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The flip-flop on whether alcohol is good for you (2023)
- monero-xmr 2y agoHarms you physically, sure. But a night out socializing and making memories with friends, the psychological benefits can last a long time, which often positively influences the physical.
- browningstreet 2y agoAlcohol not required.
- kryz 2y agoMaybe with your friends…
- Gualdrapo 2y agoTime to get new friends.
- freedomben 2y agoNot required, but for many people it greatly enhances the experience. For some people it can also be an important part of fully relaxing.
- browningstreet 2y agoFeels like peak HN: alcohol makes you a better person and meditation will send you over the brink.
- johnchristopher 2y agoNo, peak HN is interpreting every comment as if they were absolutes, twisting their meaning and reply with smug one-liners.
- deafpolygon 2y agoHonestly, that's just peak Internet.
- Pet_Ant 2y agoAbsolutely not, but maybe there is a reason why we have used it for centuries? If you watch videos of people travelling to remote villages one of the first things that old timers do is offer them a drink. There is a value to a social lubricant. People get more passionate, or philosophical. People are less likely to discuss the cost of drywall impacting their bathroom renovation. Sobriety is merely one state of conciousness, and there is no saying it is solely the best.
- squigz 2y ago> but maybe there is a reason why we have used it for centuries? This sort of thinking is rather problematic. There's lots of stuff we did for centuries that we now realize is bad for us or are just blatantly wrong.
- InSteady 2y agoKids spending too much time on TikTok? Won't do their chores on time? Try the ancient and time honored tradition of beating them until they behave as you would like! /s
- bobthepanda 2y agoRight. For most of history, humans were optimizing for calorie shortages. It is only relatively recently, and only in some locations, where food has become consistently abundant.
- darkgenesha 2y agoThe reason is that it's a coping mechanism for our shift from nomadic to sedentary living
- Clamchop 2y agoSimple is appealing but don't let it carry you away!
- warkdarrior 2y agoInteresting. Do we know why nomadic people do not drink?
- cjk2 2y agoHey if I stayed sober I'd have had three less kids and two less wives.
- itishappy 2y agoHeh. Would that have net a positive or negative impact on your health?
- xyproto 2y agoFrom the perspective of the genes, having kids but being unhealthy is better than being a healthy loner. And this is good health in a larger, cross-generational, perspective
- paulryanrogers 2y agoCould have gone the other way and cost you a family in a DUI accident, or cost someone else's theirs. Hopefully you were wiser than taking such chances, and things worked out well for you (divorces not withstanding). In the aggregate and with better public transportation and mental healthcare maybe it can be a net win for everyone. Yet I have doubts.
- cjk2 2y agoIt can vary hourly :)
- earnesti 2y agoBullshit. Sober people go out socializing, their way to socialize is just different, and they have no trouble finding partners. If you had decided to go without a drink, you would have found a partner, just a different one from different social circles.
- cjk2 2y agoThis wholly depends on where you are in the world.
- listless 2y agoNo, but it certainly helps. Alcohol makes me a better listener. A better father. A better husband. A better friend. Less selfish. Less judgmental. More caring and more generous. I drink cautiously because I know the health risks. I limit myself and most of the time do not drink at all. But I would be lying if I said alcohol doesn’t make me a better person.
- earnesti 2y agoWhatever bro, I trust your self judgement. But statistically, I would bet that alcohol makes worse parents, worse listeners, worse friends. And quite often it makes outright terrible parents.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- thisgoesnowhere 2y agoMost people drink most people aren't horrible parents. You are working at the extremes. And yeah some extremes are bad.
- xyzzy4747 2y agoAlcohol dulls your mind at best. If you enjoy using your brain, it's a net negative even with small amounts.
- TheGRS 2y agoI can definitely sympathize with alcohol improving me in some situations. When I'm at social gatherings sober I'm in my head a lot, overthinking. A couple of drinks in though and I'm not using my analytical brain, I'm using the part that is good at improv, and I have much better conversations because of it, and usually comes away from those events more positive than sober.
