20 something | acting like it is spring break. | | The rest of the areas of NYC are not like that, but tourists | are more likely to stay near these places, rather lets say, | somewhere sleepy in UES, UWS, Brooklyn, or Queens. | tamade wrote: | There's really no exceptionalism when it comes to America's so- | called drinking problem. Having worked at an alcoholic beverage | MNC, it's pretty clear that every country has its own subculture | of getting hammered. I'd even hazard the hot take that America is | rather middle-of-the-road when it comes to binge drinking | (certainly by per capita consumption is not exceptional). | patorjk wrote: | One of my older brothers was a heavy drinker. He died recently at | the age of 50. He had an enlarged heart and liver, which they | believe were the cause of his death. It's not really clear to me | if he saw it coming. He was fine one day, and then the next he | was found dead by his housekeeper. I often hear about how alcohol | in moderation can possibly cause you to live longer, but I don't | hear much about how too much can shorten your lifespan. | rriepe wrote: | How much do you hear about hereditary hemochromatosis and iron | overload? It disproportionately affects people named Pat, and | the family of people with mysterious liver and heart issues. | Get your ferritin checked if you haven't. It's the most common | genetic disorder in the United States, and commonly dismissed | as alcoholism after death (it does complicate it and produce | some of the same symptoms). Sorry for your loss. | ashtonkem wrote: | > who, like most Europeans of that time, preferred beer to water | | Yes, the pilgrims preferred beer over water _because the water | kept killing them_. Drinking tea or beer was a matter of safety, | not mere preference or addiction. We now know that the | combination of boiling, pH, and alcohol helped keep beer safer | than drinking water of the time, but they were unaware of that | and just knew that beer seemed safer. | | Trying to draw a parallel between modern drinking habits and the | pilgrims is just silly, because we're drinking different things | in different amounts for very different reasons. | qeternity wrote: | As an American who's spent most of their adult life working | outside the US (Europe and Asia) I find this pretty hilarious. I | mean, it may be true...drinking damage is absolute, not relative. | But if America has a drinking problem, a huge chunk of the rest | of the world are outright alcoholics. | | Of course I think all of this is alarmist. Alcohol is one of | those great traditions that has transcended centuries and | generations. If I live a few years less, so be it. I'd rather be | happy. | Dah00n wrote: | I think this is missing the point a bit. In my experience, | while some countries in Europe have a higher intake of alcohol | on average, I have never met anyone who drink to cope with | stress, work, etc. outside full-blown alcoholics. Americans do | this _a lot_. In my opinion those are two different | discussions: one about the effect of too much alcohol on your | system and one of the tendency to drink in ways that is | normally only seen in alcoholics (but in smaller quantities). | While they might sound similar one is overconsumption (bad) and | the other is normalisation of alcohol abuse (very risky, likely | bad). | | Edit: I didn't down vote your comment btw. | qeternity wrote: | I live in London and pre-Covid, a good chunk of people I know | have drinks after work 3 days a week. I'm not trying to nit | pick (I like the UK drinking culture) but it just seemed like | a very Ameri-centric view from someone who hasn't spent | much/any time outside the US. | RhodoGSA wrote: | the way i look at it, my chances of dying outside of my control | are alot higher than the things i can control. So i just live | life with the knowledge that when i drink i'm just borrowing fun | from the next day perhaps even shaving off a few seconds of my | life probabilistically. Is it worth it? Sometimes. | awrence wrote: | " In his 1979 history, The Alcoholic Republic, the historian W. | J. Rorabaugh painstakingly calculated the stunning amount of | alcohol early Americans drank on a daily basis. In 1830, when | American liquor consumption hit its all-time high, the average | adult was going through more than nine gallons of spirits each | year." | | I think I remember hearing a similar stat on the ken burns | prohibition doc. I didn't quite understand why it was supposed to | be that much though. 