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>I have yet to see a compelling argument for heavily restricting alcohol. provably better physical health provably (much) better mental health BONUS: more sa

>I have yet to see a compelling argument for heavily restricting alcohol. provably better physical health provably (much) better mental health BONUS: more saved money than you'd think alcohol fucks up your sleep, your mood, your liver, your social interactions. it's straight up poison save for extremely moderate quantities that almost nobody settles for when having a drink. nothing better than waking up monday morning feeling like you got punched in the stomach all night and barely able to hold a straight thought with the impeding stress of having to go to work and perform. so you get painkillers, insane amounts of coffee and maybe some other drug your GP blindly prescribed you and you go on about your day barely holding together the mess that you are

gjsman-1000 3y ago
> it's straight up poison save for extremely moderate quantities that almost nobody settles for when having a drink. Prove that. I would bet you $100 right now that there is a "silent majority" (even though I dislike the term) that has no problem whatsoever with keeping their drinking under control and to reasonable levels. I am among them - I keep it to a single drink and can go weeks with them in my fridge without taking a swig. You assume that alcohol is the problem; whereas often, even though I could be wrong; excess drinking is more often a symptom of other problems (stress, anxiety, depression, social pressure, etc.) Getting rid of symptoms does not heal the problem. Edit for @AtlasLion ("posting too fast - please slow down"): I'm at the point where, at my levels, I feel that it is alarmism. I get that drinking alcohol is never risk-free, but by the same logic, standing outside under a tree is never risk-free. A car ride is never risk-free. Using a cell phone in public is never risk-free. Meeting a stranger is not risk-free. Taking a vaccine is not risk-free. Getting married is certainly not risk-free. It's that kind of risk in my mind.
- sixstringtheory 3y ago
  > I keep it to a single drink and can go weeks with them in my fridge without taking a swig. Are you me? But really, in my experience, (and I’m nearly double the legal drinking age) we are the minority. When I was college age (even though I didn’t do the standard US 4 year stint, but was adjacent to it and all the fraternity etc shenanigans that come with it) it was about rage bingeing. Now amongst my professional friends and colleagues, some of whom are parents, I am the _only_ one either not drinking or stopping after just one. I prefer driving myself everywhere because inevitably someone wants another round when I want to get back to my kids before bedtime, or we’re on the way home from a remote trip and I don’t want to ride with someone that’s already sloshed and wants to bring a “road soda” with them. I kind of dread work trips because while I do like many of my colleagues, there is way too much alcohol consumption, like, late nights every night for a week straight. People become skilled at hiding their inebriated state, and like pathological liars, believe themselves that they “aren’t that drunk”. I do hope it’s just the bubble I grew up in because I want to think there’s a pathway to teaching my kids there is a responsible way to enjoy it without making it a competition, identity or escape. But it’s hard for me to believe my experience is very far outside the norm. > excess drinking is more often a symptom of other problems (stress, anxiety, depression, social pressure, etc.) I believe it. > Getting rid of symptoms does not heal the problem. Looking the other way while people are actively hurting themselves with the wrong medication or dose doesn’t help either. I’m not saying we need a teetotaling prohibition. But I actually am grateful that there is a two drink limit at the breweries where I live (even if it was installed for the wrong reasons) because it cuts down on the bs I described above. Like many things I’m sure it comes down to education, not to mention other cultural things like religion and puritanism, paired with youthful rebellion breeding dysfunctional coming of age. And finally, like with anything else it’s the dose that makes the poison, and not a binary question of allowed or banned, but where a sensible limit can be found.
  - gjsman-1000 3y ago
    > When I was college age I don't want to reveal my age on Hacker News, but I'll just say that I reached the legal drinking age within the last five years, and have never had any issues with alcoholism. I have no idea what a hangover feels like (or have ever had trouble standing) despite my primary drink of choice being whiskey (80 proof, give or take). Even if we may appear to be Unicorns... > I do hope it’s just the bubble I grew up in because I want to think there’s a pathway to teaching my kids there is a responsible way to enjoy it without making it a competition, identity or escape. But it’s hard for me to believe my experience is very far outside the norm. That is sad. I would hope that the "Squeaky wheel gets the grease" analogy applies here, but I'm not sure. The NIH seems hopeful even if the numbers are still bad: "In 2018, two-thirds of adults aged 18 and over consumed alcohol in the past year. In 2018, 5.1% of adults engaged in heavy drinking in the past year, 15.5% engaged in moderate drinking, 45.7% engaged in light drinking, and 33.7% did not consume alcohol." 5.1% is still a lot of people, but it shows that the heavy drinkers are about... 