- xyzzy4747 2y agoEverything good that ever happened in my life was achieved by being analytical. Including eventually getting married.
- sixo 2y agoThat it's not required is the fun part, and really is necessary for it to be a good idea at all. See GK Chesterton: "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."
- TheGRS 2y agoDrinking during celebrations are some of my favorite memories. Its like we're all already happy and high on good news, think weddings or big sales news or getting a big project completed. And then we drink because the worries of the world are behind us, now the happiness is uninhibited and jovial. I like to think those moments add time to your life.
- TrackerFF 2y agoBut being sober around drunk people sucks.
- vorpalhex 2y agoI'm really glad that I've given up alcohol and it improved a lot of things in my life including sleep and anxiety, but it was also one of the single most isolating things I have ever done. I have lost more friends over my not drinking than any politics/life choice/etc. I was not some kind of alcoholic before, it was just very normal for my social circle. Even for my friends who are still friends, it took them many months to realize it was fine to drink around me and sometimes they still feel awkward about it even though I bring my non-alcoholic alternatives.
- Aerbil313 2y agoAlcohol is absolutely not required. It's the Western culture. I live in a country/social circle where nobody drinks and it's plain out funny seeing Westerners thinking alcohol is some absolute necessity of life.
- roywiggins 2y agoIt's a lot of cultures, not just Western culture.
- inglor_cz 2y agoThe interesting thing about Islamic culture is that for all their sobriety, those societies are still prone to outbursts of political/religious rage. No external intoxicant needed.
- paulryanrogers 2y agoI wonder why. Doubtful that it's the absence of alcohol causing such rage though, even if their rates of outbursts are higher than others.
- Aerbil313 2y agoThere's no evidence showing Islamic societies have more outbursts than others. The two parent comments seem to be talking about some imagined reality. Meanwhile, while being only partially related to rage and outbursts, > Alcohol is involved in more homicides across the United States compared to other substances, like heroin and cocaine. In fact, about 40% of convicted murderers had used alcohol before or during the crime. listed among other crimes such as robbery, sexual assault, aggravated assault, intimate partner violence and child abuse[1]. 1: https://www.alcoholrehabguide.org/alcohol/crimes/ https://www.alcoholrehabguide.org/alcohol/crimes/
- paulryanrogers 2y agoThanks for confirming my suspicions. I hate all religion, though for real harms and not imagined ones.
- zeroxfe 2y agoNeither is dressing well, dining out, or taking an uber. Very few things are actually "required." For some people, alcohol is a low-cost low-effort means to enhance experience and improve social function.
- dukeyukey 2y agoYou're not wrong, but the jury's out on if not socialising versus socialising with a couple of beers or glasses of wine is healthier. But my bet is on the latter
- nerdbert 2y agoGiven the reliable correlation between an active social life and longevity, I'm going to mirror your bet.
- nonameiguess 2y agoMaybe. The last time I ever really drank on a regular basis was my early 20s, circa turn of the century, and I had two best friends from high school, Mike and Lisa. We went out together almost every night at times, definitely every weekend. Club 80s. Some theater in Hollywood that did John Waters double features with a drag show during the intermission. Pre-gaming with $5 1.75 liter bottles of Popov in the parking lot. We really did make some great memories. It's probably still the best time of my entire life and the closest friendships I ever had. Lisa died in 2016 from alcohol withdrawals. Mike was a speed addict for nearly a decade but eventually recovered. My wife is an alcoholic, unfortunately. She's been in the ICU twice in the time we've been married, both times for acute vitamin deficiency and liver failure. She told me once on the way to the hospital that she saw a tunnel with a light at the end and our cat floating in it inviting her to come. The ER doc said she would probably have died within a day if I hadn't brought her in. When Lisa died, it was because her roommate was out of town and there was nobody to notice, care, and bring her in. When she was found, she's already been dead for three days. I don't know that I have a point. Just be careful. Not you specifically, but everyone out there. If you're 50 and successfully practiced moderation for decades, I guess you'll probably be fine. But if you're a teenager trying to make your parties more thrilling, you're flipping a coin with your life. You don't know which person you'll end up being, the one who can stop or the one who can't.
