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

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

#221

Post by relativeadv »

0x8BADF00D wrote: post #143
ccsnags wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Number of drinks is not a good way, in my experience. It’s a detail that isn’t important unless you are trying to game your own standard. You will convince yourself that your arbitrary line makes you ok. Hangovers turn into waking up drunk at some point. For me, they were a reason to drink. Withdrawal is like a hangover that lasts for weeks. The whole time, you will want a drink. My bottom was the realization that my…

Taking a bath as they say (my uncle used to do it until he developed cancer) is indicative of a problem IMO. When you wake up at 9 AM and start drinking, get drunk the whole day, sleep and repeat the whole cycle, that's when you definitively have a problem.

Yes and no. I know many people that would be well served if they removed this idea of, "Well, i can't be an alcoholic because i don't drink beer for breakfast" notion from their minds. I was never like that either, but I did use it as an escape at almost every opportunity I could. I would spend an enormous portion of my waking life rumination about alcohol and strategizing over how to get away with it. When will i start drinking today? How much will I drink and not have a hangover? Well, theres that dinner at 7 tonight. Do you think they'll each have one or two drinks? Would i get some stares if i have three drinks?

I'll be a year sober next month.

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

#222

Post by pfdietz »

It's been a decade since my brother, who had suffered from alcoholism for years, ended his life. He had withdrawn from the family and let his personal life go all to hell financially, including a large chunk of unpaid Virginia income taxes. I wish I had realized what trouble he was in, but I'm not sure it would have helped if I had.

Financial distress is tied in to all this substance abuse, both as a cause and a consequence.

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

#223

Post by IGotThroughIt »

pfdietz wrote: post #222

It's been a decade since my brother, who had suffered from alcoholism for years, ended his life. He had withdrawn from the family and let his personal life go all to hell financially, including a large chunk of unpaid Virginia income taxes. I wish I had realized what trouble he was in, but I'm not sure it would have helped if I had. Financial distress is tied in to all this substance abuse, both as a cause and a cons…

Man, I'm so sorry you went through this with your brother.

It's better to lay off the booze completely or until one can gain control - if that's even possible for you. I find that it makes a bad situation worse.

For anyone going through this, my experience and general advice is as follows:

You need to feel the pain that you're going through instead of masking it with alcohol. Pain lets you know something's gone awry and that you need to address it asap.

I don't know if anyone has any literary references that alcohol enhances anxiety and depression - because I'd like to see it - but it was my experience.

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

#224

Post by dan-robertson »

sadfklsjlkjwt wrote: post #189
ribosometronome wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Males also die five years younger, on average. A large portion of the gap has roots in poor mental health (risk-taking behavior, alcohol/diet, and suicide).

Rather than blaming men for not living longer consider how much less is spent on treating and researching male health issues than female. For example in the UK boys were offered the HPV vaccine 10 years after girls. Yet during that period male death rates from HPV related throat cancer were comparable to female death rates from HPV related cervical cancer.

I don’t really buy this claim. I think there are also examples of this the other way round (eg endometriosis affects many women but little research was done into it for a long time and people were turned away being told they were just imagining their pain instead of being given a diagnosis).

I don’t think I’m in a good position to guess at which sex is treated worse by medical research but I don’t think it’s obviously men.

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

#225

Post by SauciestGNU »

sibeliuss wrote: post #165
SauciestGNU wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For some people weed might not be it, but for me it is. A combination of coffee and a strong sativa edible for an evening outing satisfies my escapist tendencies and is quite enjoyable for me.

When I cut back on my drinking I tried the weed substitute (I live where where its legal, and could experiment with strains) but never found anything that was "fun". Interesting, yes, but not a substitute. I know plenty of folks who vastly prefer it to alcohol, though, which I think is great.

One thing I've found with weed is that it's not really fun on its own, it just changes how you perceive what you're already doing. So rather than sit at a bar with friends I find myself choosing to see live music, or to play music, build something, or do some other creative endeavor.

It's definitely not a one to one replacement for alcohol, as I don't find myself doing exactly the same things as I would if I went out drinking, but what I do when I get high generally feels more fulfilling.