8% of all drinkers. However, the negative view would be that 1 in 7 people in my home state (Minnesota) has had a DWI on their record at some point. DWI does not strictly speaking require 0.08% or even alcohol specifically though. The average first-time intoxication level is 0.148%, repeat offenders 0.166%, which takes... a lot of drinks. If I was a 100-lb woman, that would take about three to hit. But for me, that would take more like... six or seven. Which I freely admit does make my struggle lower than others - my weight makes the intoxication level from one or two drinks very small compared to others. > Looking the other way while people are actively hurting themselves with the wrong medication or dose doesn’t help either. I personally wish that our Age ID system was expanded so that there was a hashed database of driver's licenses not permitted to purchase alcohol or who could only purchase small amounts, that a court (or a voluntary listing) could add a person to. The hashed list would then be downloaded for offline use weekly by breweries and alcohol stores. If a person's ID went through the hashing algorithm and matched a hash on the list, the sale would be denied or restricted (to say, one drink). This would not put any impositions on people who do not struggle with drinking, would not harm anonymity or privacy, but would assist with self-control for those who need it or are interested. This is especially important because 10% of Americans (or, about 14% of the drinking population) buys 60% of the alcohol.
  - soco 3y ago
- helf 3y ago
  Ditto. My wife and I like Ales and Ciders etc. and we will periodically buy some. I love Gin and use it in hot teas and what not. But like my wife has had a bottle of a beer she loves in the fridge door For pushing 6 months now untouched. We have a bottle of cider we both love from gatlinburg that’s been in there for over a month, opened. I’ll routinely have a bottle of gin take me several years to finish. Sit in the freezer for 2-3 years as I randomly put a dash in a tea. This all or nothing mindset is bs. If an individual has problems with addiction and self control then definitely do the all or nothing. Otherwise? Leave well enough alone.
- AtlasLion 3y ago
  https://thenewdaily.com.au/life/wellbeing/2023/01/19/no-alcohol-is-safe-canada/ https://thenewdaily.com.au/life/wellbeing/2023/01/19/no-alco...
- FrustratedMonky 3y ago
  I'll take that 100$ bet on Alcohol being poison. Alcohol literally breaks down into Acetaldehyde. Acetaldehyde causes DNA damage, cancer, liver damage. Yes, there are other causes of alcohol addiction (stress, anxiety, etc..). But also Alcohol changes our response to those underlying symptoms, that can then become the problem. ( I start drinking to reduce stress -> alcohol causes a physical reaction in the mind/body to increase stress -> I drink more alcohol to reduce more stress).
NotYourLawyer 3y ago
These are arguments for individuals to stop drinking. Not arguments for the government getting involved.
- CrampusDestrus 3y ago
  Less car accidents to deal with, less domestic violence and general violence episodes to deal with, less divorces to deal with, less health problems to deal with and I could go on
  - secstate 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - messe 3y ago
      Get out of here with that prescriptivist nonsense. It's perfectly valid to use "less" for all of those things in pretty much every dialect of English.
      - NotYourLawyer 3y ago
        [flagged]
  - apple4ever 3y ago
    And yet drug prohibition has made those worse, not to mention the worse policing for people.
- AtlasLion 3y ago
  Domestic abuse is made worse with alcohol, car accidents, work accidents... There are many way the whole society pays for allowing people access to a drug such as alcohol.
  - te_203943059 3y ago
    Prohibition generally has fared poorly even for more complicated chemicals, but alcohol is essentially made from food. The ingredients for beer (and its distilled relations, whisky / scotch) are quite similar to the ingredients for leavened bread. There is an "iron law of prohibition" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_law_of_prohibition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_law_of_prohibition) which posits that as law enforcement becomes more intense, the potency of prohibited substances increases. Such was what happened in the original Prohibition in the US; beer and wine were ditched in favor of more potent hard liquor, which was often poorly made and possibly dangerous to consume. There seems to be some contradictory opinions on Prohibition's overall effects, but what I seem to gather is that, while drinking overall went down, access to alcohol was still fairly easy (as alcohol isn't difficult to make), and the problem drinkers became more disruptive (due to consuming stronger, often poorly made stuff).
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
OkayPhysicist 3y ago
I think you may be applying an extreme case to the general population. Very few people are waking up with a hangover from 1-3 beers with dinner, and for those people it seems like it would be a very quickly self-resolving problem. On the other hand, if someone's waking up on a Monday with a hangover because they had 300 ml of whiskey on a Sunday night, they're not representative of the general population, they're an alcoholic.
- soco 3y ago
  Also if somebody gets a hangover from one beer then I'd say they have a health issue which definitely needs checking with their doctor.
  - alsetmusic 3y ago
    Or an allergy.
JohnFen 3y ago
Those are all reasons why you might restrict your own alcohol intake (disclaimer: I very nearly never drink, myself). But they are not reasons why alcohol should be prohibited or legally restricted.
davidguetta 3y ago
No one opposes that. We oppose forbidding it despite this, in the name of freedom.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
thefz 3y ago
> nothing better than waking up monday morning feeling like you got punched in the stomach all night and barely able to hold a straight thought with the impeding stress of having to go to work and perform. so you get painkillers, insane amounts of coffee and maybe some other drug your GP blindly prescribed you and you go on about your day barely holding together the mess that you are This is what i call the American approach. While the rest of the world enjoys a couple of glasses of wine with friends or at dinner and that's the end of it, the American will down three full bottles of wine by himself and proceed to destroy family, health, relationships. And then blame it on the wine.
nunez 3y ago
All good points, but choosing to not drink alcohol should be exactly that --- a choice.

