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America has a drinking problem

theatlantic.com

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Re: America has a drinking problem

#111

Post by 1980phipsi »

ohazi wrote: post #67
leifg wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Genuine question: what do you drink instead? Do you stick to water or do you order any kind of soda/lemonade (or something I’m not thinking about)

Tangentially related anecdote: I went from always ordering a soft drink at restaurants to only drinking water. The swich occurred almost overnight, and I ended up losing about 25 lbs. The reason I did this was entirely social, and it happened by accident. My parents didn't have soft drinks at home, except occasional leftovers after a party, so ordering a soft drink at a restaurant was sort of a "special treat," even…

I lost five pounds or so switching from Coke to Diet Coke.

Re: America has a drinking problem

#112

Post by laurent92 »

kevinmchugh wrote: post #68
paxys wrote: post #31

When we are no longer restricted by resource limits as a society, everything quickly becomes an addiction. Food, alcohol, cigarettes, caffeine, sex, drugs, gambling, shopping, TV, video games, social media. I'm sure people a lot more qualified than me will be able to talk about it in scientific terms, but I feel like a certain category of species (maybe all of them?) simply never ran into limiting excesses as part of…

Alcohol withdrawals are serious enough that they can be fatal. This isn't true for cigarettes, opiates, or cocaine. Breaking habits is hard, but usually doesn't risk hospitalization or death.

My mother worked in a alcohol rehab center. People who drank up to 12L of wine a day (I still wonder how that works) would turn to window cleaning liquid on withdrawal.

She said no-one ever quit the alcohol addiction by choice, all of them were brought here by court, generally after killing people in an accident.

I sure hope people can quit alcohol addiction by choice. But you do need to rebuild all the friendships that only existed around drinking routines. I for one have quit a coworking space that revolved too much around beer. They were good business contacts and that is why it’s hard to walk away.

Re: America has a drinking problem

#113

Post by ska »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #55
tmm wrote: post #30

I’ve never been much of a drinker, generally preferring soda, sports drinks, or sweet tea to stay hydrated. In my experience, this is unusual. My friends, relatives, etc. all exclusively drink beer when doing yard work, home improvement projects, or hobbies like working on cars. When I’m at the marina, I’m the only one not drinking beer while working on their boat. Maybe all of these people stick exclusively to water…

> However, it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that the group drinking a six pack of 90-calorie light beer over the course of a day is healthier than people like me drinking a six pack of Dr. Pepper in the same timeframe. Cirrhosis on one hand, diabetes on the other. Pick your poison, I guess. Most people choose neither option. Drinking a 6-pack of beer every day and drinking a 6-pack of sugary sodas every day are not n…

TFA states that top 10% is at least equivalent 2 bottles/wine per day, which is more than your 6-pack, closer to a 12-pack.

10% is not outliers.

edit to avoid confusion: this wasn't an average, this was the bottom of the 10% decile. So clearly there are bigger drinkers out there, but 10% is a lot of minimum 10-drink-a-day people.

Re: America has a drinking problem

#114

Post by phd514 »

rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote: post #16
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #3

The statistics about alcohol consumption are so stunning that I often wonder how accurate they are. If these numbers are correct, the top 10% of alcohol drinkers consume the equivalent of 10 drinks per day : https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/09/25/think... The unit for a single drink is a fixed measurement, so someone pouring a tall glass of wine or a very stiff drink could be consuming 2-5 “drinks” in…

Honestly, as someone who has 2-3 drinks per day, I've always been more surprised by the amount of people who basically don't drink at all. In that chart it's over half of Americans. Travel a bit, any you'll quickly discover that a couple drinks in the evening is basically normal in much of the world. I'm not arguing that it's healthy (it's not), but the median American really doesn't drink much - our Puritan values r…

> our Puritan values run deep

The Puritans drank plenty. I suspect that many such misconceptions about them are derived from HL Mencken's (wildly inaccurate) quip that "Puritanism is the haunting fear that someone somewhere may be happy."

Re: America has a drinking problem

#116

Post by blhack »

Some of my most cherished memories are those where I was out drinking wine and having really good food with my wife and friends.

When people were telling stories about Jesus, the central figure of their religion, one of the miracles they told of was him turning water into wine. This is held up as one of the most important stories in their entire moral system.

When the pyramids were being built, the builders were paid in beer.

