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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 ov
by rrrrrrrrrrrryan 5y ago
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.
- ksd482 5y agoI 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.
- epicureanideal 5y ago> mistreating their wives and children ...and husbands. Not all people who drink alcohol to excess are male.
- mensetmanusman 5y agoStatistically it is far more men than women; and since this account is from an anecdotal point of view, it’s entirely possible female abuse of alcohol wasn’t witnessed.
- muskox2 5y agoSource on the statistics? I'm curious.
- epicureanideal 5y agoThe honest statistics show that it’s about 50/50 male and female initiated violence. See Murray Strauss’s 30 Years Denying the Evidence. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/233717660_Thirty_Years_of_Denying_the_Evidence_on_Gender_Symmetry_in_Partner_Violence_Implications_for_Prevention_and_Treatment https://www.researchgate.net/publication/233717660_Thirty_Ye... It’s just that some groups find the honest research inconvenient so they try, largely successfully, to suppress it. The suppression behavior on certain sides of issues has been discussed by plenty of reputable people, including Steven Pinker in his book The Blank Slate. These days in order to believe the results of any research paper I need to read it for myself with an incredibly skeptical eye for what is being left out, how questions were asked, etc.
- astrange 5y agoMost published research results are false, so it's not a good idea to believe individual papers whether or not they appear to be correct. It's not the purpose of publishing them either.
- MattGaiser 5y agoBasically 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 5y agoA version of this caused my grandfather and father to never touch the stuff - and acted like it was kryptonite when I grew up.
- r00fus 5y agoAs 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.
- throwaway894345 5y agoI 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?
- bitbuilder 5y ago>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.
- throwaway894345 5y ago> 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.
- coherentpony 5y ago> 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 5y agoOne 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 5y ago1. 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 5y agoIt'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 5y agoUnless you're British. Or Scandinavian. Or big swathes of Eastern Europe. Basically anywhere with atrocious weather.
- jjgreen 5y agoTwo 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-kaurismaki/ https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2009/great-directors/aki-kaur...
- PragmaticPulp 5y ago> 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.
- adventured 5y agoThe 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.
- darkarmani 5y ago> The US long ago lost its puritan influences as a primary...Puritanism is a small fraction of influence in the US at this point culturally. Are you including the US' views on sex and nudity and the puritan work ethic in that? Sex and nudity in films will make them get an instant R-rating, but murder will only get a PG-13. The puritan work ethic is the reason Americans work themselves to death and judge the poor: "They obviously deserve it because they must not work hard." It's obviously circular reasoning, but "not working hard" is a moral failing in the US.
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- phd514 5y ago> 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 5y agoIt'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.
- throwaway0a5e 5y agoThe puritans are undeservingly white-washed and praised. They were extremists by contemporary standards (an insanely low bar). They barely waited until they stopped starving to start being jerks to each other and antagonizing the natives. If you want to idolize early settlers idolize Rhode Islanders, they were basically successive waves of people who left Massachusetts because the latter was no place for anyone who let their conscience get in the way of their ideology (amazing how little some things change in 400yr) and they managed to maintain some of the best relations with the natives.
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- casion 5y agoLest we not forget the many, many people who simply can not stand the taste of alcohol. There's quite a few people that fall into that category. Some of us can't even stand fermented breads, let alone a light wine.
- rrrrrrrrrrrryan 5y agoA personal question, and I truly mean no offense - are you on the spectrum? The only people I've met (in real life) to date who can't stand the taste of alcohol are children and people with Asperger's, I assume because bitter tastes are a sort of sensory overload for them. Purely anecdotal and could be a complete horseshit theory, but I'm just curious.
- casion 5y agoI missed this comment, but in case you see it: no, I'm not on the spectrum. I am a supertaster however. That likely is the cause of my distaste for alcohol.
- kortilla 5y agoOr perhaps people who aren’t on the spectrum who don’t like the taste just keep it hidden and phrase it in some socially acceptable manner as to not offend the drunks.
- rrrrrrrrrrrryan 5y agoA good point.
- neiman1 5y ago> our Puritan values run deep Not for me, I just hate the taste of alcohol, would much rather a can of coke.
- jcadam 5y agoSplit a bottle of wine with the wife most days. That equates to 2-3 "standard" drinks per day I suppose. I find buying standard bottles of wine (versus boxes, 1.5L big bottles, etc.) exerts a certain amount of discipline. You're going to be averse to uncorking a new bottle after you just finished one :)
- rrrrrrrrrrrryan 5y agoSame. We each have a larger glass with dinner, and a smaller glass afterward, and that's the bottle.
- kortilla 5y agoFYI: both you and your wife are classified as heavy drinkers by the NIH. https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/alcohol-health/overview-alcohol-consumption/moderate-binge-drinking https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/alcohol-health/overview-alcohol-co... I’m curious, what do you tell your doctor when he/she asks how much you drink?
- jcadam 5y agoOne. One shelf.