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Why I Don't Drink

neal.is

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Re: Why I Don't Drink

#41

Post by funkyy »

mjn wrote: post #6

This feels like a very "American" article [1], in the way it frames the discussion. The intro suggests the author has a policy of not drinking at all (or only every few months), but most of the bullet points only apply to why you shouldn't binge-drink. I did not find anything in this article that applied to normal drinking. If you drink a glass of wine with lunch, and one or two with dinner, as a typical southern Eur…

Everything in life is a skill - even drinking alcohol. While most of people think that drinking alcohol is only pleasure it can be amazing deal breaker and social skill needed in some situation.

I drink usually 3-4 times a week (not to get drunk, but few glasses of coke and whiskey or vodka). Does it make me dumber? Yes, but it also helps me to focus on just one task. My productivity jumps 3-4 times for that time.

Does it leave me hangover? No. There is a way to drink alcohol and never have hangover (in last year I had hangover just once).

Do I get drunk? No. There is a way to drink alcohol and stay in sweet spot. Mixing alcohol like a teenager dosent help.

Do I lose my social skills? No. Look up - if you know what you are doing you are the only one at the party that is semi-sober while drinking - so all the stories belong to you.

I remember back in the days when drinking didn't equal to alcoholism (hello Mr. Churchill), smoking cigarettes did not equal to cancer (hello anyone 50 years ago), and well behaving while intoxicated was an important indicator of persons self-control.

I rather to do a business with person that can stay cool after alcohol than with one that dont drink/behave like idiot after few drinks. Remember beginnings of some alcohol fuelled startups (FB, Google etc...). Thats the real character revealer in our "FB profile page" world.

Re: Why I Don't Drink

#42

Post by mjn »

kylec wrote: post #22
mjn wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of his points explain even from a personal perspective why he doesn't drink, though. Which of his bullet points explain the pros and cons of wine with dinner vs. not having wine with dinner?

He's not making an argument about nuanced tradeoffs, though. He's saying that he gets no benefit ("It makes me feel bleh", "Alcohol does not increase my enjoyment of activities") and that there are some drawbacks for him ("It dumbs you down", "It's expensive"). You might have different personal experiences with alcohol, but you can't deny the author his.

> You might have different personal experiences with alcohol, but you can't deny the author his.

I can deny the author his unfounded generalizations, though. He's explaining why he doesn't like getting trashed, going out to a club and having a dozen drinks. All his bullet points are about that situation. Sure, I agree that is bad. It results in hangovers, feeling shitty, large expenditures of cash, and other such bad events. So: don't do that. But that's not a problem with alcohol, that's a problem with party/club culture.

But don't write an article about something different. If you're writing about why you've changed your ways from going out to clubs and getting hammered, entitle it "why I no longer go out to clubs and get hammered". Don't try to over-generalize your experience.

Re: Why I Don't Drink

#43

Post by tomasien »

joshlegs wrote: post #23

I'm really with the author here. I don't drink much, and people usually ask me why when I'm out. I just don't find it all that enjoyable most of the time, to be honest. also, there's this: >There is a longer list of things I'd rather spend $100 on I just want to take a moment to suggest this as an alternative. http://www.amazon.com/Parker-Sonnet-Original-Matte-Fountain/...

I might use this comment to respond to every single person who uses the cost of alcohol as a reason not to drink saying "there are so many other things I'd rather buy.."

LIKE WHAT? A PEN? That's a pen. You can never convince me that I should believe that pen is objectively more valuable than a night out treating friends. Forget it. If it's more valuable to YOU because you love pens and dislike drinking, fine, but this argument that "stuff" is somehow inherently worth more than "experiences" (like food, alcohol, events, etc.) falls so unbelievably flat to me.

Re: Why I Don't Drink

#44

Post by funkyy »

lucaspiller wrote: post #34
RogerL wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was about to post the same thing. A glass of wine with dinner, for example, can enormously enhance the experience without any of the downsides that he mentions. Not that I care if people don't drink, but several of the arguments were pretty spurious.

> A glass of wine with dinner, for example, can enormously enhance the experience Can you explain how exactly? Is it just greater social ease as the author suggests in the article? I'm intrigued, I don't drink wine and hardly ever have a beer while eating.

Its a southern European culture - wine goes well with some tastes and since wine vapours a lot it delivers taste also to your nose. Beer is usually used only with fatty/heavy foods as it helps to dissolve them and stimulates stomach to work harder (that would be mainly German/Irish kitchen).

Re: Why I Don't Drink

#45

Post by judk »

hawkharris wrote: post #4

Not to mention that alcohol is a major carcinogen in the United States. From the National Cancer Institute: "Based on data from 2009, an estimated 3.5 percent of all cancer deaths in the United States were alcohol related." [0] [0] http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Risk/alcohol

Note that those cancer prevalences are associated with drinking >3.5 drinks (50g alcohol) per day, which is borderline alcoholic (assuming it really means most days, not just some days)

Re: Why I Don't Drink

#46

Post by mjn »

rdtsc wrote: post #39
mjn wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serve it in a bar at a social scene and it can set you back hundreds of dollars per session as he said. "Per session"?! My point is that his article is ostensibly about why he doesn't drink at all , but his bullet points only legitimately apply to why you shouldn't have 20 drinks in an outing . Having one or two beers at a bar in the U.S. will not set you back $100 (it'd have to be a pretty weird bar). The fact that…

That is just one of the points, not the main one. In general, it depends where, how often, and with whom he goes out. It does add up even with comparing "dinner" vs "dinner+drinks". Dinner+drinks if done often will add to quite a bit over time. Mixed drinks can be ridiculously expensive. Not keeping up with 4,5 drink per night, or not buying the next round for example, will also raise the same question "why aren't yo…

It does add up even with comparing "dinner" vs "dinner+drinks".

