[HN Gopher] Against Alcohol
___________________________________________________________________
Against Alcohol
Author : marc__1
Score : 126 points
Date : 2021-04-10 18:01 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (fergus-mccullough.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (fergus-mccullough.com)
| nottorp wrote:
| If you ask me, a depressing life leads to alcohol abuse.
|
| And I say that as someone who never drinks alone; I do drink
| regularly with friends, and if i get wasted in a group, that's
| it.
|
| Societies that have a problem with alcohol abuse need to change
| the society.
| shiftoutbox wrote:
| If I wasn't drunk I would read it .
| curiousfab wrote:
| Site hugged to death? I only get a database error.
|
| Archive link:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20210409170904/https://fergus-mc...
| V-2 wrote:
| _" It can also exacerbate mental health problems, especially
| anxiety and depression. One major American study suggested that
| up to a quarter of young alcoholics have social anxiety
| disorder."_
|
| The first sentence might be true for all I know, but I can't see
| how the second one makes for supporting evidence.
| kvgr wrote:
| Alcohol is perfect "cure" for social anxiety. Short acting, but
| very efficient. Thats why anxious people tend to drink...
| lanstin wrote:
| And why parties are fun :)
| ahh wrote:
| The causation is backwards!
|
| I'm not an alcoholic but I am an anxious wreck. Single best way
| to make me stop freaking out at a party? Two old fashioneds.
|
| I'd prefer to be gregarious and unworried sober, but that's not
| an option. (Yes, there are other approaches. This works better
| than all of them.)
| watwut wrote:
| Yes, alcohol works that way. But self medicating with alcohol
| is risk factor for alcohol dependence. That is why it is not
| prescribed for anxiety as a cure - long term results are not
| good.
| agumonkey wrote:
| once again my weird anecdote:
|
| I'm not a drinker, and used to be a recluse, but once in a
| while there's a birthday I cannot refuse. I get there, stay
| miserable, drink a bit, keeps miserable, gets home at 3am.
|
| I woke up at 7am like a champ, jumping out of bed as if it
| was a 2 weeks holidays.
|
| Alcohol gets very bad press today but for me, that tiny bit
| of alcohol helped me stay at a party which probably refueled
| some social needs (even if shallow).
| kelnos wrote:
| Right, but I think the point is that, while this method works
| best for you, there are also higher risks associated with it.
| And while you might be ok with just two drinks, others in
| your position might need three or four drinks to make them
| stop freaking out at a party. And still others might not
| _need_ that many, but having a couple drinks might lead to
| more, as inhibitions are lowered and judgment is weakened.
| golemiprague wrote:
| Maybe the title should end with "In the UK". For example, in
| Japan there is not much alcohol derived violence as in the UK. In
| the mediterrenian countries there is not so much binge drinking
| like in the UK. In Australia there are much stricter rules on
| where you can buy and consume alcohol than in the UK and still
| their drink patterns are more simliar to the UK than to
| mediterrenian countries. In Jewish Orthodox communities Alcohol
| is used almost solely for religious ceremonies and not too many
| people drink at all, although it is allowed. So each culture have
| different relationship with alcohol, both in terms of conumption
| and the effect on society, and this needs to be acknowledged.
| thenoblesunfish wrote:
| He seems to be deliberately missing the point. Obviously
| drinking, especially heavily, is bad for health and plenty of
| other things. The question is why people still get so much
| benefit out of it that they keep doing it, despite the downsides.
| I'd posit that social lubrication is something people want, and
| sadly in the UK, self-medication is something a lot of people
| turn to.
| P9dCddDPe7j wrote:
| > The question is why people still get so much benefit out of
| it that they keep doing it, despite the downsides.
|
| No, this isn't even the question. It is clear that people will
| keep doing things that have downsides, with out any explainable
| benefit. This is called addiction. It isn't a new idea.
| lanstin wrote:
| People clearly derive benefit from drinking; not the hard
| core alcoholics but the shy guy that likes to tell stories
| volubly and dance with less shame.
| 01100011 wrote:
| Agreed. Something in us seems to require exogenous chemicals to
| facilitate social interaction and bonding. I don't think it
| necessarily has to be that way, but it is. You can't talk about
| getting rid of alcohol or tobacco without discussing their
| benefits and offering alternatives.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| > _The question is why people still get so much benefit out of
| it that they keep doing it, despite the downsides._
|
| You could ask the same thing about speed and meth.
| koboll wrote:
| A lot of the points here talk specifically about the harms
| associated with binge drinking or alcoholism. Certainly, those
| are hazardous in many different ways. But "Against Alcohol"
| implies harms from any drinking so great that teetotaling is
| justified, which is questionable.
|
| There's little evidence that light or moderate drinking has major
| negative health effects. Anything under 10 drinks per week only
| has a very slight negative effect on all-cause mortality, and
| anything under 7 drinks per week has no effect: https://marlin-
| prod.literatumonline.com/cms/attachment/9e0c4... (A standard
| drink is 14 grams, so the 7 and 10 per week marks are just before
| 100 and 150 on the x-axis).
|
| Source:
| https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...
| narush wrote:
| Those graphs are epidemiological studies. Saying "effect"
| implies that alcohol is a cause here, which is might be, but
| who knows!
|
| Nutritional epidemiology is real questionable - it pretty much
| can tell you nonsense - like the fact that most items we cook
| with give us cancer [1]
|
| [1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23193004/
| goonogle wrote:
| As long as you don't become an addict.
|
| I think most people start with 4 drinks per week. 12 years
| later is a different story.
| watwut wrote:
| Most non-abstinents are not alcoholics and that holds true
| even in countries with high rates of alcoholism.
|
| Also "most people start with 4 drinks per week" is made up.
| Regardless of where you put "start".
| eikenberry wrote:
| Assuming this site has decent numbers, in the US around 5% of
| people >26 years old have an "alcohol use disorder".
| Presumably the majority of those are addition disorders. But
| that means that after 12 years 95% of them will still be
| fine.
|
| https://americanaddictioncenters.org/rehab-
| guide/addiction-s...
| goonogle wrote:
| So tens of millions of people?
|
| Sounds like a public health crisis
| osmarks wrote:
| Presumably an alcohol use disorder is quite bad. Is the
| benefit of drinking alcohol really enough to offset the
| fairly significant risk there?
| adwf wrote:
| There's also the fact that they've only argued from the point
| of economic productivity.
|
| As if that's all there is to life...
| UnpossibleJim wrote:
| That's a fair assessment when it comes to addiction, but
| there's also binge drinking which has a fair number of
| detrimental effects and a decent rate of overdoses. I looked up
| the rate of incident and was actually surprised at the
| prevalence throughout age groups, to be honest.
|
| https://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/fact-sheets/binge-drinking.htm
|
| EDIT:
|
| To be clear, I'm not an abolishonist. I do think, however, we
| should look at the actual potential harm of a substance when
| making laws. Alcohol is both physically addictive and habitual
| vs. marijuana or mushrooms. Alcohol and MDMA have overdose
| risk, where as marijuana and mushrooms do not. Marijuana and
| MDMA can pose serious psychological risks, especially in
| adolescents, where alcohol has a much lesser risk. These should
| all be reviewed in a scientific and dispassionate manner when
| defining laws, is all I'm suggesting.
| johnorourke wrote:
| It's a highly addictive substance which creates chemical
| dependence over time - for some, never, but a vast percentage
| of people are vulnerable to the gradual creep of addiction.
| karmakaze wrote:
| Of the many things I've tried, cigarettes (likely the
| chemicals rather than the tobacco) was the most habit
| forming. I remember working a co-op term in Montreal in the
| winter and taking up the habit. At somewhere over a pack a
| week was habit forming. Less didn't seem to be.
|
| I've drank lots, both socially and just at home for no
| reason. I enjoyed having many different beers around and
| consumed what was on-hand but never got to the point I made
| special trips to stock it. Similarly for wines or spirits
| (vodka, tequila, whiskey, wine).
|
| Lately since there's little social occasions to drink, I've
| taken to consuming a bottle of red per week with/after meals.
| It seems to help with sleep (since I also have a couple cups
| of coffee throughout the day) than without.
|
| Edit: Also recalling that it wasn't all that long ago,
| historically speaking, that Quebec still allowed smoking
| _inside_ the office, and there was one woman who I worked
| with that had a rolling machine and a large ashtray that
| always needed emptying. It was like a weird trip in a time-
| machine.
| zabzonk wrote:
| > likely the chemicals rather than the tobacco
|
| Everything is "chemicals".
|
| > somewhere over a pack a week was habit forming
|
| Try three packs a day
|
| > I've drank lots,
|
| Probably not, compared with someone (such as me) that does
| drink lots.
|
| > I've taken to consuming a bottle of red per week ... I
| also have a couple cups of coffee throughout the day
|
| Careful there!
|
| My point is that different people have wildly different
| ideas about what is acceptable, damaging and addictive, and
| their ability to deal with it, in one way or another. I
| easily managed to give up cigarettes because my girlfriend
| said she would leave me if I didn't. She gave up alcohol
| (which she was a heavy user of) when she became pregnant
| (not by me), which is something I know I will never be able
| to do.