9 gallons of liquor is 36 liters is roughly | 100 bottles of wine equivalent per year so less than a third of a | bottle of wine a day which is what 1 or 2 glasses per meal | equivalent? So the question then is are people drinking liquor | drinking wine on top plus cider apparently? Or is it just a lot | because that's the average and plenty of people aren't drinking | much at or at all and that makes for the right tail of the | distribution to be really drinking a lot? | Someone wrote: | Wine isn't a spirit (nor is beer). That number is about | distilled alcohol. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquor: | | _"Liquor or spirit (also distilled alcohol) is an alcoholic | drink produced by distillation of grains, fruits, or vegetables | that have already gone through alcoholic fermentation. | | [...] | | Liquor generally has an alcohol concentration higher than 30%"_ | | = For a 10% alcohol wine, multiply that by a factor of (at | least) 3. That makes it a bottle of wine a day. | | Also, it was the average adult. Women likely consumed less | alcohol. If so, the average adult male must have consumed more. | [deleted] | soperj wrote: | They already did that when they said 36 liters, which is 100 | bottles of wine. | rkk3 wrote: | 9 Gallon is 34 Liters, 11 drinks per Liter of Vokda/Liquor | | 9*11 = 374 drinks per year or 1 drink a day | | Its probably that Average/mean drinking amount isn't a good | statistical representation when almost all the consumption is | done by the top 10% of drinkers. | | Historical comparisons also are tricky because sizes and %'s | aren't consistent to today. Beer/Cider weren't as strong and | bottle's of wine were smaller than 750ml etc etc. | ska wrote: | Okrent had it calculated at equivalent to 7 US gallons of | pure ethanol/yr (1830s) to normalize this. | | So approx 17.5 gallons at today's standard of 40%. Which is | about 2250 standard (1.5oz) drinks a year, or average of | 6/day. | | There are higher and lower estimates too, but anyway you work | the calculations, it's a lot. | thebean11 wrote: | Where are you getting 11 drinks per liter of vodka? I'm | getting twice that (1.5oz shots) | beckingz wrote: | The joke being that "2 shots of vodka" is more like 4-5. | netflixandkill wrote: | America has problems with drinking, opioids, meth, prescription | abuse, vaping bizarre things, health care, mental health, | domestic violence, domestic terrorism and violent crime, school | shootings and suicides because America has a misery problem. | | A few decades of bootstrap vs welfare paint don't fix the rotted | and failing structure of a culture, if it can even be called that | anymore, that had replaced well being with consumption and | personal growth with work and public goods with privatized | profits. | | There is a pretty international audience here that can probably | relate to seeing the difference between cases like the hard | drinking work culture in many east Asian nations or the near | constant casual drinking of much of Europe with the abject | despair visible in the poorer parts of the US. | | Naturally people have been crying for a social welfare system for | basically the last 140 years with occasional fits and starts but | mostly characterized by a complete failure to crib off the | results of developed nations across the world that simply don't | have constant ongoing crises about _everything_. | k__ wrote: | I didn't drink since the pandemic hit. | | Didn't miss it, because I only drank at parties and even then I | didn't drink at every party. | | I like being drunk sometimes, it can turn a boring event into a | fun night. But I don't think, I need it more than a few times a | year. | subsubzero wrote: | I am not a heavy drinker, but one thing I noticed having moved | around to a few places is how much everyone in my age group | drinks(30's to mid 40's). I have gotten to know many a neighbor | and they are all working professionals like me and I am just | shocked that having 8-10 drinks a night seems like it comes | standard for a Friday/Saturday night. I thought that it was just | one location, but I moved twice in the past 2 years and at each | location the same behavior. It seems really unhealthy and is | everywhere(CA North and South) and Colorado) which is worrisome. | rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote: | That's definitely just a certain personality type, I think. | 8-10 drinks is pretty aggressive for a random Friday night | among grown-ass adults - that's 2 full bottles of wine. At | best, you won't be able to drive home and you'll feel beat up | in the morning. | | How long are they staying out? I'm in my thirties, and a drink | every 45 minutes seems pretty standard among my