gjsman-1000 3y ago

> it's straight up poison save for extremely moderate quantities that almost nobody settles for when having a drink. Prove that. I would bet you $100 right now that there is a "silent majority" (even though I dislike the term) that has no problem whatsoever with keeping their drinking under control and to reasonable levels. I am among them - I keep it to a single drink and can go weeks with them in my fridge without taking a swig. You assume that alcohol is the problem; whereas often, even though I could be wrong; excess drinking is more often a symptom of other problems (stress, anxiety, depression, social pressure, etc.) Getting rid of symptoms does not heal the problem. Edit for @AtlasLion ("posting too fast - please slow down"): I'm at the point where, at my levels, I feel that it is alarmism. I get that drinking alcohol is never risk-free, but by the same logic, standing outside under a tree is never risk-free. A car ride is never risk-free. Using a cell phone in public is never risk-free. Meeting a stranger is not risk-free. Taking a vaccine is not risk-free. Getting married is certainly not risk-free. It's that kind of risk in my mind.

sixstringtheory 3y ago
> I keep it to a single drink and can go weeks with them in my fridge without taking a swig. Are you me? But really, in my experience, (and I’m nearly double the legal drinking age) we are the minority. When I was college age (even though I didn’t do the standard US 4 year stint, but was adjacent to it and all the fraternity etc shenanigans that come with it) it was about rage bingeing. Now amongst my professional friends and colleagues, some of whom are parents, I am the _only_ one either not drinking or stopping after just one. I prefer driving myself everywhere because inevitably someone wants another round when I want to get back to my kids before bedtime, or we’re on the way home from a remote trip and I don’t want to ride with someone that’s already sloshed and wants to bring a “road soda” with them. I kind of dread work trips because while I do like many of my colleagues, there is way too much alcohol consumption, like, late nights every night for a week straight. People become skilled at hiding their inebriated state, and like pathological liars, believe themselves that they “aren’t that drunk”. I do hope it’s just the bubble I grew up in because I want to think there’s a pathway to teaching my kids there is a responsible way to enjoy it without making it a competition, identity or escape. But it’s hard for me to believe my experience is very far outside the norm. > excess drinking is more often a symptom of other problems (stress, anxiety, depression, social pressure, etc.) I believe it. > Getting rid of symptoms does not heal the problem. Looking the other way while people are actively hurting themselves with the wrong medication or dose doesn’t help either. I’m not saying we need a teetotaling prohibition. But I actually am grateful that there is a two drink limit at the breweries where I live (even if it was installed for the wrong reasons) because it cuts down on the bs I described above. Like many things I’m sure it comes down to education, not to mention other cultural things like religion and puritanism, paired with youthful rebellion breeding dysfunctional coming of age. And finally, like with anything else it’s the dose that makes the poison, and not a binary question of allowed or banned, but where a sensible limit can be found.
- gjsman-1000 3y ago
