Alcohol-related deaths spiked during the pandemic, a study shows • Hacker News Board

Re: Alcohol-related deaths spiked during the pandemic, a study shows

#161

Post by II2II » Thu, Mar 24, 2022, 2:36 PM UTC

tzs wrote: post #145

Maybe next time we get a pandemic that needs people to stay at home a lot we should issue everyone vouchers good for a free decent beginner's musical instrument and enough free lessons with an instructor over video chat to teach them enough of the basics to get them to where they can continue learning from books and YouTube without an instructor. That might give people something to both distract them from the pandemi…

I agree with the principle of what is being said.

I was lucky in that my boss pretty much said the busy work was nuts. Go for a walk. Take some pictures. We can talk about our experiences before we do the stuff that must be done. (We were kept on payroll since we were expected to be available the day things opened up even the slightest and there was only so much professional development that we could do.) In other words, we were given a hobby to distract us from the pandemic and we built our own support network.

Unfortunately, the government was stuck dealing with the big picture: how to control the spread of the virus and how to handle the immediate fallout. They gave people money, but they did not offer much guidance in how to cope with the change. In a way it was not their place and in a way it's difficult to do so due to the diversity of the population, but some guidance could have helped.

Re: Alcohol-related deaths spiked during the pandemic, a study shows

#162

Post by gilbetron » Thu, Mar 24, 2022, 2:38 PM UTC

doitLP wrote: post #109

narenkeshav wrote: post #75

They should've opted for weed.

Anecdotally I know 3 adults in 3 different states who tried weed for the first time during the pandemic and all of them developed new-onset panic attacks and disassociative symptoms within less than 6 months of regular use and had to stop. Not sure if it was better than alcohol…

Yeah, I played around with it before the pandemic started and found it meh. When the pandemic was in full swing, I tried it again as an alternative to alcohol and found that it made things far worse. I think it just hits me differently than people that like the stuff. I have zero desire to ever use it again because all it makes me do is feel paranoid and nervous.

Re: Alcohol-related deaths spiked during the pandemic, a study shows

#163

Post by after_care » Thu, Mar 24, 2022, 2:43 PM UTC

servytor wrote: post #148

I discovered Kudzu[0] and alcoholism a while ago and hope it might help somebody here or their friend or loved one. Kudzu apparently is an amazing drug for helping people quit drinking. I hope if anybody here has trouble, or knows someone with trouble, they try introducing it to them if it makes sense to them. Here is a BBC article[1], but they only did 500mg instead of 2g. Apparently it works by helping you feel dru…

From the nih link

> Drinking was recorded using a custom built end table that contained a digital scale beneath a ceramic tile insert in the tabletop (Ohaus model #B10P with I5S controller). Participants were instructed to always keep the beer glass on the table except when taking a sip. The scale was connected to a computer in an adjacent room that ran a customized program that sampled the scale at 5 Hz and detected any weight changes that exceeded 1 gm. This rapid sampling of the weight permitted a real time assessment of drinking topography that included gross measures of volume and number of beers consumed but also provided details on a more micro level and included the number and size of sips taken, latency to opening a beer, and consumption time of each beer. Additional details and photos of the device can be found in Lukas et al. (2005). Breath alcohol levels were assessed using an Alco-Sensor FST breathalyzer (Intoximeter, Inc., St. Louis, MO) both before and after the drinking session; values were not collected during the active alcohol acquisition period to avoid interacting with the participant and allowing natural drinking patterns to emerge.

I would buy this product for my desk to measure water and coffee intact. Bonus points if it could detect the type of drink automatically based on some measured physical property. It might work well as a cup/bottle instead of a coaster.

Re: Alcohol-related deaths spiked during the pandemic, a study shows

#164

Post by lampshades » Thu, Mar 24, 2022, 2:44 PM UTC

stef25 wrote: post #26

Right before the first lockdown I started a new high stress job and for several months our two toddlers weren't allowed to attend school. During the first few weeks we tried to make it "fun", I'd start working around 4-5AM , alternating morning and evening shifts of work / toddlers with my partner. Then colleagues started complaining "wtf this guy's playing with his kids in the park at 2PM" and I got really bad feedb…

You sound like a variation of me. Right after lockdown I started a new job (that I really wanted) and had a toddler and a pregnant wife. I've always been a drinker, but my drinking started getting earlier and earlier in the day and I would go until bed. I'm also a marijuana smoker and I reverted back to my previous self of smoking from sun up to sun down.

On top of my substance abuse issues, my wife had a rough pregnancy and didn't (feels like still doesn't) understand that if I'm WFH I still have a job and can't just take care of our kid at random times throughout the day, so I was trying to juggle my job and my wife's requests. It didn't get any better after our second was born, because my wife had PPD and now we had two children to deal with.

Eventually I had to leave my job because I couldn't deal with it all and was missing deadlines and just not being performant. I'm terrified to go back to work because I know my wife isn't able to treat my job like a job and thinks I just have it easy sitting on a computer all day. The random requests might end, but her resentment for me won't and I'll have to hear about it all night when I get off. Hence, I doubt the substance abuse will stop anytime soon.

To top it off, it is so damn difficult knowing that all these single people I work with, or married without children, have absolutely no idea what I'm going through and frankly they don't care.

All in all, I agree, the last 2 years have been fucking rough, and I expect the following 2 to be rough as well.