peers that | don't have kids and still go out. In college we'd swing for the | fences, but eventually everyone (well, everyone without an | actual drinking problem) figured out that keeping a nice social | buzz is a more pleasant way to spend an evening with friends. | [deleted] | soperj wrote: | I worked with people who would finish off a 24 pack on a | random Monday. It was lights out when they actually went out. | PragmaticPulp wrote: | Heavy alcohol drinkers tend to cluster with each other. This | leads to a self-reinforcing cycle wherein they see their peers | consuming a lot of alcohol and assume that means it's normal | and fine. | | Likewise, non-drinkers tend to cluster with each other because | after a while it's just not fun to hang out with people | consuming copious amounts of alcohol all of the time while | their health slowly declines. I had to stop inviting several | friends to certain activities because they wanted to make | everything revolve around consuming alcohol. It gets old. | | Anecdotes aside, the statistics just don't support 10 | drinks/night as being average. That's top 10-20% behavior. | tolbish wrote: | Apparently 18% of Americans are binge drinkers: | | https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/americans-are- | dri... | hervature wrote: | I know you said they are neighbors and I assume you live in an | apartment complex because you have met "many a neighbor". But | how much of this is selection bias? You meet social people, | social people drink because drinking helps socializing. | subsubzero wrote: | Strangely its not apartments, these are houses, the people in | the neighborhood are usually in sales, and other professional | areas, sometimes in tech but not engineers. | JoeAltmaier wrote: | I heard this statistic (fwiw) here in the US: 10% of a liquor | store's customers are responsible for 90% of the sales. | | That doesn't mean some fraction are drinking 10X what everybody | else is. It means some fraction are drinking 81X what a normal | person does. | | So yes it's a bipolar drinking culture in the US. Some folks | drink, a lot, way too often. The rest drink occasionally or not | at all (the liquor stores don't count those that never go into | the store). | BrandoElFollito wrote: | I am French and only drink very occasionally with friends or | family. About a beer or two per month, and maybe a glass of wine | or two a month as well. | | I do not like alcohol in the long run. I like the first few sips | and then it becomes a burden. Friends look at me as if I was | crazy when I pour the remaining of my glass to the sink. | | I learned to taste alcohol that way, for the taste and not the | effects. My children are now teens and since they have seen me | doing that a lot, they are not even drawn to alcohol. I let them | taste in the past when they wanted to try but the taste was | horrible for them and since they saw that I am not a big fan | either they do not see it as a taboo thing. | dluan wrote: | America's early history is mass drinking. Rum was 'invented' in | Barbados in ~1650, but beer, wine, and brandy have been drunk in | the Caribbean and Americas since it was first touched by | colonizers. | | Wayne Curtis reported that in the 1600/1700s the average person | aged 15 years old and up drank 6 gallons of pure alcohol a year, | equal to 75 fifths of 80 proof rum a year, or roughly 5 shots per | day. Continental european emissaries who would visit towns in the | new world would be shocked at the drunkenness of just countless | near dead bodies laying in the streets, and from this British, | and sometimes Irish, indentured workers got the reputation for | being insane drunkards. | | He posited that the main driver of heavy drinking was misery - in | the colonies and early corporation towns back then, when the | weather went bad and there was no work, you drank until things | improved. Not too different from today imo. | yosito wrote: | Getting drunk is not a "colonizers" thing, it's a human thing. | People have been getting drunk for tens of thousands of years, | all around the globe. | dluan wrote: | Where did I say it was a colonizers thing? | meristohm wrote: | What are we trying to escape? | Railsify wrote: | Stress | aeternum wrote: | Some of the more recent research on alcohol suggests that it | isn't so much of an escape. Instead it creates a type of myopia | for the mind, shifting focus from the long-term to the short- | term. | | For some people, it can really help live more in the moment, | enjoy time with friends, and temporarily put aside all the | stress and worries about the future. | emptyfile