- Aerbil313 2y agoJust because alcohol is deeply ingrained in Western culture doesn't mean you should feel guilty saying alcohol is unconditionally bad for society, when it took your dear friend and almost your wife, twice. There are other, healthier worldviews and cultures out there. The particular one I'm living in being called Islam.
- BrandoElFollito 2y agoInviting religion into the discussion will not lead to anything good, especially when you stamp one "healthier" - which means that others are not.
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- TheGRS 2y agoYea I thought that was the whole reason. But I guess there was a lot of chasing of physical reasons that wine and other alcohol would be beneficial. I usually heard about antioxidants being cited as a positive. Stress is generally bad for the body (but note: I am not a doctor), and a little alcohol can be a social lubricant and reduce the stress of social situations or just your life problems in general. If the only real benefit of alcohol is from social lubrication, then its probably an almost impossible thing to find causation, just too many factors to deal with.
- pfdietz 2y ago> antioxidants being cited as a positive. There was a big study on the antioxidant vitamins (A, C, E) to see if they helped against lung cancers. It turned out they made it worse, not better. Cancer cells are under oxidative stress, and immune cells using oxidizing substances to help kill their targets.
- TrackerFF 2y agoGetting buzzed feels good. Not healthy, but feels good. After a couple of beers I get extremely fired up and creative/motivated, but it’s like walking on a tightrope - a bit too much, and I’m past the productive phase. If cannabis or hallucinogens were allowed, I suspect more people would pick those over alcohol for evening fun at home…but, alas, at most places alcohol is the only option. So that’s what we’re stuck with.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- wavemode 2y agoI'm one of those weird people for whom no amount of buzzedness or drunkenness, small or large, feels good. Doesn't feel bad, per se. I suppose it just feels kind of neutral, and strange. Like my senses have lost a bit of clarity.
- midiguy 2y agoI'm one of those weird people for whom alcohol feels nice but also makes me incredibly sleepy to the point that I become way less social. Thus I will enjoy a beer at home but if I'm going out I will choose other substances (or abstinence).
- candiddevmike 2y agoAlcohol doesn't give me crippling anxiety and heightened awareness of all the weird things my body does.
- bobthepanda 2y agoIt does for some people. Either way, hardly a reason to make it illegal.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
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- yrcyrc 2y agoFunny he calls it the French paradox. Last I heard of that concept it was about secret services giving up on setting traps to spies whose wives couldn’t give two effs about their husband being unfaithful. “I know and I don’t give a damn” Otherwise, and being French, we heard it all. Sometimes it’s wine, others it’s butter, cheese, etc when it’s not like “God was born in France” type of thing. I’m Breton first, Irish second and then eventually French when they’re playing the World Cup, but seriously there are some enzymes, dietary habits and so on that do justify some of the findings. They used to serve red wine in schools until late 70’s or 80’s can’t remember but there are definitely DNA, habits, regional effects that do come into place I believe.
- BrandoElFollito 2y agoThe wine in schools was dropped in the 60s'. I have never seen wine at school (since mid-70s'). My father told me he had it for lunch though. This said, Bretagne is special regarding this :) (sorry, couldn't help)
- PheonixPharts 2y agoIn my lifetime virtually everything that was once good for you (wine, high grain diet, non-fat foods) is now a bad and vice versa (eggs, high fat - low carb foods). And articles like this one have been appearing in some variation my entire life. My take away, long ago, is that nutrition is fundamentally complex and poorly understood topic and any extreme opinions are likely to be inverted. On the topic of alcohol, one things that has really become clear to me, is how directly tied to my environment drinking is. I've always liked to have a beer with dinner, but whether or not that was my only drink or one of many has much less to do with my personal decisions and much more to do with my environment, and I've noticed the same goes for most people. Many of us became pretty serious drinkers during the pandemic. As it eased up I never made the decision to drink less, I just naturally drank less. Point being is that no only am I skeptical of the claims of what I should and should not consume, I'm skeptical of entirely how much agency I have to change what I should consume baring case where the impact is immediate.