| CarelessExpert wrote:
| > but a vast percentage of people are vulnerable to the
| gradual creep of addiction.
|
| Sorry, you're gonna have to back up this rather hefty
| statement with some facts. I've never seen any data to
| suggest that a "vast percentage" of people are at risk of
| becoming alcoholics.
| johnorourke wrote:
| > gonna have to back up this rather hefty statement
|
| Thanks, you're quite right to challenge that, it's a belief
| based on past reading and should be backed up.
| rhapsodic wrote:
| >> but a vast percentage of people are vulnerable to the
| gradual creep of addiction.
|
| > Sorry, you're gonna have to back up this rather hefty
| statement with some facts. I've never seen any data to
| suggest that a "vast percentage" of people are at risk of
| becoming alcoholics.
|
| "vulnerable to the gradual creep of addiction" and "at risk
| of becoming alcoholics" are not the same thing. A person
| might refrain from alcohol altogether because they believe,
| perhaps due to their family history, that if they drank on
| a regular basis they would become alcoholic. IOW, they feel
| they are vulnerable to the gradual creep of addiction. And
| they might be right. But as long they don't drink at all,
| they're not at risk of developing alcoholism.
| CarelessExpert wrote:
| The claim was a "vast percentage of people are
| vulnerable" to alcoholism. Their reply supports my
| interpretation of their comment.
|
| This isn't about the propensity of an individual to
| develop alcoholism based on personal circumstances. This
| is a population-level claim with no data to back it up.
|
| Frankly, I'm not even sure what you're arguing but it
| seems wholly disconnected from the OPs claim or my
| counterpoint.
| bsder wrote:
| > A lot of the points here talk specifically about the harms
| associated with binge drinking
|
| Except that "binge drinking" is the _norm_ for a lot of people.
|
| Think about how much drinking surrounds sports events--it's
| _really_ easy to fall into the trap of "having a couple extra"
| --and a stadium cup is often close to 2 drinks in quantity.
|
| Suddenly, you're in the "7 drinks" range without even trying
| very hard.
| ljhsiung wrote:
| I think there's 2 arguments here. One is, as you pointed out,
| binge drinking is bad for you. I think most people would agree.
|
| The second argument, primarily in the second half of the
| article, is that creating the conditions to easily permit binge
| drinking is just a severe a problem.
|
| >> It's possible to consume alcohol in a safe manner... But at
| some margin, you are contributing to the idea that it's normal
| to drink it. And we need to break down that norm.
|
| In other words, every drink you order in public has a >1 R0 to
| make one of your buddies also order a drink. Conversely, every
| drink you _don 't_ get has <1 R0.
|
| I'm sure we've all been in those situations at a bar where we
| say "I'll get (another) one if you get (another) one".
|
| That's why he vouches for abstinence. Not for health, but to
| discourage a binge drinking culture that's quite pervasive, in
| the UK especially.
| conistonwater wrote:
| But the next follow-up question to what you said would be, why
| should we focus on _only_ the risk of death to determine harm?
| E.g., what happens if I exercise and drink a moderate amount of
| alcohol per week? I believe, AFAIK, I get worse results from
| that, and I would care about that wasted effort whether it
| raises my risk of death or not. I understand the logic of it,
| but I 'm not super okay with saying that "causing no excess
| mortality" is somehow equivalent to "no effect". There are
| effects in statistics other than death, I think what you're
| saying means that mortality data _alone_ is not enough to
| justify teetotalling.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| Instead of just all-cause mortality, measure health and quality
| of life, as well. I know someone with a seizure disorder from
| drinking, and someone with heart problems from alcohol. It's
| yet to be determined whether or not alcohol will contribute to
| their deaths because they are still alive.
|
| However, their quality of life is certainly lower than it was
| before alcohol. They require daily medications with side-
| effects, need to see expensive specialists, require expensive
| lab work to be run regularly, and have to worry about what
| happens should they go without their medication (ie suffer
| brain damage from seizing, have a heart attack, and/or die).
| tigershark wrote:
| Imagine if instead the same number of people would consume
| heroine or LSD or other similar drugs at that level, as
| several people here are advocating for. Do you think that the
| human race would have any chance of survival?
| heavyset_go wrote:
| Sounds like a strawman argument to me. I don't see anyone
| advocating that people do heroin as much as they ingest
| alcohol.
|
| LSD and other 5-HT2A agonists are self-limiting in that
| they induce a massive tolerance after a single dose, making
| subsequent doses either not work or give diminished effects
| that do not increase with increased doses. They also are
| not physically addictive like alcohol is, nor does LSD
| cause organ damage like alcohol does.
|
| Beyond overdoses, opioids, other than ones like MPTP, don't
| cause physical harm to the body like alcohol does. The
| dangers of heroin come mostly from its criminalization, the
| criminalization of addiction and the lack of access to
| healthcare to treat addiction. For example, there are
| millions of people who take Suboxone, a long acting and
| powerful opioid that stays in the blood for 30+ days,
| without it causing organ damage or seizure disorders.
| Street heroin is dangerous because it is unregulated and
| often cut with fentanyl and stuff that should not be going
| into veins.
|
| The issues surrounding heroin would be solved with a
| regulated supply of clean heroin, medical support to
| administer it correctly, addiction treatment and making all
| of those things accessible and affordable to the people who
| need it most. There are several examples of governments
| that provide all of these things, and they indeed cut down
| on heroin's mortality and the devastating effects of
| addiction.
|
| Similar to the person I know with heart disease from
| alcohol, I know a former heroin addict who also has heart
| disease from their use. Their heart problem was not caused
| by heroin, but by the fact that they'd crush pills and
| inject them without properly filtering them, and the pill
| binders caused heart damage. A clean supply of heroin and
| access to addiction treatment would have prevented their
| heart problem.
| klyrs wrote:
| Nobody will advocate it, no, but there's a significant
| set of the population with self destructive tendencies.
| They're gonna use what they can get their hands on, and
| lots of whatever it is. I know a few folks who have taken
| tens of tabs of acid, and every single one was
| traumatized by the experience; some were incapacitated
| for months or years following.
|
| I'm in favor of universal legalization, but it's
| definitely worth considering the impact to everybody, not
| just the people who use drugs responsibly
| arcticbull wrote:
| LSD and other psychedelics actually have incredibly low
| harm potential. They're usually at the absolute very bottom
| of any harm chart.
|
| In fact, mushrooms and LSD are the two least harmful
| recreational drugs per the Economist chart from 2010.
| Number 1 is alcohol and number 2 is heroin and crack. Meth
| is a pretty distant 4th. [1]
|
| They're not addictive, in no small part because they're not
| really "fun" in the classic way cocaine is. They're
| interesting, but you're really not in a hurry to do them
| again. Further, the LD-50 is really, really, really high.
|
| [1] https://www.economist.com/graphic-
| detail/2019/06/25/what-is-...
| dionidium wrote:
| Most addiction specialists now subscribe to a definition of
| addiction that's something like, "repeated use in the face of
| adverse consequences" and I'd just say that in my life
| _practically everyone_ I know who drinks has experienced
| adverse consequences from alcohol. These are frequently laughed
| off as rights of passage or minor embarrassments, but they
| include stuff like missing work with a hangover, driving when
| they shouldn 't have, saying cruel things they wish they
| wouldn't have, getting in fights (physical or otherwise) they
| otherwise wouldn't have, behaving more aggressively than they
| normally would, behaving embarrassingly in public, skipping
| social events because they'd drank too much or were hungover,
| and on and on.
|
| Again, even the people in my life who think of themselves as
| moderate drinkers without even _the hint_ of a problem would
| have to acknowledge multiple incidents that fit the above
| criteria, if they were honest.
|
| Because we live in a culture that tolerates alcohol we view a
| lot of this behavior as insignificant in a way that you
| wouldn't if somebody at a party were exhibiting signs of, say,
| cocaine intoxication. "Bob didn't come to work today because he
| used too much cocaine" sounds like a serious problem, but "Bob
| didn't come to work today because he's hungover" may elicit
| knowing laughs from the co-workers who were with him at the bar
| the night before.
|
| Most people won't become fall-down drunks who lose their jobs
| and their spouses and everything else, but that's a pretty weak
| standard for harm.
| goonogle wrote:
| I wish weed was socially acceptable like coffee. It makes me
| better, at least until tolerance hits. More focused and higher
| energy.
|
| No one gives me crap about shaky caffeine hands.
|
| Oh well I'm off everything now, the neutral state is okay, but I
| wonder if I lost potential.
| nate_meurer wrote:
| In my very broad but loose social circle, I'd say cannabis is
| nearly as acceptable (and common) as coffee. I live in
| Colorado.
| hprotagonist wrote:
| Ah, delightful. The progressive neo-puritanical fringe has come
| around to 1880 again; time to storm the bars with hatchets and
| howl for prohibition because that worked So Well last time!