  > When I was college age I don't want to reveal my age on Hacker News, but I'll just say that I reached the legal drinking age within the last five years, and have never had any issues with alcoholism. I have no idea what a hangover feels like (or have ever had trouble standing) despite my primary drink of choice being whiskey (80 proof, give or take). Even if we may appear to be Unicorns... > I do hope it’s just the bubble I grew up in because I want to think there’s a pathway to teaching my kids there is a responsible way to enjoy it without making it a competition, identity or escape. But it’s hard for me to believe my experience is very far outside the norm. That is sad. I would hope that the "Squeaky wheel gets the grease" analogy applies here, but I'm not sure. The NIH seems hopeful even if the numbers are still bad: "In 2018, two-thirds of adults aged 18 and over consumed alcohol in the past year. In 2018, 5.1% of adults engaged in heavy drinking in the past year, 15.5% engaged in moderate drinking, 45.7% engaged in light drinking, and 33.7% did not consume alcohol." 5.1% is still a lot of people, but it shows that the heavy drinkers are about... 8% of all drinkers. However, the negative view would be that 1 in 7 people in my home state (Minnesota) has had a DWI on their record at some point. DWI does not strictly speaking require 0.08% or even alcohol specifically though. The average first-time intoxication level is 0.148%, repeat offenders 0.166%, which takes... a lot of drinks. If I was a 100-lb woman, that would take about three to hit. But for me, that would take more like... six or seven. Which I freely admit does make my struggle lower than others - my weight makes the intoxication level from one or two drinks very small compared to others. > Looking the other way while people are actively hurting themselves with the wrong medication or dose doesn’t help either. I personally wish that our Age ID system was expanded so that there was a hashed database of driver's licenses not permitted to purchase alcohol or who could only purchase small amounts, that a court (or a voluntary listing) could add a person to. The hashed list would then be downloaded for offline use weekly by breweries and alcohol stores. If a person's ID went through the hashing algorithm and matched a hash on the list, the sale would be denied or restricted (to say, one drink). This would not put any impositions on people who do not struggle with drinking, would not harm anonymity or privacy, but would assist with self-control for those who need it or are interested. This is especially important because 10% of Americans (or, about 14% of the drinking population) buys 60% of the alcohol.
- soco 3y ago
helf 3y ago
Ditto. My wife and I like Ales and Ciders etc. and we will periodically buy some. I love Gin and use it in hot teas and what not. But like my wife has had a bottle of a beer she loves in the fridge door For pushing 6 months now untouched. We have a bottle of cider we both love from gatlinburg that’s been in there for over a month, opened. I’ll routinely have a bottle of gin take me several years to finish. Sit in the freezer for 2-3 years as I randomly put a dash in a tea. This all or nothing mindset is bs. If an individual has problems with addiction and self control then definitely do the all or nothing. Otherwise? Leave well enough alone.
AtlasLion 3y ago
https://thenewdaily.com.au/life/wellbeing/2023/01/19/no-alcohol-is-safe-canada/ https://thenewdaily.com.au/life/wellbeing/2023/01/19/no-alco...
FrustratedMonky 3y ago
I'll take that 100$ bet on Alcohol being poison. Alcohol literally breaks down into Acetaldehyde. Acetaldehyde causes DNA damage, cancer, liver damage. Yes, there are other causes of alcohol addiction (stress, anxiety, etc..). But also Alcohol changes our response to those underlying symptoms, that can then become the problem. ( I start drinking to reduce stress -> alcohol causes a physical reaction in the mind/body to increase stress -> I drink more alcohol to reduce more stress).

