I mostly just tell people I don't drink at all
If I tell people that I drink "rarely", they put it into their own framework based on how often they drink themselves. Heavy drinkers might assume "rarely" means one night a week. Moderate drinkers might think a couple times a month
When I was young, I would always get asked why. I'm pushing 40 now, and people rarely ask anymore.
I'm generally not surprised to learn when someone around Wright is themselves an addict, substance abuse appears to be a common comorbidity for people involved in or falling for that fraud.
(( im cooked ))
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I don’t doubt its potential to lead to a full blown drinking disorder/addiction/problem. But I feel like certain populations are more pre-disposed, especially poorer demographics.
There should be a study that examines addiction in general and cross referencing with socioeconomic conditions of the area.
Areas hit hard by industries fleeing for cheaper labor force (ie, American steel industry and Appalachian region). Decrease in stability followed by decrease in upwards mobility being proportional to drug or alcohol addiction.
"In this classic George Carlin routine, the legendary comedian breaks down how language has been systematically softened over time. From "shell shock" to "battle fatigue" and eventually to "post-traumatic stress disorder," Carlin illustrates how our words have become more complex and less impactful. He argues that Americans have difficulty facing harsh realities and have developed a tendency to euphemize, making the truth sound less direct. Through his sharp wit and astute observations, Carlin explores how language evolves to disguise the true nature of our experiences, particularly in times of war."
If you're a nonprofit or advocacy group, "alcoholics" are only going to get you so far in terms of funding, also dealing with them is messy and incredibly difficult.
If you can shift the overton window on whats considered "problematic" drinking you get to "educate" people and get funding for things which have fewer hard criteria or measurable outcomes than treating actual alcoholics. This keeps the money flowing.
It might be worth re-examining your understanding of the word disorder, because the world has moved on a bit.
This is just conspiracy logic with no evidence that you fashioned yourself out of nothing but ugly cynicism and contrarianism.
It also highlights that just because you were classifiable as AUD, you won’t necessarily be so classifiable for the rest of your life.
The language of alcoholism often mirrors sermons of eternal damnation. Not a particularly inspiring starting point for treatment and a big reason why most people who succeed in getting past AUD don’t do it in groups that preach this eternal damnation angle.
This makes it sound like it's an American/Western phenomena, where it's definitely not (only there). It's a recurring joke among me and my friends in Japan to say "the moon is beautiful tonight" because in true Japanese culture that's a way to say "I love you".
Though OTOH Spanish went the opposite direction, where my Mexican friends say some times more swear words in a sentence than normal words; but they've become meaningless or softer.
This is literally just called "learning more about the condition" - it's not some deep symbolic neutering of language by the dang liberals.
Imagine someone having PTSD from combat in which a single shell was never launched, and being like "Yeah, they've got shell shock" ???
And this is hardly an "American" thing; all societies do this sort of thing (although topics and methods vary). Carlin's views, like many Americans, were extremely centred on the US and seemed quite clueless about the rest of the world.
Seriously, the moralizing of life expectancy makes no sense. Let us each optimize for our own idea of a good life.
It'd be like saying eating two burgers with lettuce and tomato is healthier than one without.
https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/alcohol-advice/calculating-alco...
Who thinks that? I have never personally known anyone who drinks much alone, but plenty who drink too much in groups.
One of the Monty Python guys was an alcoholic, at the 'bottle of vodka per day' level. You've probably also known some heavy alcoholics at some point in your life if you've been around long enough, but you wouldn't really know it unless you knew the subtle clues to look for; They tend to become very good at hiding it. They're not chugging vodka out of a bottle, they're putting a bit of a pick-me-up in every cup of coffee they're drinking.
Alcoholics pregame in order to reduce criticism by reducing the number of beverages they are observed consuming.
Once your inhibitions are gone you don’t care as much though.
I buy single serving junk food, because whatever size I get is single serving. And expensive chocolates. The cost is friction.
Still, I understand your point about needing the alcohol for itself or for something else.
I highly doubt this would be the case (as in, alcohol doesn't work like that). Let's say that for every 10kg of your bodyweight you drink 2 beers per night (330ml), then by the time you get to day four you might be more worried about not getting a drink.
I think that's a dangerous assumption, when you first start using any drug (or any other addictive activity), you can absolutely quit any time you want. But if you keep doing it with that mindset then you'll almost certainly get addicted eventually. The worst part is that you don't even realize that it's happening, it really sneaks up on you.
But the only serious addiction I've ever had (and quit) was nicotine so YMMV with alcohol.
I think revealing those frameworks helps a lot
I date a lot of adult Gen Z as well as spiritual people: alcohol use is down, way down, for multiple reasons. I had to relearn what outtings and date ideas could be.
Fortunately, a lot of people in both of those demographics are down to have sex without needing excuses for themselves or socially. So there wasnt much relearning to do. Just not relying on pregaming with alcohol, bars or drinking at clubs as a crutch before being more social or assertive.
With all that said I think we have enough info to say alcohol aint good for you physiologically.... but we don't have enough info to say the social benefits might actually outweigh the negatives.
We can do better than alcohol.
So yeah the ease of getting the stuff and the social acceptance makes it popular, but is it a good idea? Drugs like caffeine, khat, and mild psychedelics have much more favorable therapeutic indices and a better track record in terms of death and illness, never mind be a lot less physically addictive and much MUCH easier to quit.
I think we won't get past the cultural issues in our lifetime.
Many cultures have 0 tolerance for anything outside of alcohol (and I totally get it when it comes to China for instance), and prohibition of drugs like marihuana was long used to target specific communities.
I'm not even sure if western cultures are still on the path to open to low harm drugs, do we have any research on synthetic drugs that have a change to become fully legal alternatives ?
I'm not sure new drugs are even needed. There are plenty of existing drugs, and the vast majority are less harmful than alcohol. They would of course need legal and cultural regulation. There are also some ideas for new recreational substances like David Nutt's "synthetic alcohol".
A lot of humans (and other mammals and birds even) also like the effects that it has, despite the unpredictability and side effects. It's just too good at smoothing out many social interactions in ways that we humans are fans of. It's also a very good source of easy calories that are very shelf stable and for the most part safe to consume even if the storage conditions were poor. Small beer was a thing for a reason - even a low concentration renders most pathogens inactive enough that it's mostly safe to consume.
Until we figure out some way to simulate the positive effects without the negatives, a Synthahol if you will, I don't think we'll be able to do better. And the Synthahol will need to be cheaper and easier to obtain than literally just leaving some fruit juice to ferment in a jar.
Surprisingly, the linked technical article, which was paid for with tax dollars, is paywalled -- isn't that practice supposed to end?
Without being able to read the article, I'll go out on a limb and guess that the article's data were collected by interviewing people, asking about their drinking habits. This is a very unreliable method compared to measuring people's blood alcohol levels -- granted that the latter design would be prohibitively expensive.
Anecdotal studies are notoriously unreliable. A young researcher once performed an interview-based study that showed married people live longer than single people. On reviewing the paper, an older, more experienced scientist suggested that public records would cost less and produce better results. The young scientist tried again, using actuarial data, and the original conclusion was falsified: married people don't live longer, it just seems longer.
I was born in the UK, my Dad never drank a drop - my Irish mother would drink until she fell over. Dad had lock up the liquor - or else = all gone = fall over. My brother and I do not drink a drop?? I am not drawn to liquor, and tobacco smoking or cannabis = I never touch at all.
rob_c•9mo ago
Social swimming has higher risk of drowning...
Social cycling has higher risk of traffic accidents...
batch12•9mo ago
rob_c•9mo ago