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

nytimes.com

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

#281

Post by jquery »

b3nji wrote: post #278
psychlops wrote: post #130

I notice that "the pandemic" is quickly found as the root cause and no analysis at all is done to identify if the response to the pandemic is to be implicated as well. I'd wager that waking up one day and discovering that one's job is not essential might be stressful. Being forbidden from going to the beaches and parks might have contributed. The stress of learned helplessness from countless bureaucratic decisions la…

Yes, sadly it appears this is likely the case. It appears that the reaction to the virus has possibly caused so much more harm than the virus itself.

> It appears that the reaction to the virus has possibly caused so much more harm than the virus itself

Too early to know. It’ll take years before we know the full consequences of the anti-vaxx movement.

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

#282

Post by spookthesunset »

anonu wrote: post #91
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 I really enjoyed the 5 minutes between the pandemic and WWIII. I chuckled. I'm glad you still have your sense of humor. But from another perspective, yes, it's quite sad for humanity. I remind myself that disease and war were far more widespread in centuries past.

> I remind myself that disease

Yes but no time in the past did we decide to prohibit people from working for more than a year. At no point in the past did we decide to keep kids out of school...

If we didn't have zoom, we never would have done these lockdowns.

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

#283

Post by spookthesunset »

lampshades wrote: post #164
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 pregn…

> single people I work with, or married without children, have absolutely no idea what I'm going through and frankly they don't care

Not only did they not care many of them actively shamed you for expressing your feelings. "I don't like it either but I'm just doing what the experts say" and "Are you an expert? No? Then stay in your lane!".

What we did over the last two years is despicable.

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

#284

Post by spookthesunset »

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…

> Maybe next time we get a pandemic

... we will never repeat what we just did. Forcing people to "stay the fuck home" for more than a year with absolutely no shred of hope. Filling them with fear mongering and stories of doom... Good news was forbidden.

The public health policy for covid was perhaps one of the greatest "bad decisions" society has ever made. The fall out from the last two years of bullshit will be studied for decades and centuries to come.

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

#285

Post by spookthesunset »

adamrezich wrote: post #201

crazy how absolutely nobody saw nth-order effects coming

I was yelled at by some people I know quite well when I pointed this stuff out. Only covid mattered to these people. Even when we knew it wasn't nearly as bad as the original models predicted society doubled down on the nonsense.

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

#286

Post by stef25 »

whywhywhywhy wrote: post #220
lkxijlewlf wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds more like a problem with how stories/tasks are split.

Being part of a team means being part of a team and communication and connecting with the team to be a coherent whole, not just logging in and staring at your ticket todo list and not speaking to anyone.

There were quite a lot of discussions about this. The one ticket that was the nail in my coffin was rewriting a a 2000 line function written by some guy who left years ago, full of if / else ladders in god damn Zend framework.

Nobody could really explain what it was supposed to do. Calculate some commissions based on conditions x,y,z. The input was a CSV that nobody could give me an example of. Every time I talked to someone it was "Ok I have 2 min before my meeting what do you want".

Because it was all remote work it was super easy to see who I contacted when in Slack and was info was communicated. Timestamps of all the commits.

After a few days of trying and failing I just threw in the towel. It's not worth it.

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

#287

Post by nonameiguess »

psychlops wrote: post #151
emerged wrote: post #143

Earlier 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.

You can check the study yourself (https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2790491). They simply looked at alcohol-related mortality across the entire US in 2019, 2020, and provisional data from the first half of 2021. There is no basis on which to make a statement comparing localities that implemented strict lockdowns versus those implemented less strict lockdowns. The only event that definitely affected the entire country equally is "the pandemic" broadly. They can't draw conclusions the data don't support just to make it more palatable to you.

Saying this should definitely be studied doesn't mean every single paper that gets published needs to only study this. It's not even clear it's really possible to get the data. How do you measure the strictness of different responses? Do municipalities publish alcohol mortality individually or is only the aggregate data available?

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

#288

Post by collegeburner »

vibrio wrote: post #275
spurgu wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say it's mainly that those who have been heavily advocating all of the lockdown measures throughout the pandemic have behaved more or less like there were no side effects and we should do them for the greater good (basically virtue signaling). The other isle has advocated that maybe we shouldn't cause that kind of turmoil in society just to spare a few years of lifespan of the elderly (which is a harsh take but d…

While outdoor masking is silly, the your rage seems disproportionate if that is the source. I've been accused of 'virtue signaling' during the pandemic, but supporting family members whose immune systems were largely disable from chemotherapy makes putting a mask on seem like a small sacrifice. Your take on 'spare a few years of lifespan' is perhaps not untrue, but is an easy 'internet take' when there is anonymity.…

I'd find it harder to tell a young healthy person they had to lose years of life, their job, their house, than to tell a 70 year old or obese person we aren't doing that to spare them.

And you're right, rage is the correct word. Me and lots of others are enraged that years of life were taken. The old people in America already got enough at everybody else's expense. I want my 2 years back and I won't stop being angry until I get it. And a whole lot of people my age feel the same.

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

#290

Post by collegeburner »

The-Bus wrote: post #167
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.

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

I have a very serious family history of addiction. Many many alcoholics on both sides, hard drug abusers and ODs in younger generations too. So I don't drink. Pressure is immemse in college but still not an excuse. Addiction is a medical problem, but it's like obesity: a medical problem that arises from choices. So there is some individual responsibility. And shame may not help addicts but it sure stops people from becoming addicts.
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