6 ms·

I'm considered by many folk to be a fairly heavy drinker, but 6 drinks a day, every day, is seriously indicative of what I'd call a real fucking drinking proble

I'm considered by many folk to be a fairly heavy drinker, but 6 drinks a day, every day, is seriously indicative of what I'd call a real fucking drinking problem that one should get professional help for.

DanBC 4y ago
> 6 drinks a day, every day, One glass of wine, 125 ml, at 8%, is one UK unit. Half a .75l bottle of wine at 14% would be 5.25 units. It's not unusual in the UK for people to drink half a bottle of wine each evening, and then more on the weekends. We drink a lot. It causes a lot of harm.
Mathnerd314 4y ago
I didn't see https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-28735-5/tables/2 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-28735-5/tables/2. It looks like going from 0 to 3 drinks would be a 2% decrease in brain matter.
- JetAlone 4y ago
  I'm trying to understand. The impact reported by the study seems to compound with higher amounts (I would imagine as liver and kidney throughput is exceeded and the poison hits you more directly). Standard Control: GMV WMV 0–1 AU −0.030 −0.020 1–2 AU −0.127 −0.074 2–3 AU −0.223 −0.129 So cumulatively, 0-3 drinks is is GMV: -0.380, WMV: -0.223 What I don't know and can't seem to find with a quick search is the conversion method for IDP standard deviations in brain matter relate to absolute percentages of brain matter (which I assume is not linear?). If your comment is correct, then these numbers correlate to an absolute reduction of 2% of brain matter? I also see that the third drink seems to do about 50% more standard deviation movement than the former 2 put together. EDIT: Never mind it's been a while since I took statistics, I remembered that standard deviations _are_ a linear amount. I'd been thinking of percentile placement on a normal distribution.
  - JetAlone 4y ago
    I tried to go a little further since the depression study seemed to be focused on total brain matter. I might make a mistake here, but... Grey matter is about 40% of the brain, white matter is 60%, so if we're talking about absolute matter, we should factor that in. For 0 to 3 drinks: GMV: -0.380 x 0.4 = -0.152 SD WMV: -0.223 x 0.6 = -0.1338 SD Should be sum of 0.2858 standard deviations of total brain matter, or about 2.5% reduction. For 0 to 2 drinks: GMV: -0.157 x 0.4 = -0.0628 SD WMV: -0.094 x 0.6 = -0.0564 SD 0.1192 SD or about 1.05% reduction
hotpotamus 4y ago
In my experience of knowing alcoholics, I'd say 6 a day really isn't that bad; it's the bottle of liquor a day types that I find impressive. Also, if they were the kind of people who could get access to professional help, they probably wouldn't drink so much to begin with.
- DangitBobby 4y ago
  There is a such thing as a high-functioning alcoholic.
  - hotpotamus 4y ago
    High-functioning might contradict calling it a problem? From the stories I read about Christopher Hitchens, he seemed like the definition of an unrepentant alcoholic and seemed to function quite well, but of course he died a bit young. I don't think many people are Christopher Hitchens though.
    - DangitBobby 4y ago
      A friend of mine is a very talented and successful salesman. If he doesn't get some alcohol by 7 PM, his skin starts to crawl and he can barely keep it together. What do you call that? The disease isn't defined by any outcome other than alcohol consumption and dependence.
      - hotpotamus 4y ago
        I don't know. Many of us live with disease of one sort or another; I was just saying that in my personal experience, while a 6-pack a day might seem like a lot to some, it's really not the depraved, want-to-die-alcoholic consumption level.
      - orwin 4y ago
        I knew a functioning alcoholic too, until he died. At 35.
zten 4y ago
This is in a different measurement from a casual understanding of 6 drinks. It’s 6 daily alcohol units. UK’s NHS alcohol calculator says 2 pints of 5.2% beer is 6 units.
- OJFord 4y ago
  > UK’s NHS alcohol calculator says 2 pints of 5.2% beer is 6 units. It's actually quite easy to calculate fwiw, a 'unit' is 10ml ethanol: 2pints * 0.052 / 10 = 2(568ml) * 0.052 / 10 = 5.9072 units ... I'm not sure if that made my 'easy' point well enough, obviously pints mess it up a bit (and you have to know a pint is 568ml - I've remembered ever since I went to study at Imperial, where the student bars include the well-named 'Metric' & '568') but 10ml is nice and round so it's fairly easy to get a rough idea or with rounder numbers - e.g. a whole 75cl bottle of wine at 12% is 3/4 * 12 = 9 units.

