U.S. alcohol-related deaths have doubled, study says • Hacker News Board

Re: U.S. alcohol-related deaths have doubled, study says

#51

Post by dranktoomuch » Fri, Jan 10, 2020, 6:40 PM UTC

jokowueu wrote: post #41

dranktoomuch wrote: post #20

Hey gang. I've been an HN member for a long time, fairly prominent Bay Area tech executive, rich in the sense of both bank accounts and family. Alcohol brought me to my knees in my late 20s / early 30s. It started out as the typical "social lubricant" to help a natural introvert be better at connecting with people and was wonderful at that - I was the life of the party. Over a decade it leaked into a "requirement" fo…

I know a functional alcoholic that drins a very large amount of alcohol but doesn't get drunk from it. He wants to stop but refuses to go through long PAWs. How long was it until you felt your normal self ?

a couple of weeks, for alcoholics w/significant PAWs they should work with a doctor or inpatient in addition to AA or similar early 2 week program, of which there are many i can reccomend depending on location

other interesting timing stuff for me

30 days until believing i could actually do it "one day at a time"

90 days until the cravings subsided reguarly

1 year until cravings for the most part behind

2 years until no more alcohol dreams !

Re: U.S. alcohol-related deaths have doubled, study says

#52

Post by opportune » Fri, Jan 10, 2020, 6:41 PM UTC

WhompingWindows wrote: post #28

opportune wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, the worst thing about alcohol is how much it affects other people compared to other drugs. Not only from drunk driving, lots of people commit assault/domestic violence/sexual/nuisance crimes as well while under the influence. People on opioids might steal and lie to feed their addictions but I think the harm to others in the worst case is a lot less.

Ethanol removes inhibitions, therefore people make bad decisions and they lose their filters which prevents their immoral impulses from rising to fruition. This is why someone being a "mean drunk" is a very bad sign...it's surfacing what is below the surface. If someone is a silly/happy drunk, it's a much more benign sign.

I don’t think most alcoholics would agree with this, btw. People who get drunk a lot usually aren’t one single emotion each time. This is almost on par with the belief that different liquors get you “different kinds” of drunk

Re: U.S. alcohol-related deaths have doubled, study says

#53

Post by dranktoomuch » Fri, Jan 10, 2020, 6:43 PM UTC

opportune wrote: post #38

dranktoomuch wrote: post #20

Hey gang. I've been an HN member for a long time, fairly prominent Bay Area tech executive, rich in the sense of both bank accounts and family. Alcohol brought me to my knees in my late 20s / early 30s. It started out as the typical "social lubricant" to help a natural introvert be better at connecting with people and was wonderful at that - I was the life of the party. Over a decade it leaked into a "requirement" fo…

After going sober, how did you deal with social situations where either other people were moderately drinking or you were expected to be gregarious?

Great question, the first year my sponsor said "avoid those events or have an escape plan"

avoiding was a non starter so the "escape plan" was I committed to leave, akwardly as it may be, before i picked up a drink.

aka if someobdy was pressuring me to drink to the point i felt i had to i would say "ok get me a beer i have to go to the bathroom" and then disappear and blame it on an upset stomach

and believe the truth that unless you take somebody else's drink away from them or ask them to stop drinking nobody cares if you have a beer or a coke in your hand

After the first year I learned that caffiene has a similar effect on me in social situations if i need to ramp up and can be just as engaging / moreso

Re: U.S. alcohol-related deaths have doubled, study says

#54

Post by downerending » Fri, Jan 10, 2020, 6:43 PM UTC

umvi wrote: post #44

ronnier wrote: post #12

The state of men in the US is really deteriorating. Men are drugging, drinking, and smoking theirselves to death. And sometimes the death is very explicit, being by suicide which is climbing to rates higher than ever. Prisons are filled with men, universities are increasingly seeing fewer men than women. Men are increasingly sexless much longer than females. Seems we have a big problem on our hands.

From TFA: "Some of the greatest increases were found among women ..."

On a percentage basis, yes. In terms of absolute numbers, it appears that men are still "winning".

I do expect women to catch up--despair is ultimately an equal-opportunity killer.

Re: U.S. alcohol-related deaths have doubled, study says

#55

Post by tempsy » Fri, Jan 10, 2020, 6:44 PM UTC

mlrotter wrote: post #39

tempsy wrote: post #26

microdosing LSD has apparently been shown to extremely effective in curbing alcoholism

I think microdosing is more a part of the nootropics world. Regular dose of LSD or Psilocybin is associated with getting a new perspective on one's addition, possibly by opening new pathway connections in the brain.

i've only seen studies specifically targeting alcoholism and not other types of addictions. in this case it may actually be physiological and not just because LSD "gives you a new perspective" on something

Re: U.S. alcohol-related deaths have doubled, study says

#56

Post by kerkeslager » Fri, Jan 10, 2020, 6:44 PM UTC

randlet wrote: post #18

kerkeslager wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's also a drug who's abuse regularly kills people other than those using it. I don't think this is unique to alcohol. Nicotine and driving seems pretty okay, but I can't think of any other deadly drugs out there which wouldn't impair your driving. EDIT: As other users have brought up, nicotine kills plenty of people other than those using it, in the form of second-hand smoke.

