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America has a drinking problem

theatlantic.com

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Re: America has a drinking problem

#241

Post by tolbish »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #58
subsubzero wrote: post #14

I am not a heavy drinker, but one thing I noticed having moved around to a few places is how much everyone in my age group drinks(30's to mid 40's). I have gotten to know many a neighbor and they are all working professionals like me and I am just shocked that having 8-10 drinks a night seems like it comes standard for a Friday/Saturday night. I thought that it was just one location, but I moved twice in the past 2 y…

Heavy alcohol drinkers tend to cluster with each other. This leads to a self-reinforcing cycle wherein they see their peers consuming a lot of alcohol and assume that means it's normal and fine. Likewise, non-drinkers tend to cluster with each other because after a while it's just not fun to hang out with people consuming copious amounts of alcohol all of the time while their health slowly declines. I had to stop inv…

Apparently 18% of Americans are binge drinkers:

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/americans-are-dri...

Re: America has a drinking problem

#242

Post by Ensorceled »

> "But there’s nothing moderate, or convivial, about the way many Americans drink today."

Today? Are Americans (and Canadians) actually drinking more than they used to? Seems to me there was much heavier drinking in the 70s and 80s and the stats seem to back it up.

Re: America has a drinking problem

#243

Post by losvedir »

matwood wrote: post #180
paulgb wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've replaced the beer in my fridge with Athletic Brewing's non-alcoholic beer.

How do you like it? I like the taste of beer, and often want something more than water at night. But, I don't typically have alcohol except on the weekends (my wife and I joke about 2 beers and things are getting crazy lol). So during the week I often drink milk or a sugar free sports drink. Tea is also ok, but I try to avoid all caffeine late in the day.

I'm in a similar position, and lately I've been having flavored sparkling waters (Mmm Orange Bubly) and herbal (i.e. non-caffeinated) teas, depending if I want hot or cold. Obviously they don't taste like beer, but what I found was at least for me after doing it a while, it's not really the taste I wanted; that was just the association I had with the ritual I enjoyed of a nightcap, and now I'm happy with my new ones.

Re: America has a drinking problem

#244

Post by vinay427 »

offtop5 wrote: post #181
tjs8rj wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying there aren't downsides inherent with drinking itself? I'm onboard with letting people do what they want, but if what they want to do has negative effects the least we should do is make them aware of that.

There are downsides to eating Oreos, but we don't need articles which state obvious facts. Much wrong has been done in this country by telling people their behavior is a moral. As long as you don't hurt me or anyone else do whatever you want, you're free to drink yourself silly every night

I would argue that benefits have also come from moralizing about certain practices. Consider smoking cigarettes, for instance, which has seen dramatic decreases in use over several decades in the US [1]. I suspect that the large amount of moralizing in schools, on TV and in movies, and other places had something to do with this given that it's still more common (perhaps because it's less taboo and still seen as "cool") in certain European countries [2], not to mention many other places around the world that weren't significantly different from the US some decades ago. This has public health benefits that everyone at least indirectly benefits from, without mentioning the more direct issues such as second-hand smoke or, in the case of alcohol, drunk driving or other crimes exacerbated by its use.

[1] https://news.gallup.com/poll/237908/smoking-rate-hits-new-lo...

[2] https://ourworldindata.org/which-countries-smoke-most

Re: America has a drinking problem

#245

Post by TameAntelope »

C19is20 wrote: post #182
vdnkh wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This makes no sense. Do you think that Americans go out drinking to get drunk arounds friends, but not to socialize with them?

From my (not op) experiences, oh yes. Just last night I was talking to a potential bar investor and one of the huuuuge talking points was " how do we cater for the americans?"

I think Americans just aren't used to saying we're out to socialize. It's what's happening, but we're bad at it and we're not used to being explicit about it.

As a member of this target demographic, I would say that catering to American drinkers would be to provide a pretext to be at your establishment. You don't have to actually provide all that much, but if you provide a reason for being there that isn't, "Socialize with others" I bet you'd attract more Americans. In America we do "brewery tours" for example, but it doesn't even have to be related to alcohol itself ("good" music, board games, axe throwing, bumper cars, pub quiz, karaoke, etc.). What matters is that you're plausibly not there to "socialize", even though that's actually why you're there.

Re: America has a drinking problem

#246

Post by crackercrews »

kevinmchugh wrote: post #62
leifg wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Genuine question: what do you drink instead? Do you stick to water or do you order any kind of soda/lemonade (or something I’m not thinking about)

Club soda (or flavored seltzer) + bitters. There's alcohol there still but less than half a percent ABV. Not enough that it tastes boozy or impairs my judgement. Drinking one relatively low ABV beer impairs my judgement enough that a second drink sounds like a good idea, the soda and bitters never does that for me.

How are bitters with plain seltzer? I have a sodastream and am looking for some good flavors. Can't figure out anything that tastes as good as flavored bubly or lacroix and that doesn't have lots of sugar.

Re: America has a drinking problem

#247

Post by smegger001 »

rootusrootus wrote: post #206

Reading Europeans' comments on threads like this leaves me wondering who is more ignorant about America, me (as an American...) or them. I don't know anyone who goes out drinking to get drunk. I know people who socialize with friends and drink alcohol while doing it. I know some people who have a glass of wine or two with dinner. I myself drink a couple microbrews once a week with friends. But what I'm getting from o…

I knew people like that in our mutual early 20s a few years have gone by and now nope. I may drink once every other month or so on out D&D night. Much of that was because my mutual friend group were all from a background of strictly religious upbringings where alcohol was not considered acceptable so no one had a model of responsible drinking. all of us having gained independence around then I was the only one not getting hammered every weekend. (mostly because i don't like beer). but we have all aged and become more responsible and realized throwing up sucks.

Re: America has a drinking problem

#248

Post by [deleted] »

blhack wrote: post #116

Some of my most cherished memories are those where I was out drinking wine and having really good food with my wife and friends. When people were telling stories about Jesus, the central figure of their religion, one of the miracles they told of was him turning water into wine. This is held up as one of the most important stories in their entire moral system. When the pyramids were being built, the builders were paid…

[deleted]

Re: America has a drinking problem

#249

Post by quadyeast »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #153

It's hard to reduce the US to a single culture. Alcohol consumption habits vary greatly from region to region, or even city to city depending on where you live. I've noticed that heavy drinkers tend to cluster with other heavy drinkers. The more you see your friends and coworkers binge drinking regularly, the more you feel it's an acceptable and even common behavior. Likewise, non-drinkers tend to cluster with each o…

that chart does not make sense to me unless >10% of Americans are AA. I can't think of anyone, besides non-drinking Alcoholics, that have less than 1 drink/wk

Re: America has a drinking problem

#250

Post by StavrosK »

azinman2 wrote: post #207

Having lived in the UK and the US, I firmly disagree. I had never seen drinking at the extreme levels until I went to the UK. I seriously doubt the entire articles premise that somehow alcohol binging is unique to the US. There are a lot of counties with a lot of forms of alcohol out there…

It's not unique to the US, but the US shares a culture with the UK in this regard. It's not similar to other countries I've been to (or lived in). In Greece, for example, it's not uncommon to see teenagers being served/sold alcohol, just because it's not a big deal. People go out, they have a drink or two, and they go home.

In the US and the UK, if you aren't drunk when you get home, it wasn't a good night. Nobody here "pregames", simply because getting drunk is mostly something to be avoided.

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