- alamortsubite 2y agoYou'll probably enjoy this clip from the Woody Allen movie Sleeper, where his character is revived 200 years in the future after being cryogenically frozen in 1973. Just watch the first minute or so. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2fYguIX17Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2fYguIX17Q
- radlad 2y ago> Point being is that no only am I skeptical of the claims of what I should and should not consume, I'm skeptical of entirely how much agency I have to change what I should consume baring case where the impact is immediate. Can you elaborate on what you mean that you're skeptical of how much agency you have to change what you should consume? A common definition of addiction is that it is the inability to control your consumption. However, "I never made the decision to drink less, I just naturally drank less," doesn't sound anything like addiction. I began drinking both more frequently and in increased amounts of alcohol during the pandemic, but for me, this didn't stop or ease up until I made a conscious decision to stop. For me, it was habitual. And with habit came increased tolerance.
- PaulDavisThe1st 2y agoFor me, the best part of TFA was the final paragraph that went into the actual risks to individuals rather than a public health policy perspective. Both viewpoints are entirely valid, but being reminded that the actual risk of dying from any of the mechanisms alcohol interacts with are very low to start with, so small increases in those risks does not add up to much ... per individual. As a society of millions, of course, the product of the shift in probability and population is quite significant. The difference between these two perspectives is often ignored, or at best elided.
- advael 2y agoPopular nutrition science has basically been advertising since both have existed. I view real health information as complicated and full of caveats and individual differences Basically any medical advice you get from a headline or even a single study is a lie
- tonymet 2y agoPopular nutrition science suffers from correlation fallacy. Unless they can explain the causal mechanism, or at least hypothesize, it's practically bankrupt. Plus, there is a lot of incentive to transition self-medicators off of alcohol and nicotine and onto SSRIs, diabetes medication, anti-anxiety meds and more profitable products.
- generic92034 2y agoOn a different angle - why is alcoholism considered sinful by some branches of Christianity, but gluttony (which also gets criticized in the Bible) is basically ignored?
- sandworm101 2y agoBecause the people making such rules are just human beings, subject to all the same associated inconsistencies.
- hi-v-rocknroll 2y agoReligious folks would argue their rules appeared out of divine provenance. I say: pics or it didn't happen, and no cheating using ChatGPT.
- hi-v-rocknroll 2y agoMagical thinking is allowed to be selective. Plus: "It is difficult to get [someone] to understand [obesity, chronic heart disease, strokes, arteriosclerosis, climate change, pandemics, antibiotic resistance, deforestation, environmental degradation, pollution, ultraprocessing malnutrition, and soaring food prices] when his [addiction to Big Macs] depends upon his not understanding it."
- joncp 2y agobecause one doesn't tend to get drunk on pie and then go beat up your wife or run over a pedestrian with your car. Is it biblical? No, but people rank sins by social impact out of habit.
- dpig_ 2y agoPeople don't run over pedestrians because they smoked a cigarette, either, but church people view smoking in a similar way.
- coolsunglasses 2y agoGluttony is definitely a sin in the Catholic Church and is one of the well known seven deadly sins.
- jack_h 2y agoIt seems like people are trying to min-max their lives and in doing so are missing the forest for the trees. Not a single drop of alcohol is healthy, not a single photon hitting bare skin is healthy, etc. In the end life is full of unknowns. There are people in their 90s who drink like a fish and smoke like a chimney. There are people who led a very healthy lifestyle and died in their 40s. Don't forget to enjoy life while trying to make it last as long as possible. "Everything in moderation, including moderation." -Oscar Wilde
- paulryanrogers 2y ago> not a single photon hitting bare skin is healthy For vitamin D it'll be more unhealthy to never get sunlight exposure.