| kelnos wrote:
| The article isn't pushing prohibition. It's arguing for
| disincentives (higher taxes, minimum unit pricing, restrictions
| on when and where alcohol can be purchased), which has shown to
| reduce drinking vs. a lack of those restrictions.
|
| Another option it pushes for is for people to abstain
| voluntarily, if they are of the type of person who doesn't get
| much out of alcohol, but mainly drinks it out of social
| obligation.
|
| Your overreaction is unnecessary here.
| goonogle wrote:
| Could be made socially unacceptable like smoking.
| lumost wrote:
| smoking really only became fashionable post-ww1. Alcohol
| consumption may have motivated early agriculture.
|
| It's unlikely that something as ingrained as alcohol will be
| made unfashionable except on multi-generational time scales.
|
| That being said, the current trend of alcohol in every aspect
| of life might become pase, as more individuals seek to avoid
| drunkeness/temptation outside of a bar.
| sarsway wrote:
| Or maybe just let be? What's up with this militant righteous,
| virtuous drive to force ideals upon others. Humans have been
| getting drunk on fermented crops since the dawn of time. But
| now, thanks to social media, people can comfortably invent
| some imaginary moral high ground from their homes,
| proclaiming the lifestyle of millions of fellow people
| unacceptable.
|
| Maybe expand the mind a bit, visit a strict Arab country or
| something. They don't drink much there. Has nothing to do
| with health though. It might help get a picture what kind of
| society they are advocating for.
| kelnos wrote:
| I don't think the point here is some righteous/virtuous
| one. The argument is that alcohol causes billions of
| dollars in increased health care costs and decreased
| productivity, and is a leading cause of death and other
| health issues.
|
| I'm all for dropping restrictions on things that people can
| do that don't harm anyone else, but frankly I don't care to
| spend more money on health insurance because a bunch of
| people want to drink too much.
| sethjgore wrote:
| I am not for any restrictions on any drug. That's puritanical,
| surely. However I am very much for BANNING all advertising from
| alcohol industry. Why do they need to market a drug that
| basically already sells itself via culture?
| FearlessNebula wrote:
| Agreed. If we ban tobacco ads we should ban alcohol too
| atypicaluser wrote:
| While I can't speak for the UK, the US has a small hurdle to
| bans on particular kinds of speech: the First Amendment. Add
| to that the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment (i.e.
| the Equal Protection Clause.) Alcohol producers have as much
| right to advertise as, say, someone selling chocolate bars (a
| 'sinful,' sugary food) or bacon (for all its alleged
| carcinogens) or prescription drugs (some of which have
| potentially lethal side-effects,) so it'd be tough to single
| them out for suppression. Not that Americans haven't tried
| using later constitutional amendments to prohibit things they
| don't like...
| kelnos wrote:
| Not sure 1A is absolute here; there are many restrictions
| on advertising in the US around tobacco, at least.
| atypicaluser wrote:
| You'll note that, while 'there are many restrictions,'
| there is no outright federal ban on tobacco advertising--
| were it possible, why not do it?
|
| I also wonder if there's more to tobacco advertising then
| meets the eye: unlike alcohol manufacturers, Big Tobacco
| doesn't seem interested in challenging current
| restrictions to selling their product. And if they aren't
| interested, that says more about Big Tobacco than the
| First Amendment. But it's hard for me to say as I'm no
| expert on the tobacco industry.
| elijaht wrote:
| > You'll note that, while 'there are many restrictions,'
| there is no outright federal ban on tobacco advertising--
| were it possible, why not do it?
|
| Not super familiar with specifics around the restrictions
| because I can't remember the last time I saw a ad for
| tobacco; meanwhile I have seen 10+ alcohol ads today. I
| would say the restrictions effectively ban tobacco
| advertising
|
| I agree with your point; from skimming Wikipedia [1] I
| would argue that restrictions were gradually imposed
| through acts of Congress and I would imagine largely
| uncontested by Big Tobacco because they lacked leverage
| due to the series of scandals involving them. I think you
| are right that the major alcohol brands would fight back
| largely because they don't have their hands behinds their
| back
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_of_nicotine_
| marketi...
| tayo42 wrote:
| American obsession with the 1st amendment is so odd. It
| doesn't allow for any reasonable discussion of nuance of
| speech.
|
| But, i think there is precedent for advertising, there are
| restrictions on tobacco advertising. I don't see why it
| can't be extended to other things that are advertised.
| atypicaluser wrote:
| > American obsession with the 1st amendment is so odd. It
| doesn't allow for any reasonable discussion of nuance of
| speech.
|
| Who defines 'reasonable'? As the federal government can't
| involve itself (which is at the heart of this so-called
| obsession,) the participants in the discussion will have
| to determine that for themselves. And if they can't agree
| on what is 'reasonable'?
|
| > restrictions on tobacco advertising
|
| There are restrictions, a brief history of which can be
| found at Truth Initiative[0]. I wonder, though, if these
| restrictions remain in place because no one in Big
| Tobacco will challenge them? Especially if these same
| restrictions help to keep smaller players out of the
| market...
|
| [0] https://truthinitiative.org/research-
| resources/tobacco-indus...
| tayo42 wrote:
| Idk why you picked on the word reasonable. But your
| proving my point by attempting to shut down the
| discussion already
|
| In reality the government is already discussing what is
| protected and what isn't. Free speech is an illusion.
| Otherwise we wouldn't have exceptions to free speech.
| There wouldn't an fcc if it it was truly free.
|
| I think we should be explicit about what is protected and
| what isn't. We want to protect the expression of
| criticism of our government. I don't think we should be
| making choices about how society functions based off of
| ambiguous tweet sized one liners. This site your
| commenting on has higher expectations, maybe our bill of
| rights should too.
|
| Is advertising really speech? It's ideas with the intent
| to manipulate people, commercial propaganda. What is
| speech, maybe we should define that better. It could be
| the ideas and opinions of individuals. Its a mistake to
| provide the same protections to a corporation.
|
| There's nuance to speech, the 1st amendment is ambiguous.
| The intent is protect people, government exists to
| protect people. The rest of the world is successful
| without a almost religious devotion to free speech,
| there's no reason why the us can't, if anything it's
| detrimental to our society.
| thomasmiller_ wrote:
| I wouldn't describe it as a particularly "progressive", "neo-
| puritanical", or "fringe" belief. Tyler Cowen advocates for
| abstaining from alcohol. While Matt Yglesias doesn't go as far
| as abstention, he does support higher taxes as a means to curb
| consumption, both as a way to balance budgets and curb some of
| the nastier public-health side effects. There's a public policy
| conversation to be had here.
| foepys wrote:
| Taxing alcohol is not straight forward because everybody can
| make it at home with everyday items. Raise taxes too much and
| people will start their own basement distilleries which will
| then send methanol poisoning cases through the roof.
|
| Brewing beer for example is extremely easy. Everybody can do
| it and there is even a whole community around brewing at
| home.
| istjohn wrote:
| As the article notes, at least in the UK, taxes in the 50's
| were three times as high. As someone who has distilled
| alcohol in a garage before, it's incredibly labor intensive
| at small scales. Brewing beer is doable, but it is not
| "extremely easy" by any measure, especially if the goal is
| reasonably decent tasting beer. Alcohol taxes would need to
| be extremely high before black market alcohol became an
| issue of any significance.
| ChrisClark wrote:
| Yes, of course. Because one person doesn't like it, everything
| must come crashing down. Overreact much?
| [deleted]
| istjohn wrote:
| That's a strawman argument. I enjoy alcohol on occasion, but
| essays like this make me wonder if the limited pleasure I get
| from alcohol is worth it. I know a number of people who
| struggle or struggled with alcohol addiction. Do I really want
| to promote drinking by buying a round at the bar, bringing a
| case of beer to the party, or just conforming to the norm of
| drinking at parties? Maybe not.
| vmception wrote:
| Prohibition is back on the menu!
|
| Any thoughts on how to avoid the folly of restriction on alcohol?
| There seems to be multi-pronged issues, one being that the
| chemical messes up our body and is largely incompatible, and even
| if we altered the chemical someway and left the fun effects, we
| still have the issue of people being taken advantage of while
| experiencing the effects. But the trade in alcohol is so great
| that any state sponsored curbs on consumption results in a worse
| illicit reality.
| [deleted]
| zionic wrote:
| We need to invent a new version of alcohol that somehow doesn't
| damage the liver, and is ideally calorie free.
| readme wrote:
| it's called autoerotic asphyxiation
|
| i don't recommend trying it
| ruined wrote:
| these exist. ghb, methqualone, barbiturates, and
| benzodiazepines all have a similar mechanism of action,
| cross-tolerance, and similar withdrawal syndromes, but fewer
| side-effects than alcohol. alcohol withdrawal is often
| treated with benzodiazepines.
|
| they are all heavily controlled, and benzodiazepines are
| considered some of the most damaging and addictive substances
| of abuse.
