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America has a drinking problem

theatlantic.com

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Re: America has a drinking problem

#311

Post by rrrrrrrrrrrryan »

adventured wrote: post #185
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but the median American really doesn't drink much - our Puritan values run deep. For many of us, it's not about Puritanical values. We simply choose healthier behaviors. It's true that the median alcohol drinkers in America doesn't drink much at all. The vast majority of alcohol is consumed by 10% of the population. Drinkers tend to cluster with other drinkers, and non-drinkers tend to become less interested with a…

The parent is entirely wrong about it being puritan based. The US long ago lost its puritan influences as a primary. The US is a very different place today vs the 1960s or 1980s culturally. Puritanism is a small fraction of influence in the US at this point culturally. The reason Americans drink less alcohol at the median, is due to how American populations are heavily distributed in housing developments, in suburbs,…

Religion can fade away while its values endure.

Most "American Values" are basically just puritan ethics. In America, you won't see someone sipping a beer on the subway for the same reason you see someone take take a 4 week summer vacation, or a nipple on TV. Most of the quirky values that separate us from western europe (like hard work, temperance, abstinence, etc.) can be traced back to our puritan roots.

Re: America has a drinking problem

#312

Post by FridayoLeary »

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…

Don't really get pubs outside the UK. A pub is basically a place where you can sit and enjoy yourself and chat with mates. Sometimes people can get outrageously drunk.

Also in UK you can buy alcohol from 18, (and if you go to the right places younger even...). It seems totally absurd that in the USA even a 20 YO can't buy himself a drink.

Re: America has a drinking problem

#313

Post by hellbannedguy »

quadyeast wrote: post #249
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

A lot of people don't like alcoholic beverages at all.

I have member of my family that despise the taste of alcohol.

Then, we have people like myself, and my father, whom self medicate.

(I hate the taste of all alcohol. I only drink it for the effect. To the problem drinkers out there, don't even think about going to hard alcohol. Stick to low alcohol beer, and wine. Box wine can have as little as 9% alcohol. Naltrexone seems to help with the cravings if you need to stop.)

Re: America has a drinking problem

#314

Post by throwaway0a5e »

tolbish wrote: post #240
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…

And yet one year later we learn that 18% of Americans are binge drinkers: https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/americans-are-dri...

If approximately one in five people are doing it then either it needs to lose the stigma or the definition needs to change.

Re: America has a drinking problem

#315

Post by ashtonkem »

> who, like most Europeans of that time, preferred beer to water

Yes, the pilgrims preferred beer over water because the water kept killing them. Drinking tea or beer was a matter of safety, not mere preference or addiction. We now know that the combination of boiling, pH, and alcohol helped keep beer safer than drinking water of the time, but they were unaware of that and just knew that beer seemed safer.

Trying to draw a parallel between modern drinking habits and the pilgrims is just silly, because we’re drinking different things in different amounts for very different reasons.

Re: America has a drinking problem

#316

Post by throwaway0a5e »

Barrin92 wrote: post #135

Article mirrors my experience. For context I'm German, my wife's French and we've got family in Croatia who own a vineyard so I'm used to being around alcohol and people drinking. My first impression when I spent time was in the US was indeed how bipolar drinking is compared to Europe. We probably drink a hell of a lot more in raw terms than the average American does.Two glasses of wine for dinner, another one in the…

This trope needs to die. Europe doesn't have drinking "problems" because it mostly draws the line for "problems" in what would solidly be "functional alcoholic" territory in the US.

Re: America has a drinking problem

#317

Post by ipaddr »

rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote: post #289
StavrosK wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 he…

The UK is an outlier in western europe (I think this is your point), but having lived in both countries, they definitely binge drink more than Americans.

The happy hour culture and early closing time force binge drinking.

Re: America has a drinking problem

#318

Post by quickthrowman »

kelnos wrote: post #220
ska wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TFA states that top 10% is at least equivalent 2 bottles/wine per day, which is more than your 6-pack, closer to a 12-pack. 10% is not outliers. edit to avoid confusion: this wasn't an average, this was the bottom of the 10% decile. So clearly there are bigger drinkers out there, but 10% is a lot of minimum 10-drink-a-day people.

I think the error we're making here is that the top 10% doesn't all drink the same amount. The top 1% might drink 20 drinks per day, while someone in the 91st percentile might drink 7 or 8.

20 drinks/day sounds about right for the top 1% of alcohol drinkers, I’ve been at that level before.

Re: America has a drinking problem

#319

Post by netflixandkill »

America has problems with drinking, opioids, meth, prescription abuse, vaping bizarre things, health care, mental health, domestic violence, domestic terrorism and violent crime, school shootings and suicides because America has a misery problem.

A few decades of bootstrap vs welfare paint don't fix the rotted and failing structure of a culture, if it can even be called that anymore, that had replaced well being with consumption and personal growth with work and public goods with privatized profits.

There is a pretty international audience here that can probably relate to seeing the difference between cases like the hard drinking work culture in many east Asian nations or the near constant casual drinking of much of Europe with the abject despair visible in the poorer parts of the US.

Naturally people have been crying for a social welfare system for basically the last 140 years with occasional fits and starts but mostly characterized by a complete failure to crib off the results of developed nations across the world that simply don't have constant ongoing crises about everything.

Re: America has a drinking problem

#320

Post by throwaway0a5e »

bitexploder wrote: post #297
quadyeast wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I do pretty demanding sport as a hobby. Even one drink during the week greatly impacts recovery and ability to perform and lessens my enjoyment considerably. It’s rather commons in my circles for people to probably average a handful of drinks per year at most.

If one drink/wk is noticeably affecting you then you're either a professional athlete who's got world class people monitoring their performance or you need to see a doctor.

Edit: Assuming the standard definition of drink that's roughly equivalent to one light beer or one shot

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