- _yb2s 2y agoThis- people are 'min-maxing' on single isolated dimensions, and not looking at the bigger picture. Sun does a lot more than increase vitamin D, it also increases metabolic rate by acting directly on the mitochondria, lowers blood pressure, calibrates the circadian rhythm, coordinates eye development, and many other vitally important things.... and it turns out the most of the most deadly types of skin cancer aren't even caused by sun exposure. When you unnaturally radically alter your diet, physical environment, or lifestyle to an extreme outside of normal human experience based on trying to optimize a single variable in attempt to be healthier, it is almost guaranteed to backfire.
- scottlamb 2y agoI think you're making the parent's point that you should be suspicious of the extremes. But just for completeness: you can satisfy your vitamin D need through diet, particularly oily fish like sardines and salmon. At least I hope so, because for various scheduling/remote work/family reasons I don't get a lot of daylight these days. I run and bike outside, but generally not during peak daylight hours.
- paulryanrogers 2y ago
- rhinoceraptor 2y agoIt seems like it's a similar thing to sugar. The optimal amount of alcohol or sugar is not absolutely zero, a lot of foods we eat that are healthy have them, just at much lower concentrations and lower amounts. A glass of orange juice is about the equivalent sugar of two large oranges, without any of the fiber to slow the digestion. Similarly, a beer is about the equivalent ethanol of an entire loaf of bread, without any of the fiber to slow the digestion.
- mapt 2y agoI doubt you could hear the call of such an effect over the roar of other confounders: Regular moderate wine consumption is a strong correlate of comfortable, non-suburban living, particularly in a post-MADD world. Generally speaking, drive less on a daily basis, walk more on a daily basis, have better cardiovascular health and less obesity, live longer. This is a significant EU/US delta. In the US wine is not the cheapest way to get drunk, nor is it as socially popular in disadvantaged minority groups. The health issues associated with poverty & healthcare/nutrition access are less significant in wine drinkers, and the lifestyle of those statistically drawn to wine as a beverage of choice is correlated with lower stress levels. These aren't new or novel observations, but when we're talking about very weak effects, even the uncertainty bounds on known confounders start to dominate.
- paulryanrogers 2y agoAlcohol has no nutritional benefits. And there is a significant population of people who cannot metabolize alcohol. So there are definitely at least some for whom none is the optimal amount
- AtlasBarfed 2y agoThe top dominant comment is the predictable "msm reported x was bad now it's good they don't know anything". What a waste of a thread. Of course msm science reporting is trash I can get that discussion on a bad reddit thread. Alcohol is a poison, a fairly tolerable one. It's also an addictive drug on social, biochemical, and emotional levels. And likely something that there has been coevolution with humans over the thousands of years it has been ingrained into society. The optimal amount of alcohol is zero, because nutritionally it is completely replaceable with better options, any of the enzyme/relaxation effects are either replaced with no alcohol alternatives or far better done with exercise. The entire thread has pro alcohol compartmentalized thinking hallmarks of addictive patterns: don't say bad things about the precious, dismiss the risks, trump up by 100x fringe studies of alleged health benefit. It's like reading /r/trees on reddit. Now will it kill you from a single shot?no. Is alcohol one of the major millennium spanning means of getting people to procreate, a not insignificant aspect of general societal demographic health? Probably.
- Spod_Gaju 2y ago[dead]
- levocardia 2y agoNo mention at all of the strongest type of study on alcohol consumption: Mendelian randomization studies [1]. These avoid the problems of self-report, recall bias, etc., that confound most nutritional epidemiology. [1] e.g. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0255801 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...
- vintermann 2y agoYes. And Mendelian randomization studies are a relatively new invention, as these things go. They're the reason for the "flip flop".