| mszcz wrote:
| I'd also throw in something about, you know, not damaging the
| brain in excess quantities ;)
| vmception wrote:
| which doesn't help the people being taken advantage of, but
| maybe ignore that because its not an alcohol specific issue
| as any influence can do that
| sgt101 wrote:
| How about let people make their own choices and make it
| possible for them to do that by educating and informing them?
| We could just trust people?
| lanstin wrote:
| These campaigns are the way to inform and educate people. And
| making harmful things go from cool to trashy makes trust a
| more effective policy.
| thomasmiller_ wrote:
| Probably an unpopular proposal, but higher taxes on alcohol?
| vmception wrote:
| which creates the illicit tier of untaxed alcohol trade.
| maybe this is tolerable because not everyone will do it and
| others will just buy less?
| readme wrote:
| nope it's bad, more people will get sick from drinking
| black market booze
| thomasmiller_ wrote:
| Right, it's less draconian than outright prohibition and
| while the illicit trade will surely exist, for most people
| the default bias will (probably) be there.
| bootwoot wrote:
| I don't think anyone is arguing for prohibition. We've seen
| that fail with every substance we've tried it with.
|
| Public health/education campaigns, however, can be wildly
| effective with enough funding. Smoking cessation in particular
| has been massively successful even with no change to legality
| and billions of dollars of tobacco industry money doing
| everything they can to reverse it. The public health campaign
| in the US managed to turn cigarettes from chic to trashy and
| have made prohibition unnecessary. I could imagine the same
| happening with alcohol (and other problematic substances) on a
| long enough timeline.
| adzzzz wrote:
| There are loads and loads of laws that prohibit smoking in
| all sorts of places and massive sin taxes among many other
| things. Chalking it 100% up to public health PSAs is
| inaccurate
| conistonwater wrote:
| I agree they aren't arguing for prohibition at all. I don't
| fully believe what you said about health campaigns because,
| for example, obesity is also really bad for people and none
| of the existing campaigns against it had much of an impact,
| as far as I know. Furthermore, if one of the key concepts was
| to turn cigarettes from chic to trashy, then that seems
| really unlikely to work with either alcohol or obesity. How
| do you even really know why that one particular massive
| campaign was successful?
| watwut wrote:
| Obesity is very bad example. You don't wake up in the
| morning and decide to be obese this day and you don't wake
| up next morning and voila you are thin.
|
| The campaigns against obesity don't make people thin,
| because half the time they don't even promote stuff that
| makes people thin. Half the time they promote diets that
| makes situation worse in the long term.
|
| Campaigns against smoking did worked in the past. Drug use
| is down. Teenage v pregnancies are down. All stuff that
| involved campaigns.
| kelnos wrote:
| Yeah. While I imagine quitting smoking isn't itself easy,
| the concept of "don't smoke anymore" is very different
| and easier to grasp than "be less fat". Not smoking is a
| direct action you can take; losing weight is a complex
| process that can involve many lifestyle and diet changes,
| and the exact route to losing weight can be very
| different for different people.
| conistonwater wrote:
| As far as I know, quitting smoking cold-turkey is one of
| the hardest ways of doing it, and most people change
| their habits gradually over time, so I don't know that
| your example is the best here.
| bootwoot wrote:
| I have no evidence, just observation. With regard to
| obesity, it's a relatively newer problem compared to
| smoking and I haven't seen nearly as much public facing
| campaigning to fix it. For example, I don't think I've ever
| seen a PSA about eating less, whereas I've seen literally
| hundreds about cigarettes since I was a child.
|
| Admittedly, most anti-obesity campaigns also seem to be
| neutered by lobbying. "Stop drinking soda" becomes
| politicized and turned into "move" by lobbyists. Taking a
| 30 minute walk is great advice for overall health, but will
| do absolutely 0 to address obesity.
|
| I guess overall, there's no guarantee of success here, but
| I tend to view the shift in public sentiment about tobacco
| as a direct result of public health efforts. Which leads me
| to believe it's at least possible for other issues
| (obesity, alcohol). But certainly it is difficult and with
| unknown risk of failure.
| AmericanChopper wrote:
| I smoked for years and the public health campaigns had no
| positive effect on me or anybody I know. I actually
| developed a certain level of contempt for how much they
| manipulated the statistics, and generally took a non-
| evidence based approach to their regulation. The primary
| piece of government intervention that got me to quit was
| taxing the hell out of it. As much as I don't like the
| government presuming it can make risk decisions regarding
| how I choose to live my own life, I like paying it taxes
| even less. My personal motivations were firstly avoiding
| the nuisance of dealing with the odor, and secondly the
| health impacts. I also expect that all the advertising
| restrictions has likely had an impact, but that didn't
| personally influence me at all.
| nate_meurer wrote:
| I think the greatest gift of American prohibition is that it
| removed prohibition from the menu completely for generations. I
| believe its legacy has also aided arguments against the broader
| War on Drugs.
| hintymad wrote:
| A friend of mine once told me that he was fortunate to have Asian
| flush. ADH2 deficiency makes him unable to enjoy alcohol, so he
| would never get alcohol addiction either.
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| To me, alcohol tastes like what I imagine turpentine tastes
| like (based on turpentine's scent).
|
| It makes me less fun at parties, but I can only imagine how
| much trouble I've avoided because of this.
| orangecat wrote:
| Same here. It might be genetic:
| https://www.reuters.com/article/us-alcohol-taste-
| genes/genes...
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Addiction does not require enjoyment, and while ADH2*2 (the
| particular gene associated with the "Asian flush") does reduce
| the risk of alcoholism, it doesn't seem to be a guarantee
| against it, at all.
| antattack wrote:
| It's not alcohol - it's alcoholism that is a problem. Maybe age
| should not be the only requirement for alcohol consumption.
| kelnos wrote:
| Not really; even moderate use is associated with worse long-
| term health outcomes. The article mentions that one unit per
| day seems to be an ok amount, but anything more than that (even
| if you just drink, say four units on a single day, once a
| week), isn't good for your health.
|
| I enjoy drinking from time to time, and have definitely had
| nights of excessive drinking that I've found incredibly fun,
| but I won't try to convince myself it's been good for me.
| antattack wrote:
| I doubt there's any study that have determined that single
| excessive drinking leads to long term consequences. If you
| know of any please post a reference.
|
| Also, measuring consumption by number of drinks is very
| inaccurate(for example beer can be 0-32%/vol), plus
| individual metabolism plays huge role how well alcohol is
| tolerated.[1]
|
| [1]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6527027/
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Alcohol abuse is the problem; not all alcohol abuse is tied to
| alcoholism. Plenty of non-alcoholics abuse alcohol. (And some
| alcoholics don't, though that's a constant struggle.)
| nate_meurer wrote:
| How do you distinguish alcoholism from alcohol abuse?
|
| As an alcoholic myself, the terms have always meant the same
| thing to me.
| notacoward wrote:
| It's the difference between long-term dependency and short-
| term overuse. There's plenty of overlap, of course. Many
| people's need for alcohol leads to both behaviors. But
| they're still conceptually different things. It's possible,
| though perhaps rare, for an alcoholic to drink every day
| but never enough to be a danger to themselves or others.
| It's all too common for people in their teens or twenties
| to binge drink and get themselves or others killed, without
| ever being alcoholics.
| nate_meurer wrote:
| This doesn't seem like a useful distinction.
|
| There are plenty of people who will drink every day of
| their life in a way that evidences dependence, but with
| little or no evidence of abuse. I've had some of these in
| my family. They drank at the same time in the evening and
| in the same quantity every day for decades, and they were
| likely in some state of mild chemical dependence, but the
| addiction, as it were, never caused any trouble
| whatsoever.
|
| It's not useful to call these people alcoholics.
|
| Likewise, it would be absurd to label people who drink
| coffee or tea daily with "caffeinism", even if physical
| dependence is present. And we don't label people who are
| chemically dependent on anti-depressants with "SSRI-ism".
|
| In my mind, attaching an "ism" to a substance is only
| useful to identify pathology, which doesn't necessarily
| have anything to do with dependence.
| notacoward wrote:
| > were likely in some state of mild chemical dependence
|
| > It's not useful to call these people alcoholics.
|
| Whether it's _useful_ is not the point, especially
| whether it 's useful to you personally. Alcoholism has a
| definition, which revolves around dependence. If they're
| dependent they're alcoholics, and it's _still_ different
| than non-dependent binge drinking. You 're basically
| trying to make the same distinction I just did (contrary
| to your own "they're the same" from two posts earlier),
| except that that you're using the term "alcoholism" for
| the wrong side of the distinction.
|
| > In my mind, attaching an "ism" to a substance is only
| useful to identify pathology
|
| You're using "pathology" in a very idiosyncratic way,
| almost opposite to its real meaning. To a clinician,
| social effects are not pathology. The pathology is the
| causes and effects _on the individual_ , so dependence
| qualifies but wrecking your car doesn't.
| nate_meurer wrote:
| > _Alcoholism has a definition, which revolves around
| dependence._
|
| Not... really.