Sure, lots of drugs impair your driving, but alcohol seems to be the one that people drive after using most frequently. This could be just selection bias though given that alcohol is the most widely used hard drug and easiest to measure/detect on the side of the road. It would be interesting to see a "drug" vs "drives after using drug" analysis!

Yeah, I agree that would be interesting, but I don't think we can say right now.

One problem with collecting this data is that breathalyzers are cheap, easy, well-known, and available. If there's an equivalent for detecting impairment from other drugs, I don't know of it.

Re: U.S. alcohol-related deaths have doubled, study says

#57

Post by opportune » Fri, Jan 10, 2020, 6:44 PM UTC

murph-almighty wrote: post #48

wall o' text Alcohol kind of creeps up on you over time. I was in Greek Life in college. I don't regret a second of it, but the drinking culture was omnipresent (we did have dry brothers but if you drank you drank). After college I moved back home. I had a few concerning episodes that one could "pass" as a mildly embarassing thing (vomiting after a comedy show once I was home, passing out during a family party). The…

Some people are able to moderate drinking after periods of binge drinking but if you find you can’t moderate after multiple attempts to do so, your best strategy is to just quit.

It can be hard to not have anything to drink when everyone else is, but it’s better than making a fool of yourself somewhat frequently

Re: U.S. alcohol-related deaths have doubled, study says

#58

Post by trts » Fri, Jan 10, 2020, 6:45 PM UTC

awb wrote: post #10

big_chungus wrote: post #4

Opioid issues are easy PR, which is why they get the limelight. The perception is that only junkies abuse opioids, but lots of people drink alcohol; it's "normal", unlike opioids. As someone who doesn't drink, I've personally had a difficult time for not doing so (professionally, socially, etc.) because there's very much an expectation that everyone does. It's the typical "other guy is bad" strategy, and serves as a…

> I've personally had a difficult time for not doing so (professionally, socially, etc.) It was the same for me for about 6 months, maybe a year. Then people stopped offering drinks or asking why I didn't drink and things felt normal again. I think part of it was not going in to how bad it is for you because people who drink already know. I don't get uncomfortable without a drink, but if I feel like other people are…

My personal experience has been that nobody notices. I have even had people ask me the next day how bad I was hurting from the night before.

But you're right, it is true that it makes people uncomfortable.

When someone offers me a drink, I usually just say thank you, maybe in a bit, or grab something else, or else just accept and not consume it or occasionaly take one small sip. As far as I know my colleagues have no idea that it's not something I ever do. I know this because I also have other colleagues who say, "I don't drink" and have witnessed them become a subject of speculation and intrigue among others when they are not around.

The extent of the myth surrounding alcohol and its role in society seems to drive people to make extreme conclusions about an individual's choice to use it or not ('they must have hit rock bottom' e.g.). My preference is to avoid something obviously bad for my physical and emotional health that has no clear upside, and to just leave it at that.

Re: U.S. alcohol-related deaths have doubled, study says

#59

Post by dranktoomuch » Fri, Jan 10, 2020, 6:46 PM UTC

WhompingWindows wrote: post #27

dranktoomuch wrote: post #20

Hey gang. I've been an HN member for a long time, fairly prominent Bay Area tech executive, rich in the sense of both bank accounts and family. Alcohol brought me to my knees in my late 20s / early 30s. It started out as the typical "social lubricant" to help a natural introvert be better at connecting with people and was wonderful at that - I was the life of the party. Over a decade it leaked into a "requirement" fo…

How religious is AA?

Per the comments below it's what you make it and some groups skew more towards a traditional "God" understanding

my experience in general with norcal AA groups is "higher power" is used instead of "God" almost exclusively, people are very careful to not push God / religious understanding / etc

At step 3 you have to turn it over to a "higher power" which is a reflection of the understanding that it is unlikely you, yourself have the power to control alcohol and there must be something "Greater than" you - that can be "physics" that can be "the moon" and a guy who has been sober a very long time in the meeting i go to says his higher power is the "light fixture"

Re: U.S. alcohol-related deaths have doubled, study says

#60

Post by throwawayhhakdl » Fri, Jan 10, 2020, 6:46 PM UTC

jokowueu wrote: post #2

>The research shows that in 2017, alcohol proved to be even more deadly than illicit drugs, including opioids. That year there were about 70,000 drug overdose deaths — about 2,300 fewer than those involving alcohol, >Only cigarettes are deadlier than alcohol: More than 480,000 people die each year in the U.S. because of smoking-related illnesses. I didn't realise how much worse this is compared to the opioid epedemic…

I am curious how these interplay. Like liver disease and lung cancer are both long term effects from chronic use. If you smoke and drink alcohol, is one more likely to kill you than the other first?

Also I would have loved to have seen the median for this figure because as an average it’s astonishing

In the United States, 70.1% of the population aged 18 and older (about 173.3 million people) consumed alcohol in 2017, averaging approximately 3.6 gallons of pure alcohol per drinker, or about 2.1 standard U.S. drinks per day