NotYourLawyer 3y ago

These are arguments for individuals to stop drinking. Not arguments for the government getting involved.

CrampusDestrus 3y ago
Less car accidents to deal with, less domestic violence and general violence episodes to deal with, less divorces to deal with, less health problems to deal with and I could go on
- secstate 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - messe 3y ago
    Get out of here with that prescriptivist nonsense. It's perfectly valid to use "less" for all of those things in pretty much every dialect of English.
    - NotYourLawyer 3y ago
      [flagged]
- apple4ever 3y ago
  And yet drug prohibition has made those worse, not to mention the worse policing for people.
AtlasLion 3y ago
Domestic abuse is made worse with alcohol, car accidents, work accidents... There are many way the whole society pays for allowing people access to a drug such as alcohol.
- te_203943059 3y ago
  Prohibition generally has fared poorly even for more complicated chemicals, but alcohol is essentially made from food. The ingredients for beer (and its distilled relations, whisky / scotch) are quite similar to the ingredients for leavened bread. There is an "iron law of prohibition" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_law_of_prohibition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_law_of_prohibition) which posits that as law enforcement becomes more intense, the potency of prohibited substances increases. Such was what happened in the original Prohibition in the US; beer and wine were ditched in favor of more potent hard liquor, which was often poorly made and possibly dangerous to consume. There seems to be some contradictory opinions on Prohibition's overall effects, but what I seem to gather is that, while drinking overall went down, access to alcohol was still fairly easy (as alcohol isn't difficult to make), and the problem drinkers became more disruptive (due to consuming stronger, often poorly made stuff).

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

OkayPhysicist 3y ago

I think you may be applying an extreme case to the general population. Very few people are waking up with a hangover from 1-3 beers with dinner, and for those people it seems like it would be a very quickly self-resolving problem. On the other hand, if someone's waking up on a Monday with a hangover because they had 300 ml of whiskey on a Sunday night, they're not representative of the general population, they're an alcoholic.

soco 3y ago
Also if somebody gets a hangover from one beer then I'd say they have a health issue which definitely needs checking with their doctor.
- alsetmusic 3y ago
  Or an allergy.

JohnFen 3y ago

Those are all reasons why you might restrict your own alcohol intake (disclaimer: I very nearly never drink, myself). But they are not reasons why alcohol should be prohibited or legally restricted.

davidguetta 3y ago

No one opposes that. We oppose forbidding it despite this, in the name of freedom.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

thefz 3y ago

> nothing better than waking up monday morning feeling like you got punched in the stomach all night and barely able to hold a straight thought with the impeding stress of having to go to work and perform. so you get painkillers, insane amounts of coffee and maybe some other drug your GP blindly prescribed you and you go on about your day barely holding together the mess that you are This is what i call the American approach. While the rest of the world enjoys a couple of glasses of wine with friends or at dinner and that's the end of it, the American will down three full bottles of wine by himself and proceed to destroy family, health, relationships. And then blame it on the wine.

nunez 3y ago

All good points, but choosing to not drink alcohol should be exactly that --- a choice.