|
| The problem here is that the term "alcoholism" is a
| colloquialism, not a technical term. Neither the DSM nor
| ICD uses it. So I suppose it can mean whatever you want,
| but it would be good for the common usage of the term to
| be useful in some way, and indeed it is in this case. In
| everyday language, the term alcoholism overwhelmingly
| connotes problem drinking. I'm quite steeped in the
| culture for personal reasons, and I've never in my entire
| life heard anyone use the word "alcoholism" to refer to
| completely harmless and controlled consumption.
|
| > _contrary to your own "they're the same" from two posts
| earlier_
|
| No, I asserted that alcoholism, in its everyday
| colloquial sense, connotes abuse. I definitely do not
| assert the same regarding the notion of "dependence",
| which does have a widely used technical definition.
|
| If it's dependence that we're debating, I'll argue that
| mere dependence on alcohol should not qualify it for the
| "alcoholism" label in the common pejorative sense. If you
| disagree, then I really am curious why you would not
| likewise label daily coffee drinkers with "caffeinism"?
|
| In the other direction, I assert that any regular,
| pathological pattern of consumption indicates a degree of
| dependence, but I recognize that there's some semantic
| debate there.
|
| > _You 're using "pathology" in a very idiosyncratic way,
| almost opposite to its real meaning. To a clinician,
| social effects are not pathology._
|
| We're not talking about oncology here. Alcoholism is not
| diagnosed, treated, studied, or managed quite like a
| medical condition such as cancer or diabetes. Outside the
| world of medical doctors, the term "pathology" is usually
| truer to its greek root "pathos". "Pathologic behaviour",
| "pathological gambling", etc.
|
| For what it's worth, the DSM and ICD largely classify
| mental disorders based on behavioural evidence. This is
| certainly true for alcohol dependence and abuse (DSM-IV)
| and alcohol use disorder (DSM-V).
| notacoward wrote:
| > No, I asserted that
|
| In https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26763944 you used
| the exact words "meant the same". Don't retcon.
|
| > Alcoholism is not diagnosed, treated, studied, or
| managed quite like a medical condition
|
| Don't throw around terms like "pathology" then. If you
| have moral opinions about other people's drinking, just
| say so.
|
| > DSM and ICD largely classify mental disorders based on
| behavioural evidence
|
| "Behavioral" does not mean only affect on others. The
| distinction you're trying to make keeps shifting around,
| but AFAICT it hasn't at any point matched any common one.
| prionassembly wrote:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caffeinism
| nate_meurer wrote:
| Thanks, I had no idea!
|
| So this would seem to support my assertion that an "ism"
| generally denotes excessive consumption leading to
| "problems" by whatever definition one chooses.
|
| I've used a month's worth of scare quotes today.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > How do you distinguish alcoholism from alcohol abuse?
|
| Alcoholism a behavioral health condition which inclines one
| toward unhealthy alcohol use.
|
| Alcohol abuse is a behavior which can exist with or without
| that underlying condition.
| DanBC wrote:
| In the UK people tend not to use the term alcoholic in a
| formal setting. They'll talk about dependant drinking or
| problem drinking or binge drinking.
|
| A person can regularly binge drink, but not be dependant on
| alcohol.
| nate_meurer wrote:
| If by "not be dependant" you mean "I can quit any time",
| I think only an unreformed alcoholic would strongly
| agree.
|
| Even if you could arrange a definition of dependence such
| that it doesn't apply to a regular problem drinker, then
| I think the term loses it's utility. The physiology and
| psychology of dependence is an interesting topic, but the
| disease of substance abuse IS the problematic behavior.
|
| EDIT: I had to clean this up a bunch, apologies for the
| butchered first attempt.
| tayo42 wrote:
| I was thinking the other day the world would be a better place if
| alcohol wasn't so prevalent and alternatives were available.
| Everything defaults to including some kind of alcohol, it just
| makes people insufferable and sleezy to be around when you're not
| part of the drinkers (even sometimes when you are part of them).
| Doesn't everyone cringe when you have a nice spot outdoors and a
| group shows up with a 6 pack each or a case of bud lights?
|
| Even in the last year you can look at the pandemic response, so
| much of the unhappiness was around the fact bars were closed. The
| world is ending because you can't drink? People were outraged,
| Its bizarre. Theres also a travel gatekeeping thing around
| visiting bars that is odd too. The idea where you need to go to
| some dive bar in a foreign place to really get the culture. The
| article is kind of right, cheap alcohol culture kind of just
| preys on people who can't help themselves. There isn't anything
| of substance going on when cheap alcohol is involved.
|
| I don't really drink much anymore, maybe one or two drinks,a good
| wine or interesting cocktail. Alcohol kind of physically hurts
| now. All about the dabs, psychedelics and mdma. Imagine a world
| where those can be a regular alternative to excessive drinking at
| a bar. There might still be drug abusers but atleast we would all
| be a little more relaxed.
| nottorp wrote:
| > Even in the last year you can look at the pandemic response,
| so much of the unhappiness was around the fact bars were
| closed. The world is ending because you can't drink? People
| were outraged, Its bizarre.
|
| No, they were outraged because they couldn't meet their
| friends. If they just wanted to drink, they could have got
| alcohol from supermarkets.
| tayo42 wrote:
| You can see your friends without a bar too. Bars being closed
| was a huge thing for people. Opening bars up was more
| important then getting kids back to school.
|
| https://www.epi.org/blog/we-prioritized-open-bars-before-
| giv...
|
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/12/03/macs-
| staten...
|
| > "The people have rights!" one protester yelled, reported
| the Daily News. "Open the door, I'm thirsty!"
| nottorp wrote:
| > You can see your friends without a bar too. Bars being
| closed was a huge thing for people. Opening bars up was
| more important then getting kids back to school.
|
| Possibly for kids getting bullied at schools in the anglo
| saxon world...
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| We had to move our kids to learning in bars because they
| couldn't keep schools open.
| granshaw wrote:
| In many East Asian countries like the one I'm from, there's a
| bustling night culture of open air cafes, watching sports on
| big projector screens etc, no alcohol involved.
|
| Then after my friends came back from college overseas all they
| wanted to do was to go to bars and pubs instead, ugh
| globular-toast wrote:
| There's a few talks by David Nutt available on YouTube and
| they're well worth watching. One of the most interesting things
| he mentions is a possible antidote for alcohol. It's theoretical
| but seems like it should be possible but nobody seems interested
| in developing it. The other thing is how the alcohol industry
| drive a lot of the fear and hysteria around other drugs. Loads of
| people die every single day as a direct result of alcohol, but
| the one time a girl died while using ecstasy the media went into
| a frenzy about it.
|
| The alcohol industry seems to me as bad as the tobacco industry.
|
| I've been teetotal for coming up to two years now. I feel better
| than ever. Alcohol has no positive effects. It serves only to
| numb the senses. I prefer to experience the world in all its
| glory. Luckily it's very easy to be teetotal now. As Nutt
| mentions, you do need to have a glass of drink (that isn't water)
| at all times in social settings, but I can get a lime soda
| anywhere and now have a mocktail from many places. Loads of
| people don't drink either for health reasons, religious or just
| because they don't want to. It's easy.
| stunt wrote:
| I drink moderately and I think it's a personal choice. I also
| think alcoholism is completely different subject.
|
| What I don't like however is all the smart product placements
| that push people that don't otherwise enjoy drinking into it.
| johnorourke wrote:
| For anyone clicking through to the comments thinking "I think I
| sort of need to do something about this but it's too
| hard/inconvenient/boring/...", I'd like to highly recommend the
| book "This Naked Mind" by Annie Grace. It's about $7 on most
| electronic bookstores.
|
| Like everything we use to numb/escape our own minds, alcohol and
| all the marketing we're fed, and the examples we're set while
| growing up, make it easy to _rationally_ think we should cut down
| but there 's no way that message is going to be easily accepted
| by your subconscious!
|
| Other links: - https://www.oneyearnobeer.com/ -
| https://thisnakedmind.com/ - https://medium.com/ainyf-alcohol-is-
| not-your-friend
|
| HTH.
| sethjgore wrote:
| I recommend the same book! It helped a lot with my struggles
| when i was younger.
| gleenn wrote:
| This is amazing. I just installed it (it's a free app with
| donations at the _end_ ) and is exactly the kind of format that
| I think will help me succeed at taking more control of my
| alcohol intake. It actually reminds me of the Ten Percent app
| which is also excellent if your looking for meditation help. I
| cringe when I say multimedia is what things need but I really
| think hearing people talk about what you're trying to
| accomplish is super helpful in staying motivated.
| pattisapu wrote:
| Thanks for these resources.
| mlazos wrote:
| I find that reading many many articles like these enough has me
| at least feel a little guilty before grabbing a drink with
| friends, and I think even that small amount of guilt has reduced
| my consumption significantly.
| readme wrote:
| beer is a food
|
| food is a human right
|
| therefore beer is a human right
| Barrin92 wrote:
| > _There is enough evidence here to make a strong case against
| alcohol on a number of grounds (which Nutt himself does not quite
| do).