I had that view semi-recently (a year or so ago): dinner+drinks is too expensive for my tastes. But I blame the "dinner" more than the "drinks" from a monetary perspective. Nowadays the usual arrangement among my friends & me is that we get together at someone's house, one of us cooks, then we go out for a few beers. The food is usually better, and we value the "bar outing" part of the atmosphere more than the "restaurant" part. So we save the $30-50 that the meal costs, which is a huge cash win, much more than saving the cost of a few beers would be.

But this is just an issue of where you want to spend your entertainment budget. I personally feel restaurant food is a huge ripoff, and that the ambience of a restaurant is not worth it. While I feel the $1-2 supermarket beer vs. $5-7 for a bar beer is a reasonable incremental price for the ambience. Maybe you feel drinks at bars are a huge ripoff, while restaurant meals are worth it. Spend your money as you wish either way! But then it just becomes an issue of personal budget preferences: I also think movies in theaters are huge ripoffs!

Re: Why I Don't Drink

#47

Post by Duhck »

judk wrote: post #38
Duhck wrote: post #24

I empathize with this article. I rarely drink, I get drunk about a half a dozen times a year, and shifting my social life away from bars and restaurants has enabled me to afford a lifestyle I otherwise couldn't have. I put every penny I saved from my former bar oriented social life into a savings account, and in two years I put over $65k away, which turned into seed money for my own startup. This is a point of pride…

You were spending more on nightlife than rent? Wowsa.

No, I live in Brooklyn, my rent is absurd. I was spending $1k a month on cabs, restaurants and bars. That's five to ten nights out. Less if you go with your significant other.

Re: Why I Don't Drink

#48

Post by funkyy »

judk wrote: post #36
massappeal wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

asking why someone doesn't drink doesn't imply condescension

But it conveys "outsider" status and puts someone on the defensive. Would you like to be asked "Why?" every time you oder a drink?

If someone avoids alcohol there are 4 options: -he dont like it -religion or family tradition -he got sick after it -he is total wanker after few pints and he dont want people to see it

When someone is not ordering alcohol people might think the last one - and that's from the start bad omen.

I fully support people not drinking alcohol but unfortunately I find out that most people dont drink because inner them is coming out.

Re: Why I Don't Drink

#49

Post by kelnos »

mjn wrote: post #6

This feels like a very "American" article [1], in the way it frames the discussion. The intro suggests the author has a policy of not drinking at all (or only every few months), but most of the bullet points only apply to why you shouldn't binge-drink. I did not find anything in this article that applied to normal drinking. If you drink a glass of wine with lunch, and one or two with dinner, as a typical southern Eur…

I (an American) drink fairly often, and occasionally to excess. I have a fairly high tolerance, so usually I won't notice much of an effect until I'm drinking at a rate of greater than 2 drinks per hour, or, if I'm drinking slower than that, until I've had at 7+ drinks.

So it's not unusual for me to go out with some friends, have 5-7 drinks, and not "get drunk", only developing a slight buzz at most. As long as I'm matching each alcoholic drink with 1-1.5 glasses of water, I feel perfectly normal the next day. (I have noticed that, as I get older, I need to hydrate more and more to avoid a headache afterward. Annoying.)

On other occasions, I do enjoy drinking to a point where I'd consider myself very drunk. It's fun. Frankly, I'm mildly annoyed at the suggestion that the European method of drinking is somehow superior. It's just different. Possibly healthier, possibly safer, but I'll be damned if I let other people tell me how to enjoy myself[1].

I'm slightly tempted to write a follow-up article with, "why I don't participate in bro culture", based on this article's pervasive reference to clubs, "certain intoxicants", and other such questionable things the author appears to indulge in, but which seem stupid and harmful to me.

So wait, indulging in intoxicants other than alcohol makes you a "bro"? Damn, dude, check your holier-than-thou perceptions at the door and let people do their thing. I don't personally do any of the harder stuff, but I'm not going to condemn others if that makes them happy. I think you also have a very narrow-minded view as to what a "club" is and what types of people tend to frequent them (hint: the answer is "all different kinds").

[1] As long as my enjoyment isn't harming anyone else, anyway.

Re: Why I Don't Drink

#50

Post by thret »

kylec wrote: post #22
mjn wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of his points explain even from a personal perspective why he doesn't drink, though. Which of his bullet points explain the pros and cons of wine with dinner vs. not having wine with dinner?

He's not making an argument about nuanced tradeoffs, though. He's saying that he gets no benefit ("It makes me feel bleh", "Alcohol does not increase my enjoyment of activities") and that there are some drawbacks for him ("It dumbs you down", "It's expensive"). You might have different personal experiences with alcohol, but you can't deny the author his.

I find it hard to believe a glass of wine matched with dinner does not increase enjoyment of the activity. I realise taste is acquired but for someone who already drinks wine surely this is ignorance.

I've seen someone order a $100 steak well-done. They may enjoy this meal, but they have no goddamn idea what they are missing.

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