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

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

#281

Post by cityzen » Sat, Jan 11, 2020, 7:24 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?

I quit drinking 12 years ago but made it a point to carry on with my day to day life and not avoid situations. If I'm in a situation where people are moderately drinking, I ... don't drink. If people ask me why I don't drink, I ask them why they do drink. At the end of the day, whether I'm getting shitfaced or not drinking at all is my business. I have had a few people make a big deal about it and I just tell them they're being an asshole and they must be really insecure if making a big deal about me NOT drinking is all they're focused on.

If you have social anxiety, talk to a therapist. My drinking got out of control from a cycle having anxiety which was relieved by drinking which would cause anxiety.

Life is pretty boring in the beginning when you quit. You start to realize how much of your social life is dictated by drinking and how much time and money you spend on it.

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

#282

Post by mindslight » Sat, Jan 11, 2020, 7:57 PM UTC

taneq wrote: post #103

wjossey wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We were able to work with the local county sheriff, as well as social services, to get him forced into a hospital due to him being a danger to himself. In Ohio, where he was located, this is called a pink-slip law. He was forced to go to a hospital, where he went into a brief 72 hour coma while he was withdrawing from alcohol. From there, he was hospitalized for another 7 days, and then forced to transfer to a physic…

> Should people be allowed to drink themselves to death? Should families be powerless to help a family member with a disease that makes is so addictive, they can no longer make rational choices in relation to that substance? If you're fat and likely to die of heart disease, should your family be allowed to physically restrain you from buying another burger? What about cigarettes, can you lock them up to force them to…

If your family judges that you're not longer able to safely drive, should they take away the car keys?

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

#283

Post by ribosometronome » Sat, Jan 11, 2020, 8:35 PM UTC

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.

Understanding cause of death is not "blaming men". The reasons for the gap are, for the most part, known. Big gaps are explained away by the suicide rate for men being 3.54x higher for males vs females and men delaying preventative medical treatment.

If you're arguing for the stoic-ness of traditional masculinity as a way to maintain mental health, as the comment I was replying to was, it's important to understand the real mental health issues and longevity issues associated with that same behavior.

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

#284

Post by vasilipupkin » Sat, Jan 11, 2020, 8:42 PM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #275

samcodes wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought the latest studies hypothesized that there was a hidden variable - social interaction. Moderate drinkers were more likely to have consistent social interaction, which is strongly correlated with positive outcomes - enough to cancel out the negative health effects from drinking.

I agree with you. Here's a recent well run study, in a respected journal, paid for by Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6... > Alcohol use is a leading risk factor for global disease burden and causes substantial health loss. We found that the risk of all-cause mortality, and of cancers specifically, rises with increasing levels of consumption, and the level…

I addressed this elsewhere in this thread. Even this study finds benefits for heart disease and the all in mortality is affected by accidents, which doesn't apply to a moderate drinker who doesn't drink and drive. Also, this study inexplicably includes tuberculosis as the leading cause of death caused by alcohol. Perhaps this is the case in some countries, but seems irrelevant for those of us moderate drinkers who live in the developed world.

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

#285

Post by dpark » Sat, Jan 11, 2020, 9:11 PM UTC

swagasaurus-rex wrote: post #279

dpark wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay? But that doesn’t make any sense because most assemblies (see: employment) of people don’t involve alcohol.

Well, employment would mean social interaction at the workplace is privatized. Unless its government work. Then it would be fraternizing.

So pick literally any other social interaction that doesn’t require alcohol consumption. Aside from literal alcohol tastings, I’m not sure that any social interactions require alcohol.

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

#286

Post by karmelapple » Sat, Jan 11, 2020, 9:45 PM UTC

bradlys wrote: post #122

My father is an alcoholic. (in his case, he went to rehab and doesn't drink much anymore but he is still an alcoholic) I used to think that I was going to drink at one point. I remember thinking, "if I was of age I'd like to buy that lady a drink." But by the time I turned of age and could, I decided I wouldn't touch it. I'd never really been offered alcohol growing up - so maybe that helped settle in the habit. But,…

> If my significant other wants a drink, I tell her to put it on a separate bill.

