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What alcohol does to your body, brain and health [video]

hubermanlab.com

101–110 of 214 posts

Re: What alcohol does to your body, brain and health [video]

#101
post #11

Honestly, one bottle of beer turns me from a chronically melancholic and outright boring person, to a functioning, social human being. So, I call BS.

Congratulations. You’ve found your ideal dosage for your unique situation. For many of us, one drink leads to more drinks at which point the physiological and psychological changes covered in the linked article become amplified.

The problem with the discussion is, most people here against alcohol sound to me like vegans. I mean, unable to discuss the "I only drink twice a week a beer" argument. To them even touching alcohol makes one a drunk-driver-wife-beater, deserving no less than high tower scorn. Not very helpful for an argument...

Re: What alcohol does to your body, brain and health [video]

#102
Alcohol killed my dad. It's an absolutely horrific way to die. Your organs shut down one by one over an extremely painful two month period. Family members can do nothing except watch. You can't even donate part of your liver, medial ethics disallow any organ transplants for alcoholics unless you are really rich/powerful/politically connected. As soon as you see them with yellow skin (Jaundice), you know their fate is sealed.

My dad was so good at managing his alcoholism - didn't seem to have any problems with work or dui's, nobody thought they needed to intervene until it was too late. One day he just collapsed at work and was taken to the hospital.

Just yesterday a drunk driver rear ended me while I was stopped at a traffic light in the middle of the day. It was just a light tap on the bumper but the road has a 55 MPh speed limit. What if he hit me going 60? Would I still be alive today?

Re: What alcohol does to your body, brain and health [video]

#103

Alcohol is the most harmful drug out there[1] - worse than heroin, crack cocaine, and all the rest. It boggles my mind how common it is, while genuinely useful drugs like psilocybin are still Schedule I and relegated to the shadows. [1]: https://sci-hub.se/10.1016/s0140-6736(10)61462-6 https://i.imgur.com/DQDJMGt.png

> https://i.imgur.com/DQDJMGt.png

This is what gets me about alcohol: You can completely avoid drinking it, and yet it causes more harm to others than it does to users.

The negative cost of alcohol use on those who don't even drink it is a real issue that should be more commonly talked about and addressed.

Re: What alcohol does to your body, brain and health [video]

#104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I say this as a former Beer and Whiskey nerd by the way. That is really interesting. So, what do you do now instead of Beer and Whiskey? Edit: Don't tell me it's karma.

I've really gotten into upscale herbal teas and mocktails. I was recently at a very small but upscale restaurant and they had a no-alcohol dinner flight pairing that was fantastic. There is so much variety and no downsides!

Sugar (in large amounts) isn't so great for you either ...

And caffeine from coffee/tea while fine in moderation, becomes really bad if abused as part of a pattern of chronic sleep deprivation which is really common.

Re: What alcohol does to your body, brain and health [video]

#105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a nonsense.. there are millions of people drinking alcohol sporadically and are doing fine. I don't think there are that many people sporadically consuming crack and are doing fine. Now I guess you can define harmful in many ways and I didn't read the study and probably won't.

Alcohol is doing damage at scale vs crack which is doing damage to a much smaller set of individuals. See drunk driving deaths vs crack driving deaths.

It is consumed at another scale, so it does more damage in total. That doesn't make alcohol more harmful as a drug.

Re: What alcohol does to your body, brain and health [video]

#106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a nonsense.. there are millions of people drinking alcohol sporadically and are doing fine. I don't think there are that many people sporadically consuming crack and are doing fine. Now I guess you can define harmful in many ways and I didn't read the study and probably won't.

Maybe you're right, maybe not. https://talbottcampus.com/crack-statistics/ > And the National Drug Intelligence Center reports, “an estimated 6,222,000 U.S. residents aged 12 and older used crack at least once in their lifetime.” A lot of people have used crack, and a lot of those people do not fit the stereotypes about who uses or why. There are all kinds of people in this world, and we all live very different lives…

> There are all kinds of people in this world, and we all live very different lives.

I can agree with that and I certainly don't care what people do with their lives as long as they don't harm others.

However there are people consuming a beer each evening for decades and they are totally fine.. I doubt that is possible with crack.

Re: What alcohol does to your body, brain and health [video]

#107
post #92
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Beer might be one of the few things you can drink that won’t kill you ... Because the process of making beer consists of boiling the wort! But if you can boil water to make beer, you can just, well, boil water to drink. People have known since antiquity how to make water potable.

You can keep beer waaay longer usable than you can keep boiled water fresh.

Why would that be? Alcohol can spoil too.

Re: What alcohol does to your body, brain and health [video]

#108
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've been drinking alcohol for 8000 years now so I wish you the best of luck on your crusade to show that it's "something wrong with humanity".

Yeah, that was an interesting comment. I understand where they're coming from, but humans have been ingesting things - even beyond alcohol - to modify their reality for a very, very, very long time. I don't think there's anything intrinsically wrong with asking why it is that we have continued to do this, collectively, as a species, but I hesitate to suggest that it implies that there is "something wrong with humanit…

[deleted]

Re: What alcohol does to your body, brain and health [video]

#109
post #2

Anyone have their own cure for a hangover the following day after drinking heavily? My usual go-to is a 'Full English Breakfast' that has all the trimmings and it replaces lost electrolytes in my system and 'cures' me although it's only a band-aid solution. There's nothing you can really do except wait a bad hangover out and let your body repair itself after essentially ingesting poison. Lucozade is another thing we…

Chinese hot and sour soup. Pure miracle.

Also, stick to one drink type (beer, wine or hard spirits), avoid liquors and the risk of hangover will be close to 0.

Just in case, drink one or two large glasses of water before going to bed. Reduces the risk even further.

Re: What alcohol does to your body, brain and health [video]

#110
post #2

Anyone have their own cure for a hangover the following day after drinking heavily? My usual go-to is a 'Full English Breakfast' that has all the trimmings and it replaces lost electrolytes in my system and 'cures' me although it's only a band-aid solution. There's nothing you can really do except wait a bad hangover out and let your body repair itself after essentially ingesting poison. Lucozade is another thing we…

I like a big bowl of good Pho. I think it's really just electrolytes though. Some pedialyte or even salt stick caps plus water should help.
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