|
| Alcohol is a drain on economic growth, damaging our productivity
| and forcing us to spend money on healthcare that could be used
| elsewhere. The CDC estimated the cost of hangovers to the
| American economy as $249bn in 2010. The Institute of Alcohol
| Studies estimates a cost of PS1.4bn a year for British
| productivity._
|
| And therein lies the core argument of the entire piece. Good old
| fashioned Anglo capitalist puritanism. Don't have fun that could
| be harmful or dangerous, don't have any pleasure, optimize your
| life for GDP and close your eyes and think of England.
|
| I seriously wonder why people who argue along these lines and
| apparently write an entire book on the dangers of alcohol don't
| just skip that part and go to the actually interesting question
| and ask themselves why people still drink or do any other drug,
| because we all know that it's dangerous and harmful etc. But
| drugs are also a part of our culture, of our social life, they
| can be a source for creativity or just for pleasure.
|
| There's another interesting little bit in the piece
|
| > _" Left unaddressed is why we think that alcohol is necessary
| to any of those (good and often great) rituals. It's not. I don't
| see why you can't get most of those social benefits anyway."_
|
| I seriously wonder how long you have to hit people on the head
| with Tyler Cowen books until they actually start to believe this
| stuff. A ritual is a sacred, integrated activity. It's not some
| autistic utilitarian thing where you can rip a part out and 'get
| the social benefits'. You take one part out, the entire thing
| falls apart. But I don't think people who think like this even
| have any religious or aesthetic appreciation any more to
| understand this.
| nottorp wrote:
| > Alcohol is a drain on economic growth, damaging our
| productivity and forcing us to spend money on healthcare that
| could be used elsewhere. The CDC estimated the cost of
| hangovers to the American economy as $249bn in 2010. The
| Institute of Alcohol Studies estimates a cost of PS1.4bn a year
| for British productivity.
|
| So? You live to work?
|
| Incidentally, it's not hard to learn how to drink all night
| without having a hangover the next day. Look at tonics or water
| your wine. Easy peasy.
| KozmoNau7 wrote:
| The issue is not the existence of alcohol itself. The problem is
| drinking culture and lax/accepting/apologetic attitudes towards
| excessive alcohol consumption.
|
| That's why a ban on alcohol won't work this time, either.
| lostlogin wrote:
| Some of the proposals were for things like higher tax, bit a
| straight ban. And this changed the behaviour of those most at
| risk.
| ceilingcorner wrote:
| I have noticed that Anglo-American cultures tend to have two
| reactions to substances: over-indulgence and total abolition. It
| strikes me as a very unhealthy relationship.
|
| Places in Southern Europe like France or Italy have a much more
| reasonable approach to alcohol. Perhaps we should aim to emulate
| them and not continue teetering between being teetotalers and
| drunkards.
| tomxor wrote:
| > I have noticed
|
| The extremes, the noisy, stereotypes and what media like to
| focus on get noticed. The rest of us in the 90% who just have a
| little bit with a meal occasionally never get noticed. So
| comparisons between countries and cultures has more to do with
| perception than statistics.
| ceilingcorner wrote:
| I am basing my observations on firsthand experience, not
| media impressions.
| benlumen wrote:
| Interested in this claim that 1.6M in the UK have some level of
| alcohol dependence, because I'd be amazed if it's that low.
| djoldman wrote:
| As has been repeated many times before, it's hard to protect
| people from themselves while at the same time allowing them to be
| independent and free.
|
| Many things people put into their bodies hurt them in the long
| run and sometimes the more the faster. Should we prevent them
| from doing it? In the US, we mostly say no.
|
| It seems to me that most Americans are ok with that.
| thatcat wrote:
| In other parts of the US we mostly say Yes, except for alcohol
| and cigs.
| sesuximo wrote:
| I think this is true. But there are some ways I think the US
| inadvertently creates a culture of getting drunk rather than a
| culture of drinking e.g. many states allow zero underage
| drinking (so ppl illegally do it anyway and to excess) and we
| make every other drug illegal (again, depends a bit by state).
|
| Maybe these restrictions do more good than harm. But they
| definitely do some harm.
| mattnewton wrote:
| I think an under-appreciated angle here is that alcohol, like
| most other addictions, has a major mental health component. How
| many alcoholics are self medicating with cheap and easily
| accessible palliatives, and how many are addicted because of
| social norms? I'm not sure how to measure that but from personal
| anecdotal experience I would expect the former to be an order of
| magnitude larger.
|
| I also think if we look at it from a human suffering perspective
| as humanists, the Christian moral angle is unneeded. We can offer
| alternatives to alcohol that are better for people by
| understanding why they drink. Mental health and general life
| satisfaction are certainly reasons we would need to tackle for
| the worst cases, in addition to the established rituals the
| article talks about. Making moral arguments primarily through
| Christian theories of sin is a major reason the last temperance
| movement (in the US) failed, because it did not understand the
| reasons people drank and offer any alternatives.
| 123pie123 wrote:
| From my basic experience and observations of living in the UK
| (in some not very affluent areas), alcohol is used mainly to
| relieve daily stresses and the obvious social norms.
|
| I suspect society has normalised taking alcohol to numb daily
| stresses or problems. So any sudden top down decision to ban it
| or trying to force a reduction in consumption by raising the
| prices would be met by a very forceful backlash. Any reduction
| would have to be conducted with a long term plan that redirects
| people from this reaction to stress
|
| and also for me, alcohol has seemingly helped me through
| depression , along with excerse
| v_london wrote:
| Problem with government-run alcohol shops is how they reduce
| available selection of drinks. I'm an avid whisky drinker (though
| in moderation of course), and being able to buy rarer bottles
| from specialist shops adds a lot to the experience. It also helps
| small producers since they don't have to negotiate with a
| behemoth of a stockist (imagine if the only way to sell whisky
| would be to negotiate a deal with the state to stock the entire
| UK's alcohol shops). The ABV limit has also caused trouble in the
| beer industry where types of beers that require higher ABV aren't
| produced.
|
| I think the minimum pricing law of Scotland is the way to go when
| regulating alcohol. When I was living there, the system seemed to
| work well and incentivised buying higher quality drinks as well.
| I guess the problem is populist politicians who could easily
| brand it as limiting poor people's drinking, instead of posh
| ones.
| kelnos wrote:
| The thing that's odd to me about only allowing sales from
| government-run shops is that it's entirely unnecessary. There's
| no material difference between a government-run shop and the
| type of privately-run specialist shop you mention. The
| government can still require that specialist shop to have the
| same restricted hours that a government-run shop might have.
|
| I live in a state where restrictions on alcohol sales are
| pretty limited; grocery stores and corner/convenience stores,
| for example, can sell whatever they want alcohol-wise. Many
| stores will keep the more expensive stuff in locked cabinets as
| a shoplifting-prevention measure. I don't think it'd be too
| crazy to require that all hard liquors be kept that way, and
| then sales there can even be restricted by time of day if that
| was desirable. Beer and wine could be left as-is, with no
| restrictions. (On the downside, this would hurt smaller shops
| that aren't specifically liquor stores; locked cabinets are an
| added expense and take up more space.)
| IshKebab wrote:
| Yeah there are _already_ supermarkets that aren 't allowed to
| sell alcohol outside certain hours. I don't know why you need
| an entire chain of government run shops for that.
| dabbledash wrote:
| It really feels like we're experiencing a rebirth of puritanism.
|
| Yes, alcohol is worse for your health than no alcohol. That's
| almost certainly true even for "moderate" drinkers. People do it
| for pleasure. A "case against alcohol" that doesn't address this
| very real benefit is unlikely to have any impact, except with
| people who have decided that pleasure itself is suspect at best.
| claytongulick wrote:
| One of the things that frustrates me with many of these "X
| causes Y number of <consequence>" types of arguments is that
| they rarely provide for any sort of control on the negative
| case.
|
| To your point, what would the numbers look like without
| alcohol?
|
| Perhaps there is a decrease in birth rate as people make more
| judicious choices?
|
| Perhaps people move to other, less healthy intoxicants?
|
| Perhaps suicide rate increases because people are less able to
| blow off steam and occasionally get stupid?
|
| Who knows?
|
| What we do know is that humans are genetically adapted to
| consuming ethanol, have been doing it for thousands of years
| [1], and seem to have a pretty fun time doing it.
|
| > It really feels like we're experiencing a rebirth of
| puritanism
|
| Sometimes it seems like the issue is even broader to me. There
| seems to be a strange obsession recently with getting rid of
| anything that's generally enjoyable.
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_beer#:~:text=A%2
| 0....
| [deleted]
| ruined wrote:
| most of the people i have seen who critique alcohol and
| alcoholic culture are very enthusiastic about other drugs they
| consider safer, healthier, and better. i wouldn't call this
| puritanism. the author reviewed in this article in fact caused
| quite a controversy advocating for cannabis, mdma, and lsd
| while employed by the uk government.
| lanstin wrote:
| I take it you don't live in the southern US. Or India. Or
| Russia.