People have been drinking, and enjoying the effects of drinking, for thousands of years, and "do not drink to excess" is a lesson the Greeks told us with their own myths and stories.

Be cautious of over drinking, however perhaps also be cautious of under drinking as well. These are not new revelations.

Re: America has a drinking problem

#117

Post by system16 »

barbazoo wrote: post #11

Obviously not not just the US. Drinking "culture" is too ingrained in our everyday lives. Alcohol addiction is totally normal, socially accepted and legally encouraged. I was appalled when our city allowed drinking alcohol in some of our parks as a Covid-19 measure to give people an alternative to drinking in restaurants or pubs. It makes me so sad that we realize we have a drinking problem and our solution is to giv…

Not all countries have a binge drinking culture that they are introduced to in their teens like Canada, the UK, the US, Australia, etc. where it's celebrated for young people to get totally intoxicated.

In many countries, you have a couple of social drinks - even gasp at lunch or in public - and it's not a problem. Being falling down drunk isn't considered 'cool' - it's pathetic and embarrassing. Drinking isn't a competition to see how much you can consume before you either lose consciousness, make idiotic decisions, or start street fights.

That said, I absolutely see no problem with drinking in parks or in public and this works fine in Montreal. We have laws already for public drunkenness. We don't need a nanny state.

Re: America has a drinking problem

#118

Post by phkahler »

1980phipsi wrote: post #111
ohazi wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tangentially related anecdote: I went from always ordering a soft drink at restaurants to only drinking water. The swich occurred almost overnight, and I ended up losing about 25 lbs. The reason I did this was entirely social, and it happened by accident. My parents didn't have soft drinks at home, except occasional leftovers after a party, so ordering a soft drink at a restaurant was sort of a "special treat," even…

I lost five pounds or so switching from Coke to Diet Coke.

There is more weight loss to be had switching from Diet Coke to water. It's obviously not the calorie content, but the insulin response from sweet tasting things that will occur even with artificial sweeteners.

Re: America has a drinking problem

#119

Post by handrous »

birdyrooster wrote: post #103
handrous wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have some similar thoughts about this. Take Internet media streaming: am I happier being able to watch any of 10,000 things with no effort, rather than having maybe a couple dozen at hand and the ability, with some time and effort, to acquire one or two more if I really want them enough? Or is the ability to select exactly a certain thing to watch with low effort just scratching an itch that only exists because I c…

I like your comment because it pretty much answers itself in the edit.

Yeah, the universality and unoriginality of the observation isn't lost on me, but I do think there's some "the medium is the message" stuff going on with the sheer quantity and low-friction to selection of media and other options available to us now, with the Web and ubiquitous always-online computing devices turning into an outright engine for itch-generation and itch-scratching-of-same-itch. And that's before you factor in adversarial actors (marketers and such).

Packages show up on the lawn it is astonishing how they appear.

They are astonishing surprises.

It’s what I ordered the cat food the espresso machine the two new tables.

Ordering things and how they appear basically I am a small-scale sorcerer.

On the road I press the button and the music goes.

Air conditioning gas pedal restaurant take-out etc.

It is my will being perpetually sated.

Pretend we are writing a fable in which a sorcerer always gets what he wants.

Consider what happens to a soul which always gets what it wants.

- Emily Bludworth de Barios, from http://www.forkliftohio.com/index.php?page=freight-31

That last line unsettles me every time.

Re: America has a drinking problem

#120

Post by trhway »

altcognito wrote: post #98
agumonkey wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Anxiety in general is noticeably lower you were more anxious when you were drinking ? that's a first not to look naive, but there was a period of my life having a beer [0] was really the only way for me to exist outside my bedroom walls, i wasn't even tipsy.. I was just able to sit in a room without crippling dread. [0] I didn't drink, but the few times I did at parties I realized how drinking a bit was lifting me…

Conditions like GERD where stomach acids come up into the esophagus can be mistaken for anxiety or panic attacks. Alcohol can make GERD type symptoms a lot worse.

it isn't necessary mistaken. The issues like GERD and some other around stomach/digestion affect how your muscles handle the diaphragm and that may strangle the breathing in various ways and also obstruct heart beating movements - that all limits the oxygen supply, and while sitting relaxed doing nothing the oxygenation may be sufficient it struggles to cover any additional increased requirements which spike due to increased body and/or brain activity, and that insufficient oxygen delivery naturally makes one feel anxious.
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