Leo Tolstoy on why people drink (2014) • Hacker News Board

Re: Leo Tolstoy on why people drink (2014)

#271

Post by _yb2s » Fri, Jun 30, 2023, 5:23 PM UTC

OkayPhysicist wrote: post #83

_yb2s wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alcohol and other drugs feel good and allow you to have a good time by allowing you to escape negative emotional experiences and just enjoy the moment: fear, social anxiety, trauma. Without those negative feelings, you would already feel good, and the alcohol would lose it's appeal.

You're confusing "drinking as a coping mechanism" and "drinking for recreation". You know what rich college students don't have a lot of? "fear, social anxiety, and trauma". Know what they do a lot of? booze, sex, and drugs. You show me the most content, meditation-and-philosophizing-on-a-Friday-night person, and I'll show you someone who could be having an even better time on MDMA. Booze, sex, and drugs are just lif…

I agree there is a difference between abuse that comes from trying to escape negative feelings, and occasional recreation use "for fun" which is mostly self limiting for overuse- once you develop tolerance, health symptoms, hangovers, etc. the appeal wanes.

> You know what rich college students don't have a lot of? "fear, social anxiety, and trauma".

However, I strongly disagree with this. They might even tell you they don't have these issues, but they are unconscious. Hard partying "rich college students" are largely practicing binge drinking, and it is to escape negative emotions. It's not true at all that being rich and privileged protects you from these things. A very common thing is wealthy kids having neglectful or emotionally unavailable parents, and being very afraid of being "unlovable," or being rejected. This is exactly what pushes kids to participate in degrading hazing rituals, binge drinking, drug use, and generally being afraid to enforce boundaries around their own health and well being for fear of being rejected or excluded.

Psychologists are starting to notice that wealthy children often have behavioral issues that look a lot like PTSD, despite being privileged [1]. These symptoms can look like those in refugee children, or war torn areas, and were previously seen as totally impossible with wealthy and privileged children [2]. But kids don't care how much is in their parents bank account: emotional abuse and trauma is what causes this, and wealth doesn't protect you from abuse.

[1] https://addcounsel.com/can-wealth-be-traumatic/ [2] https://www.1000hoursoutside.com/blog/the-undeclared-war-on-...

Re: Leo Tolstoy on why people drink (2014)

#272

Post by _yb2s » Fri, Jun 30, 2023, 5:52 PM UTC

mvdtnz wrote: post #70

_yb2s wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alcohol and other drugs feel good and allow you to have a good time by allowing you to escape negative emotional experiences and just enjoy the moment: fear, social anxiety, trauma. Without those negative feelings, you would already feel good, and the alcohol would lose it's appeal.

No, you're overthinking it. I'm perfectly happy when I'm sober - I have a nice house, a great relationship, a happy family and tons of hobbies. I am in no way crippled by fear, social anxiety or trauma. Drinking with my friends makes me happy in different ways. Alcohol doesn't lose its appeal just because I'm happy while I'm sober.

I agree an occasional drink with friends is fun, and different from abusing alcohol to escape negative emotions.

However, I think your description of external circumstances to argue that you are happy is concerning to me. People are good at ignoring negative things and deluding themselves, and happiness is mostly an internal thing and can't be measured by external success. I don't know you, but people with low self esteem in a narcissist/co-dependent marriage, with "tons of hobbies" to help them escape would still say exactly what you are saying.

Re: Leo Tolstoy on why people drink (2014)

#273

Post by medo-bear » Fri, Jun 30, 2023, 6:00 PM UTC

WastingMyTime89 wrote: post #264

medo-bear wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

southern europe

In which part of Southern Europe do people excuse themselves when they are becoming intoxicated? Because that's not true in France, Italy, Spain and Portugal unless you have very prudish acquaintances.

> France, Italy, Spain and Portugal

does not compare to the drinking culture of poms, aussies, or yanks

https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/indones...

Re: Leo Tolstoy on why people drink (2014)

#274

Post by solumunus » Fri, Jun 30, 2023, 6:04 PM UTC

voidmain0001 wrote: post #234

thenoblesunfish wrote: post #114

Let's consider this quote "All human life, we may say, consists solely of these two activities: (1) bringing one’s activities into harmony with conscience, or (2) hiding from oneself the indications of conscience in order to be able to continue to live as before." Note that he has defined all of life as two points about "one" and "oneself". This is why I and I assume many others roll their eyes. Because Tolstoy, and…

To say that alcohol distills down to being able to socialize doesn’t fit. Socializing is not hard. Are you at a party? Approach people you don’t know the way you want to be approached. Wear a sincere smile, give some distance, give your name, ask them who they know at the party, respond with who you know. Most likely you will know the same people so chat about that. Say where you live then ask them where they live. L…

Socialising is hard for many people, this is well known…

Re: Leo Tolstoy on why people drink (2014)

#275

Post by circuit8 » Fri, Jun 30, 2023, 6:41 PM UTC

throwaway2037 wrote: post #156

circuit8 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the core of the issue. The thing is that in modern western societies shame is placed upon many activities that are normal and necessary for a human to enjoy a good life. It is shameful in many places for a person to sing, dance, and to express their true emotions. So we intoxicate ourselves, in order to escape from the overly rigid social conditioning we have all internalised.

modern western societies shame is placed upon many activities that are normal and necessary for a human to enjoy a good life Where are my Italians at? They don't do this. Probably Spaniards and Greeks also, but I have met far fewer.

