crazy how absolutely nobody saw nth-order effects coming
Alcohol-related deaths spiked during the pandemic, a study shows
201–210 of 314 posts
Re: Alcohol-related deaths spiked during the pandemic, a study shows
#202Earlier quoted context omitted.
People often turn to drugs when there are other problems in their life they can’t deal with. Drug abuse is not just about the physical hook.
Many people have never realized that self-destruction can feel liberating.
There better ways to destroy one's ego than destroying the mind and body.
Re: Alcohol-related deaths spiked during the pandemic, a study shows
#203I find it interesting how otherwise smart people rationalise drinking alcohol because "everyone else does it". My life was completely changed by Allen Carr's Easyway To Stop Drinking (available in audio books, hardback, Kindle etc). The author basically takes every reason people give for drinking and logically destroys it, often proving that the exact opposite is true. There's also an interesting BBC documentary by A…
> because "everyone else does it"
This is an extremely powerful force and should not be underestimated. Not just with alcohol but in all aspects of life.
In evolutionary terms, being well liked and accepted by the "in-group" even if it means being wrong tends to be more successful than being a smart outcast.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asch_conformity_experiments
Glad to hear you were able to over come it for the sake of your own health.
Re: Alcohol-related deaths spiked during the pandemic, a study shows
#204Recently (within the last two years) I had to help someone suffering with alcoholism/DTS and I was horrified by the abysmal outpatient support the medical system here provides. If he didn't have health insurance and a ride I would not have been able to convince him to go, and he could have died. It's very hard to argue with his contempt for hospitals and doctors when all they do is give you an overpriced potassium IV…
The sad reality is that they roll them out the door like that with suggestions to find an AA group is that there really is no other solution. ER staff are busy and can use their time more wisely by helping the ones they can help. We like to throw a lot of money at rehab facilities, but even those have very poor track records. The most cost effective treatment is to prevent people from getting into that situation in the first place.
Re: Alcohol-related deaths spiked during the pandemic, a study shows
#205Earlier 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.
I don't know about shame or moral failure, but alcoholism is obviously different from cancer or a broken leg in that you can control it yourself, even if it might be very hard for some.
A lot of other conditions also benefit from a more holistic approach, things like obesity, heart problems etc are easy to prevent, hard to cure.
Re: Alcohol-related deaths spiked during the pandemic, a study shows
#206Earlier quoted context omitted.
People often turn to drugs when there are other problems in their life they can’t deal with. Drug abuse is not just about the physical hook.
Many people have never realized that self-destruction can feel liberating.
The "liberation" from self destruction is more of a temporary numbness, a borrowed liberation from tomorrow, that disappears once the hangover starts clearing up. It's a false sense of liberation. Speaking from experience.
Re: Alcohol-related deaths spiked during the pandemic, a study shows
#207Earlier 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.
while shame can be useful at the margin for curbing incidental misbehaviors (like peeing on the seat), it's often ineffective and counterproductive at tackling larger psychosocial issues like addiction. you don't shame people out of gambling, they just hide it from you. i know someone who's clearly an alcoholic and they simply isolate themselves for large parts of the day and then hangs out with other heavy drinkers at night.
this is incidentally why 'cancel culture' doesn't work either. you have to do the hard work of active engagement[0], and that requires empathy, not (mis)judgement. shame has a small, limited place in our prosocial toolbox, but backfires reliably when mis- or over-used (and it's too often misused to enforce arbitrary conformity).
[0]: intentionally avoiding the term "listening", because that tends to be shallowly dismissed, with everyone thinking they listen well simply because their ears work
Re: Alcohol-related deaths spiked during the pandemic, a study shows
#208Re: Alcohol-related deaths spiked during the pandemic, a study shows
#209Similarly when the divorce stats for this period come out in a year or two it will be stunning I have more friends/neighbors/professional acquaintances who got divorced in the last 2 years than in the previous 10. The last 2 years have been very good for some, and very bad for others. Few had a normal one.
> The last 2 years have been very good for some, and very bad for others.
This seems like a great way to put it. Personally I've loved my time during the pandemic. Chilling at home with my SO and some marijuana after work is my happy place. Seems like the pandemic forced a lot of people to spend more time with their family which caused them to realize they had settled down with the wrong people.
Re: Alcohol-related deaths spiked during the pandemic, a study shows
#210Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well you clearly didn’t read the article because the entire thing is talking about all of the sorts of causes you listed.
I disagree. The thesis reads "but the full impact of the pandemic’s collateral damage is still being tallied". The point above was regarding the response to the pandemic being considered as equal or greater contributors to the rise in alcoholic deaths. The failure and successes of the response should be distinctly studied to determine a better course of action for the next pandemic.
I do worry that public health has a measurement problem where they only focus on things they can measure/estimate and things that they do cannot estimate they ignore instead of putting in an unscientific guess.