wrote: | Life. | 35fbe7d3d5b9 wrote: | A lack of community. Or, eachother. | | Take your pick! | bobcallme wrote: | The regulators and bureaucrats. | subpixel wrote: | Apparently 15% of our countrymen believe the QAnon pedophilia | hoax/theory [0]. That gives me a certain thirst. | | [0] https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2021/05/31/qanon-poll- | americ... | subpixel wrote: | Of all the downvotes I have received on HN, these puzzle me | the most. | 1_player wrote: | While your comment gave me a chuckle, I find it's (perhaps | unintentional) flame bait which will steer the discussion | into an unproductive crapfest instead of staying on the | topic, which is alcoholism in America. That's to say, it | won't foster any intelligent discussion. I bet this is why | some have expressed disagreement. | ttz wrote: | Emptiness, in some cases. Imagine living a life of poverty, or | being trapped in a situation you realize you don't have the | tools or privilege to escape (having to care for many | dependents, no time to go to school, or can't afford to pay for | it because you're trying to scrape enough for rent). | | Having no direction or hope for a better future (perceived or | real) has driven people I've known to alcoholism. | | Not an excuse. Just a perspective. | handrous wrote: | The Wikipedia pages for most major religions provide a decent | set of candidates for further investigation. Ditto a huge | percentage of fiction that's considered "literature", if you're | into that kind of thing. | kingTug wrote: | Our deeply unnatural existence staring into glowing rectangles | 8+ hours per day. | namdnay wrote: | If that were the case you'd see lower alcohol consumption | among manual labourers than among software engineers... | ativzzz wrote: | More likely loneliness, the article mentions solitary | drinking long before we worked in cubicles. | miguelmota wrote: | We wake up and look at the small rectangle. | | Go to work and stare at the medium rectangle. | | Come home and watch the big rectangle. | handrous wrote: | > Come home and watch the big rectangle. | | Come home and watch Black Mirror on our largest black | mirror. | watertom wrote: | I stopped drinking at 25, that was 30 years ago. | | I just decided that there weren't any benefits but a lot of | negatives, so I stopped. | | When I tell people I stopped drinking they assume I had a | problem. I laugh and say "No." Then I tell them I just did a | pro's and con's evaluation and realized there were zero pro's and | a whole lot of con's. I know 6 people that quit drinking after | having a the pro's and con's discussion, they went off and did | their own evaluation and realized that drinking wasn't providing | anything positive. All the positives are imagined. The, "one or | two drinks" have a positive effect is all nonsense. | wbobeirne wrote: | I've gone through phases of drinking more and less, and I'd | that say at least in my personal experience I notice a lot of | my relationships suffer when I'm staying completely sober. Not | because my friends who drink don't want to hang out with a non- | drinker, but many activities lose their appeal, I often end up | leaving before the night gets "interesting", and I don't have | the same shared experiences or increased sense of vulnerability | that forms bonds. | | Some days the cons still outweigh the pros, but for me "all the | positives are imagined" just doesn't ring true at all. | racl101 wrote: | I have probably the equivalent of a beer every two months lol. | I'll be ok. | blhack wrote: | Some of my most cherished memories are those where I was out | drinking wine and having really good food with my wife and | friends. | | When people were telling stories about Jesus, the central figure | of their religion, one of the _miracles_ they told of was him | turning water into wine. This is held up as one of the most | important stories in their entire moral system. | | When the pyramids were being built, the builders were paid in | _beer_. | | People have been drinking, and enjoying the effects of drinking, | for thousands of years, and "do not drink to excess" is a lesson | the Greeks told us with their own myths and stories. | | Be cautious of over drinking, however perhaps also be cautious of | under drinking as well. These are not new revelations. | misiti3780 wrote: | I agree, these articles are ridiculous. If you have alcoholism | in your family -- dont drink. If you're overweight because | drinking causes you to eat shitty food and not exercise -- stop | drinking. If you have anxiety because of drinking -- stop | drinking. If drinking