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

#226

Post by pfdietz »

IGotThroughIt wrote: post #223
pfdietz wrote: post #222

It's been a decade since my brother, who had suffered from alcoholism for years, ended his life. He had withdrawn from the family and let his personal life go all to hell financially, including a large chunk of unpaid Virginia income taxes. I wish I had realized what trouble he was in, but I'm not sure it would have helped if I had. Financial distress is tied in to all this substance abuse, both as a cause and a cons…

Man, I'm so sorry you went through this with your brother. It's better to lay off the booze completely or until one can gain control - if that's even possible for you. I find that it makes a bad situation worse. For anyone going through this, my experience and general advice is as follows: You need to feel the pain that you're going through instead of masking it with alcohol. Pain lets you know something's gone awry…

I think in his case, he had just given up, and decided he was going to die relatively young. In that scenario, why not run up big debts? He must have been planning his exit for a while.

The slightest silver lining was that no one in the family felt any need to step up and go through the traumatic experience of administering his estate: it had negative value, so what would have been the point? I'm not sure whatever happened to his car, which was left parked on the street somewhere. I also felt sorry for the people he had rented his house from, as he left it in a state that required considerable repair. They tried to get the family to pay for that, but of course they had no legal leg to stand on. I told the court I'd have no objection to them, as debtors, handling the estate, if they wished to do so, but they never did.

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

#227

Post by sneak »

yason wrote: post #206

This is completely off-topic but... The article in question gave an accidental glimpse of a better world or, well, better web. The cookie and data protection dialog asks the usual question. The choices are to agree and continue, or "Decline and Visit Plain Text Site"! What? Someone still does plaintext sites? And to get the plaintext version you also get the privilege of not having to accept any of this: "...use cook…

Plot twist: most users prefer pictures and video, and don't care about their privacy until years later when their historic data is used against them.

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

#228

Post by watwut »

elfexec wrote: post #220
watwut wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The soviet collapse was far worse for russia than ww2 by any measure. That is literally not true, by a lot. Ww2 hit russia harder then west which was hit super hard. There was whole year of males basically killed (not sure which one, but the ones that were 18 when it all started I think). There were massive atrocities against civilian population, whole areas burned down and all that uncontrolled violence going on a…

> Ww2 hit russia harder then west which was hit super hard. I know. Russia suffered greatly in ww2. That's my point. It's why I compared ww2 to the soviet collapse. That's how awful the soviet collapse was for russia. It was even worse than ww2. I never claimed the west suffered more than russia in ww2. No country suffered more than russia in ww2. > What happened is that post ww2, people had children. Not only that t…

Childbirths went down everywhere easter and central Europe. And it is not just poverty - if anything midle class and educated women are less likely to have kids.

It is often oportunities to not be mom at home that attract women.

"Objective analysis" that centers on birthrate only is not objective at all. Especially when it ignores effects of Stalin rule on people and conflates ruling party health with populace health.

Comunist regime did not had healthy economy - it is one of reasons why it became weak.

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

#229

Post by Spooky23 »

hooande wrote: post #162
unstatusthequo wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not surprised at all. Why cause yourself trouble by airing dirty laundry? Zero upside for him to do so, and really no reason to. Knowing he is X person doesn’t add anything to the message, it would almost certainly have blowback for him.

what's the blowback that you envision? maybe one of his investors will say "you used to be an alcoholic so we're pulling funding"?

Pride is one of the cardinal sins. Doing a peacock walk creates and reinforces the type of self delusion that got you in trouble to begin with.

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

#230

Post by acjohnson55 »

wallace_f wrote: post #101
ccsnags wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Early to late twenties for me. I struggled through AA but I found it to be too defeatist. I couldn’t get clean framing the problem the way that they do. The turning point for me was a joke by a stand up comedian that kind of glorified being a drunk. Doug Stanhope had a line similar to “addiction is just a thing you like doing more than living your life”. I chose to live my life. I got hobbies, took classes, worked a…

I feel like my whole life is a series of addictions designed to prevent me from drudging through the extreme anger and sadness I have in my life. At least, luckily, I don't like to drink so excessively.

I've been there. Have you figured out how to work through those deep seated emotional states?
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