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

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131–140 of 214 posts

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

#131

The science has been in a long time that no amount of alcohol is healthy. Despite overwhelming experimental, historical and anecdotal evidence, 60% of Americans drink ~4 drinks per week - which luckily is on the decline. Something is seriously wrong with humanity if poisoning ourselves regularly to dissociate with reality remains this popular as a core social component. People will point to all of the supposed "socia…

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".

Humanity has been doing a lot of things for most part of these 8000 years, from casual genocide at wars to not washing hands before a meal. Much of it has changed in recent couple of centuries, with pretty obvious positive effects.

Maybe humanity is not that hopeless.

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

#132
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.

I suppose that having a small amount of silver or even just copper touching the water can seriously prolong its shelf life, so to say.

Also, putting sterilized water into airtight sterilized containers, as normally done with beer, works well. Carry a can of Liquid Death with you instead of a can of Bud, the weight is the same.

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

#133

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".

Isn't 8000 years ago about the time the Bible says that humanity began to sin?

According to the literal reading of the old testament, humanity did not even exist by then, and the world itself did not exist. There can't be a bad habit as old as 8000 years.

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

#134

The science has been in a long time that no amount of alcohol is healthy. Despite overwhelming experimental, historical and anecdotal evidence, 60% of Americans drink ~4 drinks per week - which luckily is on the decline. Something is seriously wrong with humanity if poisoning ourselves regularly to dissociate with reality remains this popular as a core social component. People will point to all of the supposed "socia…

There are so many things in our life that cause harm in any quantity. For instance, exposure to fine particulate is directly correlated with all cause mortality. Yet almost everyone drives or rides the subway, even though both activities expose you to fine particulate. For many, the benefits of transportation outweigh the negative health impact. Many feel the same way about alcohol.

Unlike alcohol, riding a subway does not rig your feeling of what's beneficial for you at the moment.

Many games do, though.

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

#135

One thing I've not seen mentioned in this thread is the enjoyment you can get from the wide expanse of flavours & mouthfeels of different alcoholic drinks. Most of the comments seem to be focussed on people drinking either to help with social anxiety or just to blot the world out, or as one poster put it "to dissociate with reality". I really love exploring different drinks, mainly beers and spirits although I do sti…

My experience has been that if I adjust my diet to remove all carbs, which is close to the diet that human beings evolved on, then any alcoholic beverage tastes like poison to me and the hangover comes on faster. The buzz is also worse -- just woozy and sick feeling. Once you clean up your diet you'll lose your taste for alcohol. Your body really can't tolerate alcohol in any amount and once you've eliminated the oth…

If you go on any exclusion diet then I'd expect foods you're no longer accustomed to would affect you. I suspect that if a committed vegan were to eat a steak then they would have a variety of both mental and biological reactions.

Regarding your comment about removing carbs being the diet we evolved with, I always presumed that we had always eaten fruit and vegetables. Grains didn't become a significant part of our diet though until about 4,000 years ago with the introduction of bronze age agriculture.

There also seems to be what appears fairly solid evidence that animals, including humans, have sought out fermented fruit, about 1-3% alcohol, for millions of years. Wouldn't that be something we evolved on too?

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

#136

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…

What’s your point? A lot of people have tried crack and there are a lot of crack addicts. I calculated the numbers of Australia a few years ago. Something like 10% of people who try heroin become dependent. That number is like 0.1% or 0.01% for alcohol.

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

#138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

let us know if you find a solution to social anxiety and especially existential dread

Alcohol doesn't help social anxiety except by social convention. Society believes alcohol changes personality, and that drunk people are less themselves. Thus, they judge drunk people less harshly (including themselves). But alcohol doesn't actually change personality. It only makes your brain work slower. It doesn't make it go anywhere it otherwise wouldn't, you just get there later. What we've developed is a way to…

Alcohol absolutely does help social anxiety by improving mood and lowering inhibitions on a brain chemistry level. There are plenty of factual and scientific reasons to dislike and discourage alcohol, the "it's all in your head dummy" angle isn't one of them.

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

#139
post #101
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

> … most people here against alcohol sound to me like vegans.

There’s a pretty big difference. Most people who drink don’t harm another living being, while those who eat animal products are supporting harm towards animals.

I understand the vegan perspective but not the perspective of the use who criticize causal drinking.

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

#140

One thing I've not seen mentioned in this thread is the enjoyment you can get from the wide expanse of flavours & mouthfeels of different alcoholic drinks. Most of the comments seem to be focussed on people drinking either to help with social anxiety or just to blot the world out, or as one poster put it "to dissociate with reality". I really love exploring different drinks, mainly beers and spirits although I do sti…

I drink alcohol because I enjoy the taste. I am now in the middle of "researching" different scotch from different parts of Scotland. Each scotch is very different from the other one. Last year I was "researching" beers.
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