makes you an asshole and is causing | relationship problems (I know a lot of people in this category) | -- stop drinking. | | If you like to go out on the weeks and drink 8 beers with your | friends, all the more power to you. People have been drinking | since time immemorial, it's part of who we are as human. | | Life is too short to "dot every i and cross every t". | | You might be dead tomorrow. | joekrill wrote: | This is horrible advice. | | Just because something has been done a certain way for a long | time does not mean it's something we should continue. In a lot | of cases it just means we didn't have the knowledge that it was | so bad for you. And that's exactly where alcohol fits in. We | know alcohol is bad for us in just about every way. So there's | really no such thing as "under drinking". | | Cigarettes. Cocaine. Tanning. Not wearing seat belts. Not | wearing helmets. Beating kids as punishment. Bloodletting. | X-rays. I mean the list is just endless. | | Folks should do as they please. I'm not suggesting everyone | needs to stop drinking or anything. But to suggest that | "perhaps also be cautious of under drinking as well" is just | downright wrong. | DeRock wrote: | Seriously, the traditionalist argument is poor. You know what | else humans have done for thousands of years? Slavery. And it | also has many "religious" ties: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bible_and_slavery | clomond wrote: | The history of human's connection to alcohol extends even | further. | | One of the anthropological theories is that it was a core | reason for humans to take up agriculture in the first place and | to domesticate certain grains. | | And, the genetic mutation that allows us to process it in the | first place (an enzyme in the liver to break it down much more | easily than before) that we received in our lineage millions of | years ago allowed us to descend from the trees to the ground. | It was a key enabler to our expansion where rotting, fermented | fruit sitting on the ground became an enabling calorie source! | jacobolus wrote: | > _When the pyramids were being built, the builders were paid | in beer._ | | Yeah, because water used to be much harder to sanitize, and | "beer" (thick, lumpy, mildly alcoholic - think fermented | porridge) is basically liquid bread. Doing manual labor all day | takes a lot of calories, and cereals are much cheaper than | alternative foods. It's hardly a healthy diet though. | | Keeping peasants drunk enough to be pliable is a side benefit | much appreciated by the lords of just about every | feudal/plantation economy throughout history. | leafmeal wrote: | > because water used to be much harder to sanitize | | They actually addressed this in the article, but sanitizing | water is as simple as boiling it which is much less involved | than the process of making beer. | [deleted] | [deleted] | steve76 wrote: | Why Americans drink more: | | Half the country are cowards and traitors. At the very least, | they think taking the other side and destroying their own home | shows how fair, or smart, or credible their selfish attempt at | power is. At worst, they are tried and true amoral win at all | cost marxists and nihilists. They don't take orders from foreign | armies who just killed millions with a bioweapon, a modern | holocaust right before our eyes. Likely, they gave the order. To | think what it would be like to be their kid. Come home on | Christmas vacation. All your friends are having fun with their | families getting stuff. And you come home to your dad's drunk in | some armchair after being sodomized by his boyfriend. | | And the world's to blame. They've been at war with the USA since | our start. They're the ones seeking to be unrestrained by laws, | to do whatever they want. | | Notice now the liberals have power, no more riots, no more drugs | or resistance. Nice if they would walk away without throwing a | fit. | | Anyways: | | No one likes a drunk engineer. | | If you work for someone, you need to perfect. No fooling it. | You'll be found out soon. | | Drinking doesn't just destroy your liver. It leads to high blood | pressure, which causes strokes, which means anything. Blindness, | pneumonia, paralysis. Awful. | | Likely the people making all the booze are foreigners. They crash | airplanes into buildings and dance and cheer when Americans die. | With drugs and booze, they found a way to charge you admission to | the gas chamber. | | Usually it's one person. They go away or turn their lives around. | Everything is better. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-06-01 23:00 UTC)