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| I quit alcohol because it seems very bad for my health. I'm
| fine with other drugs and very non puritanistic. I just don't
| like poisoning myself.
| axiolite wrote:
| > alcohol is worse for your health than no alcohol.
|
| The health benefits of red wine are well known. Alcohol also
| lowers the odds of stroke and improves your cholesterol:
|
| https://www.webmd.com/diet/alcohol-health-benefits#1
| [deleted]
| 1helloworld1 wrote:
| Did you actually read the article? Quoted directly from that
| article - "Unfortunately, there is no proof that alcohol
| actually causes better health".
| lanstin wrote:
| And being chill is healthy. Being super rigid about a bit of
| alcohol in this culture is hard without also being uptight
| and possibly unsocial, both of which are healthy. Maybe
| compare Mormon partiers to regular partiers.
| dabbledash wrote:
| Do they compare it against wine with the ethanol removed?
| IshKebab wrote:
| I agree. I don't know why anyone would listen to this guy who
| confesses that he doesn't enjoy alcohol and calls it "an awful
| drug".
|
| "Man doesn't want people to do thing he doesn't enjoy; news at
| 10"
|
| It's a shame he wrote this blog because at least some of Nutt's
| proposals seem reasonable.
|
| > A Christian framework can be extremely helpful here.
|
| Oh ok, why did I even start reading this?
| lanstin wrote:
| "Wine is proof that God loves us" is the teaching of my
| church.
| thatcat wrote:
| Alcohol is a neurotoxin and causes brain damage. Drink it if
| you want, it's no better than illegal drugs people consume for
| pleasure though. At least some of those aren't neurotoxic...
| readme wrote:
| nah
|
| it's like pruning the dead branches from a shrub
|
| forgetting can be helpful
| thatcat wrote:
| Lol, facts. Hopefully it wasn't important though.
| xvedejas wrote:
| It is hardly clear that low amounts of alcohol (on the order
| of 1 drink/day) are deleterious. The body has a true ability
| for homeostasis, and almost anything in excess will lead to
| problems. Alcohol's threshold for excess is regrettably low,
| for sure, but I think it's nonzero.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| Alcohol is a carcinogen, and when it comes to oral,
| esophageal and stomach cancer, no alcohol is better than 1
| drink a day.
| thatcat wrote:
| There is no lower limit for alcohol being neurotoxic, which
| my asian engineering teachers were always careful to remind
| us when teaching fermentation process design. Not noticing
| the minor amount it causes doesn't mean it isn't slowly
| happening.
| xvedejas wrote:
| This isn't about the drinker noticing, this is about
| measurable physiological outcomes. Longevity, for
| instance, is not clearly affected by low levels of
| alcohol consumption. Not to question your Engineering
| teachers; I wasn't there and don't know the context, but
| there isn't a strong scientific basis behind the
| assertion that "there is no lower limit for alcohol being
| neurotoxic".
| thatcat wrote:
| There is no threshold value below which alcohol causes 0
| damage to neural tissue was their point, which does not
| imply it has a measurable effect on longevity or
| physiology or any metric. If you dilute the alcohol it
| has proportional damaging effect to the concentration.
| It's a theoretic truth not an experimentally measured
| one.
| lanstin wrote:
| Your brain isn't a static system. Being happy, active,
| socially connected can probably grow back/heal the damage
| as fast as it happens.
| enw wrote:
| What about: drugs are fun?
| sgt101 wrote:
| the big subtext is : "that's fun, it must be stopped".
| thrower123 wrote:
| Beer is proof that god loves us
| whateveracct wrote:
| HN is, for the most part, straight edge as can be about drugs.
| The only time weed or other drugs are mentioned favorably is
| when they have some "objective value."
|
| Prevailing opinion of HN comments seems to be getting a lil
| stupid for fun is Bad.
| mod wrote:
| I have the exact opposite view of the average sentiment here.
|
| I see a decent amount of posters talk about using nootropics,
| THC, mushrooms, and alcohol.
|
| There seems to be a lot of interest in "hacking" the body in
| various ways using chemicals.
| minimuffins wrote:
| I don't know, I have seen a lot of pro LSD and psilocybin
| mushroom micro-dosing posts and comments. I think this place
| still has a generally libertarian ethos and most people think
| of drugs questions as best sorted out by a rational market.
| (My own take is different from that, fwiw).
|
| > Prevailing opinion of HN comments seems to be getting a lil
| stupid for fun is Bad.
|
| That part might be true. I think there's a tendency to be a
| little robotic/scientistic/productivist about...just about
| every topic.
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| > The only time weed or other drugs are mentioned favorably
| is when they have some "objective value."
|
| > I don't know, I have seen a lot of pro LSD and psilocybin
| mushroom micro-dosing posts and comments
|
| These ideas are very much in line with each other. The pro-
| psychedelic comments very often talk about the "objective"
| value (studies on mental health benefits and comparative
| safety) rather than only the subjective experience or
| ethics of criminalization.
|
| Personally I want all drugs legalized on ethics/freedom
| principles, but especially with Psilocybin, MDMA, and
| Ketamine there seems to be a mounting wealth of evidence
| suggesting these things are miracle drugs in many respects.
| rcpt wrote:
| For anyone unfamiliar David Nutt is the drug researcher
| responsible for this informative chart
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Development_of_a_ration...
|
| He was chairman of the UKs Advisory Council on Misuse of Drugs
| for seven years until his dismissal for advocating that that
| illicit drugs should be classified according to the actual
| evidence of the harm they cause. In Nutts ranking, alcohol and
| tobacco were more harmful than LSD, ecstasy or cannabis and
| should thus be subject to stricter regulations.
| The_rationalist wrote:
| This chart clearly is incomplete. The dimension of tolerance is
| missing. Can I really take a Xanax every weekend and
| consistently feel as good as my first time with it? And not
| feel bad the other days of the week? (the same way as alcohol)
| If so then I guess everybody should trade Alcohol for Xanax, is
| that so simple?
|
| Also Khat is the best on this chart yet I _believe_ that it
| makes you feel _extremely_ tired the next day.
|
| That being said the topic is really interesting and I am
| looking forward to a better rational chart.
| TheCoelacanth wrote:
| > I guess everybody should trade Alcohol for Xanax
|
| Benzodiazepines are at virtually the same position on the
| chart that alcohol is, so I don't think the chart should be
| viewed as an endorsement for switching. They are of roughly
| the same level of danger, but that doesn't mean that they are
| dangerous in exactly the same ways.
| S_A_P wrote:
| Its kind of interesting to see which substances people wont
| give up vs what is seen as a 'menace to society'. Plotted on a
| graph I suspect we would see Alcohol and Opiates closer
| together than many other drugs. On the other hand, drinking
| alcohol is human tradition dating back thousands of years- how
| do you unwind this? Do we really want to regulate alcohol more
| strictly? The last time the US tried that it backfired as bad
| or worse as the war on drugs.
| rcpt wrote:
| Opium goes back thousands of years to. Honestly I don't know
| how it came to be demonized.
| root_axis wrote:
| Seems somewhat oversimplified. It's much easier to "overdose"
| on LSD or MDMA than tobacco or alcohol. Additionally, frequent
| use of LSD and MDMA have pretty severe health consequences much
| sooner than frequent use of tobacco or alcohol. I'd also add
| that LSD poses a similar driving hazard to alcohol. On the
| other hand, tobacco and alcohol don't have any therapeutic
| qualities unlike MDMA and LSD. Personally. I think alcohol's
| harm is amplified by its prevalence throughout society, if one
| could buy MDMA and LSD at every shop and venue it'd be a
| disaster on par or worse than alcohol.
|
| edit: adding some sources
|
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S000709121...
|
| https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/psychological-medici...
| ssijak wrote:
| Lsd and mdma build up tolerance quite fast and have
| crosstolerance between each other. Also, almost zero people
| take lsd and drive. And lsd is anti addictive in general.
| woopwoop wrote:
| As far as I know, there are literally no deaths attributable
| to LSD overdose. It is safe (if only in the sense of acute
| poisoning) to take even at much higher than the typical dose.
| On the other hand, thousands of people die of alcohol
| poisoning in the United States every year.
| anaerobicover wrote:
| You can't meaningfully compare absolute numbers there,
| though, given the huge disparity in availability and
| perception. (LSD is "special" in a way alcohol is not:
| people may be more likely to be cautious when using it.)
| woopwoop wrote:
| But I think the LSD number is literally zero, ever.
| tayo42 wrote:
| You have a source on this? Mdma and lsd are pretty self
| regulating. mdma will just stop working and lsd likely will
| just kick your ass sooner or later. opiates and alcohol can
| be insidious addictions that become normal parts of your
| life.
| kdtop3 wrote:
| I find the graph that others link to [1] to be confusing at best.
| It seems to be tabulating *absolute harm* over all users. So if a
| substance has many users, it has more total harm. But then the
| substances are ranked in a way that seems to imply the intrinsic
| danger of it all by itself. Thus alcohol may cause more damage on
| a national level than crack cocaine. But tracking the lives of 1
| user of alcohol vs 1 user of crack cocaine would show, IMHO, the
| cocaine use to lead to more problems.