- imoverclocked 2y agoPolicy is always a hard thing to write because of its vast numbers of people trying to interpret it. Writing a policy that states "no alcohol is the best" will look like an overly draconian statement to a country that has a problem with alcohol consumption. Alcohol is largely normalized as a party element in the US as opposed to just being an extra flavor at the dinner table. IMHO, the culture around drinking is likely what needs to change. Maybe we can shift from the "yes or no" category of the world to the "a sip might be nice to pair with X" model instead.
- ls612 2y agoOr maybe people learned about the ills of Prohibition in school and have bad memories of the War on Drugs and so a policy statement like that can sound like a threat of things to come? That's what gets me about all this alcohol discourse, we tried this already. We passed a damn constitutional amendment, then repealed it 13 years later because it was so bad. Something something learning from the past or doomed to repeat it.
- imoverclocked 2y agoI would argue that both of those examples are still , "yes or no" instead of "moderation as part of our views." You can't force a society to be moderate through policy; The problem isn't policy, it's the culture surrounding alcohol. Think of how many instances of people getting @^*%-faced drunk with a group of friends is the basis of a large-grossing movie in the US. Now think of how many instances having a sip to drink at dinner with friends is the basis of a similarly grossing movie in the US. We glorify drinking to excess in our media/entertainment as well as so many conversations I have been privy to over the years... mostly my younger years but not exclusively.
- ls612 2y agoGetting shitfaced drunk with a group of friends or fellow young travelers at a hostel is great fun!
- horns4lyfe 2y ago
- ramijames 2y agoIt's a poison. Of course it isn't good for you. Jfc.
- goatlover 2y agoIs it though? Are you saying it has no positive benifits, because lots of consumers and researchers would argue otherwhise. Anyway, I don't care. If I want to have a drink, I will, because I enjoy alcohol. Not always, but sometimes. What does irritate me are the teetotallers. They lost the argument over prohibition, thankfully. But they never went away. The war on drugs people are losing the same argument.
- paulryanrogers 2y agoAlcohol is a disinfectant. Someday humans may adapt to tolerate consumption of other solvents. Doubtful that any will have significant benefits. IMO the (subjective) advantages of alcohol's effect on some brains is far outweighed by the disadvantages / societal costs. If it weren't historically accepted I doubt it would be any more legal than other regulated/illegal psychedelics.
- Ylpertnodi 2y agoSee you in 100 years. I'm off dahn the pub.
- 1970-01-01 2y agoYou're completely dismissing all mental and social benefits by doing this. Confusing alcohol consumption with alcohol abuse is like saying of course antibiotics are not good for you.
- robwwilliams 2y agoThis is a brilliant overview! i have worked in a small slice of this field for 20 years (genetics of alcoholism). This article provides a much broader context for me to think about my research, and a context and history that I find totally believable.
- dluan 2y ago"More doctors smoke Camels than any other cigarette" This is like asking "is a hammer healthy?" Alcohol is a tool. It evolved alongside humans as human social needs changed, like kava in a circle of elders or tobacco in a peace/war pipe, or wormwood left to soak in wine made by Spanish priests as a catchall for ailments. "No bus usage is healthy", "some social media scrolling is recommended per day", "FDA recommends 1 dose of powersaws" - these kinds of pronouncements fail to understand how alcohol came about.
- paulryanrogers 2y agoAlcohol tolerance probably evolved for survival since fruit ferments as it ages. Doubtful social needs were a big factor in that evolution, especially since plenty of humans still lack the ability to metabolize it. I would agree though that some studies and their conclusions are garbage. That doesn't mean science cannot be advanced by better studies and experiments.
- dluan 2y agoIt is a tool with many uses. Sailors and early pioneers who couldn't carry water for long distances used ale to to stay hydrated. The same sailors were given a daily tot of rum to maintain morale. Many medicinal compounds and molecules are only soluble in ethanol, and so many early medicines resemble amaro decoctions that people still drink recreationally today. These medical uses convergently evolved across cultures and geographies. Doing business or politics over wine or shochu was useful because alcohol removes social inhibitions that would otherwise hide things in negotiations. It's also just an important way to preserve calories of harvested fruits and grains that would otherwise spoil, which is why in some places it was used as currency in place of gold.