PS Your post triggered some venting I needed to express. I am happy with my life and wouldn't change it but it is still so fucking hard sometimes.

Re: Alcohol-related deaths spiked during the pandemic, a study shows

#165

Post by _fat_santa » Thu, Mar 24, 2022, 2:44 PM UTC

sjg007 wrote: post #93

kaishiro wrote: post #44

My older brother is an alcoholic. I suspect it's somewhat cliche to say, but when he's sober he's the nicest guy I know - almost nobody else I'd rather spend time with - and when he's drunk, he's chaos. The past few years he's been really struggling with sobriety - on and off like a roller coaster. The pandemic was an absolute nightmare for someone like him - in between jobs, trying to stay sober, trying to find the…

Has he tried antabuse or something like that? Those pills make you vomit when you drink and are quite effective in harnessing the body's natural anti-poison response system to curb drinking.

I'm from Russia and this is a very common treatment over there. Rather than pills, they give you an implant of sorts. In Russia we call it "getting coded". Works for some, but others just keep drinking.

Re: Alcohol-related deaths spiked during the pandemic, a study shows

#166

Post by lampshades » Thu, Mar 24, 2022, 2:49 PM UTC

tallanvor wrote: post #114

stef25 wrote: post #26

Right before the first lockdown I started a new high stress job and for several months our two toddlers weren't allowed to attend school. During the first few weeks we tried to make it "fun", I'd start working around 4-5AM , alternating morning and evening shifts of work / toddlers with my partner. Then colleagues started complaining "wtf this guy's playing with his kids in the park at 2PM" and I got really bad feedb…

> And IMHO if you weren't at home with toddlers you didn't experience true suffering. You're entitled to your opinion, but the lockdowns affected everyone differently. I know parents who thrived with their toddlers, but they didn't have the same issues at work where people were complaining about when they were working. But I also know people who's marriages ended due to longstanding issues that were magnified by bein…

> I know parents who thrived with their toddlers

Doubt. You just aren't hearing the war stories.

Re: Alcohol-related deaths spiked during the pandemic, a study shows

#167

Post by The-Bus » Thu, Mar 24, 2022, 2:51 PM UTC

ponow wrote: post #155

elliekelly wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For some reason we, as a society, have decided certain health problems are moral failures to be treated with shame and cured through willpower alone rather than modern medical intervention.

"For some reason" there are temptations to addiction all around us, and alcohol is only one. We can't treat being human as merely a medical condition. Human cultures have adapted using shame as a tool.

The medical condition is a predilection to addiction, alcohol or otherwise. Shame doesn't cure cancer or make you recover from a common cold.

Re: Alcohol-related deaths spiked during the pandemic, a study shows

#168

Post by dionidium » Thu, Mar 24, 2022, 2:54 PM UTC

_jal wrote: post #159

ponow wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"For some reason" there are temptations to addiction all around us, and alcohol is only one. We can't treat being human as merely a medical condition. Human cultures have adapted using shame as a tool.

> Human cultures have adapted using shame as a tool. A rather poorly targeted and counterproductive one. Note that you immediately assumed a puritan view, that addiction is solely an individual moral failing. > there are temptations to addiction all around us

I used to be a heavy drinker. Shame and guilt were absolutely enormous factors in my decision to quit drinking. I'm just n = 1, but it seems crazy to me to suggest that shame doesn't work. It works really, really well on me! If you want me to stop doing something, then getting me to feel ashamed about it is a very effective strategy.

Re: Alcohol-related deaths spiked during the pandemic, a study shows

#169

Post by gameswithgo » Thu, Mar 24, 2022, 2:55 PM UTC

elliekelly wrote: post #136

sjg007 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has he tried antabuse or something like that? Those pills make you vomit when you drink and are quite effective in harnessing the body's natural anti-poison response system to curb drinking.

For some reason we, as a society, have decided certain health problems are moral failures to be treated with shame and cured through willpower alone rather than modern medical intervention.

Hmmm, in America the most common intervention is AA, whose doctrine is that willpower alone is not sufficient, that you must appeal to a higher power. We also know this intervention isn't any more effective than someone just trying get over it on their own, yet it persists, and is even court ordered often. There will be replies to this post about how AA "worked for them" or something to that effect. Which doesn't mean anything.

My brother struggles with alcoholism and has been on and off the horse, with AA as the main thing all the time. The primary impact it seems to have on him is that all he wants to talk about is AA and alcoholism. It becomes his identity. "Alcoholics do this, alcoholics do that, alcoholics are like this". If I thought that was helpful then fine, but it seems more rewarding identities would be possible and less limiting.

Re: Alcohol-related deaths spiked during the pandemic, a study shows

#170

Post by franknstein » Thu, Mar 24, 2022, 2:55 PM UTC

clsec wrote: post #150

elliekelly wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AA is a religious organization. Not everyone wants to be “saved”. Nor should they have to be in order to get treatment for alcoholism.

IMO it's a cult. I spent a lot of my childhood at AA meetings with my alcoholic mother. I am also an alcoholic and struggled for years because the only answer I was ever offered was AA/NA. I tried it for myself a few times (usually to please others) but was always instantly turned off by it's cult like attributes. I eventually found help through a few different paths. disclaimer: my half-sister's mother was in a cult…

This might sound rough, but don't you think some brainwashing could help your situation?