|
| A similar analogy would be to compare the relative danger of
| automobiles to atomic bombs.
|
| [1] https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2019/06/25/what-
| is-...
| k__ wrote:
| I didn't drink, since the pandemic hit and feel rather good.
|
| For me most bad habits come down to peer pressure or boredom.
|
| I drink socially and people often gift me drinks in the club.
| Sometimes the parties are boring and I drink a bit so I stop
| caring.
|
| That all went away with Corona.
| kasperni wrote:
| David Nutt (the author of the book that was reviwed) is a
| professor at Imperial College London. He was famously fired as
| the UK government's chief drug adviser for saying that alcohol
| and tobacco are more harmful than many recreational drugs.
|
| I've seen his harm score chart quite a few times here on HN [1]
|
| [1] https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2019/06/25/what-
| is-...
| quasarj wrote:
| lol but there is not now, nor has there ever been, any question
| that alcohol and tobacco are more harmful than other
| recreational drugs...
| minimuffins wrote:
| Yeah but you'll notice having the facts and convincing
| everybody of the facts against the grain of industrial
| propaganda is not a trivial task.
| sideshowb wrote:
| He's also, iirc, working on getting a healthier, synthetic,
| reversible alternative to alcohol approved in legislation. But
| I'm not holding my breath
| Tenoke wrote:
| I talked to him about it when I met him 10 years ago and was
| much more optimistic then. As far as I know this isn't any
| closer to being on the market now than it was back then.
| antihero wrote:
| I think the issue is that drinking is about far far more than
| simply getting drunk.
| LeoPanthera wrote:
| If they don't call it synthehol I will be very disappointed.
| emsy wrote:
| It already exists: GHB. The problem is the drug's reputation
| and the problem with dosage, which could be alleviated when
| legalized. It's also addictive but then again, so is alcohol
| but alcohol wrecks your health.
| Tenoke wrote:
| I agree but sadly I don't see something so dosage-dependent
| ever becoming mainstream. Another GABAergic in a similar
| vein might have a better chance.
| mam2 wrote:
| Ghb leads to memory problems, its addictive and indeed,
| mistakes in dosages can send you right to a heart attack..
|
| Source : addiction happened to people i met and the HR
| happened in a friends party.
| serf wrote:
| > Ghb leads to memory problems, its addictive and indeed,
| mistakes in dosages can send you right to a heart
| attack..
|
| sounds like caffeine (from those criteria)
|
| [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effect_of_caffeine_on_
| memory
|
| [1]:
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3777290/
|
| [2]: https://www.webmd.com/heart-
| disease/news/20060815/coffee-may...
| n4r9 wrote:
| Is GHB reversible?
| mam2 wrote:
| From someone who has tried many drugs and met people who were
| in the lifestyle.. its not completely true.
|
| Long term use of most substances ALWAYS lead to problems and
| even the short term there are bad trips, brain zaps that
| alcohol dont bring. Also even for stuff that do not lead to
| physical cravings such as mdma, i have seen soo many people
| falling into an addiction. Its not a game.
|
| Alchol wont be banned ever, but i think is a retarded debate to
| say "we should decriminalize other stuff be cause alcohl is
| bad". This is the worse reason possible.
|
| Im quite happy drugs are banned and not mainstream so that my
| children will stay away from them and maybe try later when they
| feel more mature.
|
| That doesnt mean i support the american war on drugs or jailing
| people for 3g of cannabis.. but the decriminalization of weed
| is stupid to considering two of my friends who have an impaired
| short term memory after 1 - 2 years periods of abuse.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| > _Im quite happy drugs are banned and not mainstream so that
| my children will stay away from them and maybe try later when
| they feel more mature._
|
| Illegal drugs are much more accessible to teenagers than
| alcohol is.
| n4r9 wrote:
| That's an oversimplification of Butt's position. His main
| point is that drugs policy should be more evidence based and
| less political.
| mam2 wrote:
| Is tho ? Or is it simply is way of bringing a more PC
| version of "drugs are not that bad" in an anti drugs crowd
| ?
|
| I dont see any sort of upside in legalizing drugs at the
| society level considering the effects ive see on people.
| THATs a simple position.
| goatsi wrote:
| >brain zaps that alcohol dont bring
|
| Alcohol brings seizures, which are considerably worse (and
| potentially fatal).
|
| >That doesnt mean i support the american war on drugs or
| jailing people for 3g of cannabis.
|
| How do you intend to enforce the illegality of substances
| (and in a manner that will cause your children to fear
| possessing them) without punitive measures?
| mam2 wrote:
| > Alcohol brings seizures, which are considerably worse
| (and potentially fatal).
|
| This is literally the first time ive heard about that. That
| said i do think alcohol is dangerous.
|
| > How do you intend to enforce the illegality of substances
| (and in a manner that will cause your children to fear
| possessing them) without punitive measures?
|
| The status quo in my country is fine to me:
|
| Drugs are easily available, fines are low (i know a ecstasy
| dealer who got caught in a club woth 60 pills and got 3
| month of 'potential' jail time that will apply only if he
| gets caught again) , its badly seen by society and
| "forbidden".
|
| That means not a lot of people do drugs. Motivated people
| can acess them, but you dont have a society of degenerate
| zombies. All good to me.
| goatsi wrote:
| >This is literally the first time ive heard about that.
|
| I had hoped it was common knowledge that alcohol
| withdrawal could lead to fatal seizures. People should be
| aware that going cold turkey (abruptly stopping heavy
| drinking) can put them at serious risk.
|
| "All the people who want to do drugs are already using
| them, but society will crumble into degeneracy if they
| are legalized"?
|
| What do you anticipate changing if they are legalized?
| [deleted]
| whateveracct wrote:
| Nothing wrong with getting shtupid for fun.
|
| ofc treat the it with the respect you'd treat any recreational
| drug.
| samcodes wrote:
| I think alcohol and tobacco use are primarily symptoms, not
| causes, of problems. They, along with depression, anxiety, ADHD,
| and other addictions, are strongly correlated with ACE (adverse
| childhood experience) score. As smoking has become taboo, other
| stimulants became more popular (adult ADD). I'd expect something
| similar if we restricted alcohol without solving the problems
| that lead to dependency.
| [deleted]
| JadoJodo wrote:
| The article's conclusions aside, I wonder how many people enjoy
| the taste of alcohol itself? While my personal beliefs prohibit
| me from imbibing in a way that would cause inebriation/dependence
| (and getting buzzed fits in the former), I have tried most kinds
| of alcohol and have never really "gotten" it. A coworker bought
| me my first drink on my 21st (a bottle of Jack Daniel's) and a
| friend made me a Jack and Coke with it. Halfway through the glass
| I just wanted a plain coke.
|
| Since then, I've tried a wide variety of beer, wine, rum,
| bourbon, etc and have only once come away from the experience
| with a "I didn't hate that/I'd buy that again.". The vast
| majority of the time I've failed to finish what I'm served (or do
| so out of politeness) and reflect that I'm simply "missing the
| point" because I'm not interested in inebriation/"buzzed". I'm
| sure there are those that enjoy the flavor (perhaps in the same
| way that I "enjoy" very spicy hot sauce), but wanted to ask.
| The_rationalist wrote:
| Some alcohols are the best drinks I've ever tasted such as
| Caipirinha with strawberry and a lot of sugar. If only I could
| achieve this taste without alcohol. (note that I rarely drink
| so my taste is not amplified by an addiction). Unfortunately
| such alcohols 1) have a lot of sugar and 2) are not mainstream
| in my culture but this is e.g in Brazil.
| d0mine wrote:
| Alcohol is a poison. You don't drink it for the taste.
| Certainly, not the first time you drink it.
| zeroimpl wrote:
| I'm similar - rarely drink and dislike most alcoholic drinks -
| except that I have found certain flavors I like. Usually it's
| sweetened wines, or cider. Also it's often about pairing - the
| acidity or tartness sometimes just hits the spot.
|
| Good things to compare to are:
|
| - spicy food
|
| - stinky foods (eg cheese)
|
| - coffee
|
| All of the above are acquired tastes. I could barely eat spicy
| before, now I love it. Stinky cheese makes we want to vomit,
| but others enjoy it. I only drink decaf, yet periodically enjoy
| a black coffee, something which seemed absurd when I was
| younger.
|
| To me alcohol is just one more flavor option. I wouldn't want
| it banned just because other people can't control themselves.
| falcor84 wrote:
| I don't know if it's just the taste or some conditioned
| response, but having a glass of cold lager (or particularly a
| pilsner) at the end of a long day tastes like heaven to me, in
| a way that no other drink does.
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| It tastes better when your taste buds age. It was gross until I
| was about 24 then it became delicious.
|
| This is why when the price of beer went up 18+ people stopped
| buying it because they only used to buy it as a cheap way to
| get drunk. Drinks companies switched to making extremely sweet
| alcoholic drinks to counteract that and marketed them towards
| this audience to make up the loss.
|
| I used to work in advertising and worked on marketing one of
| these a products so this is what I heard from one of the worlds
| largest breweries while doing it.
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