- vintermann 2y ago> alcohol removes social inhibitions It does not unless you've learned that it does. There are lots of really old (but still perfectly valid) placebo studies on this.
- 2y ago
- StanislavPetrov 2y agoSeems most likely to me that, like many things, alcohol probably has both beneficial and detrimental effects. Additionally, different substances are going to effect different people in different ways and to different degrees. Hypothetically, let's say a substance raised your chance of cancer, but lowered your chance of a heart attack. Is that substance, "good for you"? Would it be good for those (on balance) who were predisposed to having heart attacks, but (on balance) bad for people who weren't? The more studies we do the better, but it is rarely as simple as "good for you" or "bad for you".
- bill_from_tampa 2y agoI vividly remember being in a pathology lab session in 1973 when the Prof pulled the organs out of a formalin jar of a patient who died from micronodular cirrhosis or Lanneac's disease -- he pointed out that the aorta and other major blood vessels were quite smooth and showed no or extremely minimal atherosclerotic plaques. This type of cirrhosis in generally caused by intemperate alcohol use. The Prof said in his experience in doing autopsies, and he had done thousands, persons who had been alcoholics seemed to have very smooth arteries, almost as if alcohol, somehow, protected against the development of atherosclerotic plaque and the sequelae of such deposits. But remember, these specimens were collected from dead persons, people who had died from something, usually something caused by alcohol. So even if alcohol consumption somehow protects one against atherosclerotic plaque, there are many other manifestations of alcohol use that can kill you, and leave your friendly neighborhood pathologist musing about your wonderfully clean arteries, while your organs lie, dead and removed from your rotting corpse, on the demonstration table. This is so depressing, I'm going to have a drink,
- LoganDark 2y agoEnjoy the drink.
- aeternum 2y agoLike everything in life, moderation seems to be the key. Especially with alcohol it can be difficult to moderate due to social pressure and such. Many friends seems to acknowledge that light drinking isn't harmful, but given they don't see that as an option. For many that grew up in US drinking culture, the choice is surprisingly binary: binge drink or abstain completely.
- KennyBlanken 2y ago> For many that grew up in US drinking culture, the choice is surprisingly binary: binge drink or abstain completely. Half of Americans don't drink regularly, which is several times the abstaining population in the UK (for example.) Of those who do, 24% binge drink and 6.2% have more than two drinks a day. every day of the week. That works out to 12% and 3% respectively. https://alcohol.org/professions/ https://alcohol.org/professions/ I don't have data for the US, but in the UK, the alcohol industry makes most of its profits off alcoholics, with harmful/hazardous drinkers making up 25% of the drinking population, but ~66% of its profits. https://www.recoveryanswers.org/research-post/alcohol-sales-excessive-drinking/ https://www.recoveryanswers.org/research-post/alcohol-sales-... ~4% (the harmful drinkers) drink one third of all the alcohol sold in the UK. Heavy drinkers tend to not move from whatever bar they start at, and this is why "happy hour" exists. It's literally bars 'bidding' over who gets the alcoholics for the night. That's why some states have banned the practice.
- jocoda 2y agoWhat stands out for me is how often drinking is shown as an integral activity in the media. And most of us don't even notice. Come home from work, kick back and pour a drink. Do the same with a cigarette nowadays and most would do a double take.
- bitnasty 2y agoIn 50 years, the AI will tell us that looking at screens all day is actually good for you.
- toomanyrichies 2y ago"It's no longer a question of staying healthy, it's a question of finding a sickness you like." -Jackie Mason
- stagas 2y agoWhatever benefits you think you're feeling when you're consuming alcohol, are actually the baseline if you live a non-alcoholic life. It makes itself relevant by making you feel worse the rest of the time, until you consume it. When you give it up and after a few months when your liver has healed, the buzz/happiness you felt while consuming alcohol becomes your normal again. You don't need it, and you never did. It's a poison of the mind and the body.