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Harms you physically, sure. But a night out socializing and making memories with friends, the psychological benefits can last a long time, which often positivel
by monero-xmr 2y ago
Harms 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.