DanBC 4y ago

> 6 drinks a day, every day, One glass of wine, 125 ml, at 8%, is one UK unit. Half a .75l bottle of wine at 14% would be 5.25 units. It's not unusual in the UK for people to drink half a bottle of wine each evening, and then more on the weekends. We drink a lot. It causes a lot of harm.

Mathnerd314 4y ago

I didn't see https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-28735-5/tables/2 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-28735-5/tables/2. It looks like going from 0 to 3 drinks would be a 2% decrease in brain matter.

JetAlone 4y ago
I'm trying to understand. The impact reported by the study seems to compound with higher amounts (I would imagine as liver and kidney throughput is exceeded and the poison hits you more directly). Standard Control: GMV WMV 0–1 AU −0.030 −0.020 1–2 AU −0.127 −0.074 2–3 AU −0.223 −0.129 So cumulatively, 0-3 drinks is is GMV: -0.380, WMV: -0.223 What I don't know and can't seem to find with a quick search is the conversion method for IDP standard deviations in brain matter relate to absolute percentages of brain matter (which I assume is not linear?). If your comment is correct, then these numbers correlate to an absolute reduction of 2% of brain matter? I also see that the third drink seems to do about 50% more standard deviation movement than the former 2 put together. EDIT: Never mind it's been a while since I took statistics, I remembered that standard deviations _are_ a linear amount. I'd been thinking of percentile placement on a normal distribution.
- JetAlone 4y ago
  I tried to go a little further since the depression study seemed to be focused on total brain matter. I might make a mistake here, but... Grey matter is about 40% of the brain, white matter is 60%, so if we're talking about absolute matter, we should factor that in. For 0 to 3 drinks: GMV: -0.380 x 0.4 = -0.152 SD WMV: -0.223 x 0.6 = -0.1338 SD Should be sum of 0.2858 standard deviations of total brain matter, or about 2.5% reduction. For 0 to 2 drinks: GMV: -0.157 x 0.4 = -0.0628 SD WMV: -0.094 x 0.6 = -0.0564 SD 0.1192 SD or about 1.05% reduction

hotpotamus 4y ago

In my experience of knowing alcoholics, I'd say 6 a day really isn't that bad; it's the bottle of liquor a day types that I find impressive. Also, if they were the kind of people who could get access to professional help, they probably wouldn't drink so much to begin with.

DangitBobby 4y ago
There is a such thing as a high-functioning alcoholic.
- hotpotamus 4y ago
  High-functioning might contradict calling it a problem? From the stories I read about Christopher Hitchens, he seemed like the definition of an unrepentant alcoholic and seemed to function quite well, but of course he died a bit young. I don't think many people are Christopher Hitchens though.
  - DangitBobby 4y ago
    A friend of mine is a very talented and successful salesman. If he doesn't get some alcohol by 7 PM, his skin starts to crawl and he can barely keep it together. What do you call that? The disease isn't defined by any outcome other than alcohol consumption and dependence.
    - hotpotamus 4y ago
      I don't know. Many of us live with disease of one sort or another; I was just saying that in my personal experience, while a 6-pack a day might seem like a lot to some, it's really not the depraved, want-to-die-alcoholic consumption level.
    - orwin 4y ago
      I knew a functioning alcoholic too, until he died. At 35.

zten 4y ago

This is in a different measurement from a casual understanding of 6 drinks. It’s 6 daily alcohol units. UK’s NHS alcohol calculator says 2 pints of 5.2% beer is 6 units.

OJFord 4y ago
> UK’s NHS alcohol calculator says 2 pints of 5.2% beer is 6 units. It's actually quite easy to calculate fwiw, a 'unit' is 10ml ethanol: 2pints * 0.052 / 10 = 2(568ml) * 0.052 / 10 = 5.9072 units ... I'm not sure if that made my 'easy' point well enough, obviously pints mess it up a bit (and you have to know a pint is 568ml - I've remembered ever since I went to study at Imperial, where the student bars include the well-named 'Metric' & '568') but 10ml is nice and round so it's fairly easy to get a rough idea or with rounder numbers - e.g. a whole 75cl bottle of wine at 12% is 3/4 * 12 = 9 units.