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America has a drinking problem

theatlantic.com

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Re: America has a drinking problem

#301

Post by ufmace »

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…

FWIW, there definitely are people who drink 10+ drinks a day every day. The top few percent of drinkers in the country drink an epic shitload.

Re: America has a drinking problem

#302

Post by thrower123 »

phd514 wrote: post #114
rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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."

It's more the fringe offshoots of the congregationalists that shattered off in the Great Awakening as they moved west. There's also a strong current of xenophobia in many of the 19th century abolitionist movements, as the Germans, Irish, Italians, Poles, etc brought their drinking cultures with them.

Re: America has a drinking problem

#303

Post by quickthrowman »

maya24 wrote: post #260
Barrin92 wrote: post #135

Article mirrors my experience. For context I'm German, my wife's French and we've got family in Croatia who own a vineyard so I'm used to being around alcohol and people drinking. My first impression when I spent time was in the US was indeed how bipolar drinking is compared to Europe. We probably drink a hell of a lot more in raw terms than the average American does.Two glasses of wine for dinner, another one in the…

Alcohol is a harmful drug much worse than some of the other banned drugs on the market.

Alcohol is more dangerous than all other drugs, in my experience (been addicted to alcohol and heroin in the past, and have abused every common drug) and in my opinion.

The addiction rate for cocaine/heroin/meth may be higher, but the negative effects of those drugs mostly stem from the high cost (theft) and insane profit margins (murder). If a heroin addict could get their supply for $5/day (and have it be pure heroin w no fentanyl) then nearly all of the negatives would disappear.

Re: America has a drinking problem

#304

Post by bitexploder »

OminousWeapons wrote: post #281
fantod wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Noticed this when I was in Germany/Austria as well. In America, if you go out drinking then that's the primary activity. It's what you're doing. But in central Europe socializing and seeing friends is the activity and you just happen to drink because that's what you do when you see your friends.

I disagree with this. Americans go out drinking with friends because alcohol helps you cut through the bullshit small talk and get to the real talk that everyone is afraid to initiate but eager to take part in. If we could all have perfectly candid conversations surrounding sensitive topics without alcohol, there would be no need for most bars to exist.

It’s kind of amusing when you think about it like a philosopher. I’m a bit older than the average HNer, probably, at 41 this year. It’s all the same fears and doubts. The human condition. Finding love, acceptance, belonging. Not facing down the human condition alone. That is what “big talk” is about to me.

Re: America has a drinking problem

#306

Post by hpoe »

quadyeast wrote: post #249
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #153

It's hard to reduce the US to a single culture. Alcohol consumption habits vary greatly from region to region, or even city to city depending on where you live. I've noticed that heavy drinkers tend to cluster with other heavy drinkers. The more you see your friends and coworkers binge drinking regularly, the more you feel it's an acceptable and even common behavior. Likewise, non-drinkers tend to cluster with each o…

that chart does not make sense to me unless >10% of Americans are AA. I can't think of anyone, besides non-drinking Alcoholics, that have less than 1 drink/wk

Well for starters you've got all the Muslims and members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints sometimes know as Mormons. That's two big ole' swathes of people who probably don't drink at all.

Re: America has a drinking problem

#307

Post by bsder »

I wonder how much of the increase is due to ridesharing.

The US basically requires that you drive everywhere. The penalties for DUI are incredibly stiff. So, you are forced to choose and most people had to choose driving over drinking.

Now, with ridesharing, you can choose drinking over driving.

Re: America has a drinking problem

#308

Post by Diederich »

smcl wrote: post #292
Diederich wrote: post #203

Most of my male genetic relatives have/had a history of alcohol abuse, so I decided from an early age that the best approach was to not drink any alcohol at all, and I held to that until about nine years ago. Long research has indicated that one cup of red wine per day has measurable health benefits, so I started to drink one cup, like medicine, immediately before bed. After doing that for a few weeks, I came home fr…

That can definitely happen when you're focussed on something else than what you're drinking (or eating!). It's gonna be even more pronounced if you're drinking, distracted and not particularly experienced with alcohol. If you enjoy what you're drinking you just need to be conscious of when you refill and you'll be fine. If you don't and you're just doing it as a sort of health thing, maybe you made the right choice.…

> If you enjoy what you're drinking ...

That's the thing: I hate the taste of wine.

Re: America has a drinking problem

#309

Post by Bostonian »

TameAntelope wrote: post #261

I'm going to generalize, but the US is more diverse (rank #90 vs #151 for Germany, #169 for France, #111 for Croatia [0]) and we also have a very painful past and present that makes us acutely aware of our inability to socialize. America also has a cultural obsession with self-reliance/liberty/frontier-as-a-virtue which makes "socializing" a bit of a taboo concept, in a weird way. It's a crutch to "need" to be around…

"we also have a very painful past and present"

I don't see why that is more true of the U.S. than say Germany, Japan, Russia, China etc.

Re: America has a drinking problem

#310

Post by tomjakubowski »

panzagl wrote: post #234
czbond wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mine came from feeling like junk even after 1 beer/wine/cocktail the next day. I experimented with thinking it was an allergy to grains, allergy to hops, wine quality - but I think it's just alcohol.

Could be, but in general Americans obsess more about health than other nations, which also can be traced back to our Puritanical heritage.

I'd never heard that Puritans had any obsession with body health. What is the connection?
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