Yes agreed. It seems to me that the more rigid the culture (Britain, Scandinavia, Japan etc) the more they binge drink.

Re: Leo Tolstoy on why people drink (2014)

#276

Post by leobg » Fri, Jun 30, 2023, 6:48 PM UTC

TheEzEzz wrote: post #27

Blahah wrote: post #9

Drinking slows down my brain and reduces the number of threads running in parallel. Sometimes very useful to enable normal-passing interaction in social environments. Or just to be able to focus. Lots of people with ADHD drink to achieve a more single threaded experience. Edit to add: I don't meant to encourage drinking as a tool for managing ADHD. It works but it's a blunt and dangerous tool. If you're at that point…

Interesting analogy. I feel like I talk and think faster when I'm drunk but am also more focused and can hold less in my mind. I'm wondering if it's because I'm switching into single threaded mode instead of multi-threaded mode, and that single thread is actually faster, but more limited.

Interesting. Ever tried coding when drunk? So far, we’ve got programming languages named after caffeinating drinks, but none named after alcoholic ones.

Re: Leo Tolstoy on why people drink (2014)

#277

Post by opportune » Fri, Jun 30, 2023, 7:00 PM UTC

keiferski wrote: post #142

Tolstoy was an aristocrat and most people commenting here are functionally in the same position; that is, largely able to choose which substances they consume - or choose not to consume them at all. This is not the case for the vast majority of alcohol use throughout history. Historically, for lower class professions like farmers or factory workers, drinking was just something you did. It was something your father di…

Wow, this is a hugely reductionist and patronizing take. You really think there weren’t lower class people choosing not to drink, or to drink less?

I’m hoping you might simply be biased by the fact that most of what we know about history, and even in more recent times most of what gets mindshare, comes from the upper class.

For one, many religious movements across the world preached against alcohol use - and while you can argue in some cases the doctrine was set by the upper classes, that doesn’t hold as much water when looking at the many popular Protestant movements which were pretty grassroots. Temperance in the US was hugely driven by middle and working class women, not just elites. And alcohol use was highly controlled by such elitist movements as Leninist Russia.

Re: Leo Tolstoy on why people drink (2014)

#278

Post by ogurechny » Fri, Jun 30, 2023, 8:38 PM UTC

Amazingly, there are long threads discussing drinking, even though Tolstoy's essay is not about drinking. You can substitute it with “media consumption”, etc. I guess no one bothered to read it.

Re: Leo Tolstoy on why people drink (2014)

#279

Post by hnick » Sat, Jul 01, 2023, 12:00 AM UTC

jalapenos wrote: post #138

thenoblesunfish wrote: post #114

Let's consider this quote "All human life, we may say, consists solely of these two activities: (1) bringing one’s activities into harmony with conscience, or (2) hiding from oneself the indications of conscience in order to be able to continue to live as before." Note that he has defined all of life as two points about "one" and "oneself". This is why I and I assume many others roll their eyes. Because Tolstoy, and…

That's one big reason, but the other is numbing bad feelings, which I think is a more interesting field, especially since it often blurs into the social bit. Indeed, for the social aspect, everyone is already fully aware it's not needed, and that they can have fun socialization without it, because of their childhoods. I think the biggest reason alcohol is used is, to put it bluntly, how painful life is. As the child…

It's not just pain, it’s thoughts too (which can also be related of course). I’m someone who will overthink which leads to worries that don’t need to exist and bring no benefit. This is why it helps me socialise, I’m far more likely to talk myself out of it because of the perceived “risk”. Rate limiting my thoughts lets me just act.

Re: Leo Tolstoy on why people drink (2014)

#280

Post by keiferski » Sat, Jul 01, 2023, 4:34 AM UTC

opportune wrote: post #277

keiferski wrote: post #142

Tolstoy was an aristocrat and most people commenting here are functionally in the same position; that is, largely able to choose which substances they consume - or choose not to consume them at all. This is not the case for the vast majority of alcohol use throughout history. Historically, for lower class professions like farmers or factory workers, drinking was just something you did. It was something your father di…

Wow, this is a hugely reductionist and patronizing take. You really think there weren’t lower class people choosing not to drink, or to drink less? I’m hoping you might simply be biased by the fact that most of what we know about history, and even in more recent times most of what gets mindshare, comes from the upper class. For one, many religious movements across the world preached against alcohol use - and while yo…

The temperance movement was limited to a fairly small percentage of Christians and only began in the 19th century.

> Throughout the first 1,800 years of Church history, Christians generally consumed alcoholic beverages as a common part of everyday life and used "the fruit of the vine" in their central rite—the Eucharist or Lord's Supper. They held that both the Bible and Christian tradition taught that alcohol is a gift from God that makes life more joyous, but that over-indulgence leading to drunkenness is sinful.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_views_on_alcohol