I assume this has worked well for you, and I’m glad if it has.

Are you married, or in a long-term relationship where you have a shared bank account? Will your attitude towards this change under those conditions? Or do you plan to continue asking your significant other to separate it out and specifically use her money to pay?

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

#287

Post by frickinLasers » Sat, Jan 11, 2020, 9:53 PM UTC

cowsandmilk wrote: post #125

frickinLasers wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe they're similar questions in that they each address an addiction (junk food, nicotine, adrenaline, adrenaline), and for the most part, the only person at risk of death is the addict.

They are similar, but also quite dissimilar. Withdrawal from cigarettes or junk food don’t send you into a 72 hour coma. Smoking and junk food don’t have the huge impacts to how you treat those around you that being drunk all the time does. Saying these things are similar is trivializing the actual physical and psychological effects of alcoholism.

> Withdrawal from cigarettes or junk food don’t send you into a 72 hour coma.

I don't see how this is relevant to the question, unless you want to get into whether their burden on the medical system outweighs their right to do what they want with their bodies (but lung cancer/emphezema, diabetes/heart disease, and traumatic injuries from extreme sports would fall into that category as well).

> Smoking and junk food don’t have the huge impacts to how you treat those around you that being drunk all the time does.

We don't lock up sober assholes for being assholes either.

The question is: where does someone's right to do what their brain makes them want to do end? Individual autonomy is a big deal in a free society, as it should be. When you take away a person's freedom to act, I think you take away part of what makes them human.

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

#288

Post by steve_adams_86 » Sat, Jan 11, 2020, 11:27 PM UTC

ccsnags wrote: post #92

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…

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…

In the moments where addiction has crept into my life (I've been fortunate enough to observe it and have a good enough life that I could correct it; I can see how if things were worse, I might not have had that control), I've always had this awful feeling that I was just escaping. The fastest route out of consciousness, no effort, no feeling, no hope for myself. I think for many of us, addiction really is about escaping the ordinary because when your ordinary becomes painful, coping can become a tremendous burden. I don't hold peoples addictions against them at all... If you prefer drinking over your life, you're probably battling something awful. Maybe it's things happening right now, maybe it's something that happened to you. Maybe you have acute mental illness that's virtually undetectable to others and you've tried to live the way everyone expects for 20 years +, and it's too much now. I think this is quite common. If that's how someone feels, they have my sympathy. My life has been pretty good all things said, but I've felt incredibly overwhelmed at times. Life can be hard as hell. Sometimes you just want to turn it off for a while.

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

#289

Post by CapricornNoble » Sun, Jan 12, 2020, 12:43 AM UTC

cityzen wrote: post #281

opportune wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I quit drinking 12 years ago but made it a point to carry on with my day to day life and not avoid situations. If I'm in a situation where people are moderately drinking, I ... don't drink. If people ask me why I don't drink, I ask them why they do drink. At the end of the day, whether I'm getting shitfaced or not drinking at all is my business. I have had a few people make a big deal about it and I just tell them th…

11 years sober here. I think my experience mirrors yours, especially how peoples' questions about OUR lack of alcohol are masking their own insecurities about THEIR alcohol consumption. Spending most of my adult life in two alcohol-heavy communities (the military and Japan), I see it all the time, but I try not to throw it back in their faces.

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

#290

Post by allovernow » Sun, Jan 12, 2020, 2:29 AM UTC

ribosometronome wrote: post #185

allovernow wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Generally it's not unhealthy to cry during emotionally turbulent episodes in your life; it's (crying) a method by which you're controlling your stress This is modern pseudoscientific nonsense, born in part of institutional crises in academia. >Those i've met that don't cry tend to have longer periods between emotional 'episodes', but tend to act out much more aggressively. This is blatant projection of personal bias…

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).

If living a fuller life through risk costs me five years, I'll take the trade. Perhaps mortality is not the only metric worth optimizing for some people.