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America has a drinking problem

theatlantic.com

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Re: America has a drinking problem

#561

Post by verst »

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…

I agree with you. It's not that Germans don't drink a lot - but it's just not as much in a single session and generally not for the purpose of getting drunk.

Most people don't understand the concept of standard drink sizes (for medical purposes or blood alcohol calculation). Firstly the standard drink size in the US is larger than in the US, but even so it's still smaller than the typical size drink people actually receive. If there were more awareness around standard drink sizes we might discover that Americans drink more than statistics capture by a lot (though probably not more than Germans)! In Germany most of my friends in the US would be considered alcoholics.

- shots are typically much larger in the US - about 2x-3x

- the standard beer size (for beer on tap) is usually a pint in the US. In Germany it's about a half pint! (That's why Germans can have a lunch beer)

- Canned wine is fairly popular in the US, but nobody realizes that this is essentially half of bottle of wine.

On a related note: most people definitely drive under the influence (legally drunk) in the US! :(

I grew up in Germany in the restaurant business (family business) and was a bar tender from a young age (albeit in a fancy restaurant with a few locals who'd sit at the bar). The most shots I've ever seen someone drink in an evening was 9 shots - my staff and I thought that person was a crazy alcoholic. Those shots are 2cl. When you compare that to the typical tequila shots in US bars it's basically ~3 shots (a little more), which people in their 20s and 30s tend to drink like it's no big deal.

I have lived several places in the Midwest, in SF, Chicago and of course traveled lots of places in the US for business and vacation.

Disclaimer: German in the US for 15+ years.

I'm writing this right now whilst drinking my German Import Pilsener to wind down from work :D

Re: America has a drinking problem

#562

Post by stjohnswarts »

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…

I've been to Europe many times. It's no better there than here. In the USA it's a bit of a regional thing as well, some states are much worse than others, but I don't think Europeans should feel like they have "superior drinking practices", they're just as bad.

Re: America has a drinking problem

#563

Post by my_usernam3 »

swensel wrote: post #554
renlo wrote: post #484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People in the US drink in the parks, the suburbs and the cities, especially in the evenings. The care and discretion one needs to take is proportional to how much free time the cops in the area have and circumstance / setting. You can drink openly at the beach. If in a small town park, you'd want to either have the alcohol in an unmarked bottle, a soda can, or a brown paper bag. In the cities the cops are typically c…

> You can drink openly at the beach. In CA at least, drinking at most beaches is not legal: https://beachlifeexpert.com/beaches/alcohol-guide-california...

not legal, but very socially acceptable

Re: America has a drinking problem

#564

Post by [deleted] »

TameAntelope wrote: post #440
throwaway21531 wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>America also has a cultural obsession with self-reliance/liberty/frontier-as-a-virtue which makes "socializing" a bit of a taboo concept, in a weird way. The "self-reliance/liberty/frontier-as-a-virtue" culture, which is strongly tied to Southern culture, is the culture that is more open about socializing with anyone. It's Northern and West coast US culture where people don't even want to look at each other in the e…

There's a deeper "independence" in American culture that has nothing to do with north vs. south that foreigners can smell a mile and a half away, even (especially?) on "northerners".

[deleted]

Re: America has a drinking problem

#565

Post by verst »

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…

1 standard drink. Did you know that a US standard drink for beer is 12 ounces (a pint is 16) at 5% alcohol by volume? In the PNW Pints Are the standard size and definitely stronger than 5%.

Also the German standard drink size for beer is less than 12 fluid ounces. Similar differences exist for other beverage types.

These comparisons are not only difficult, but the survey takers vastly underreport their actual consumption (probably unknowingly).

Re: America has a drinking problem

#566

Post by [deleted] »

TameAntelope wrote: post #440
throwaway21531 wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>America also has a cultural obsession with self-reliance/liberty/frontier-as-a-virtue which makes "socializing" a bit of a taboo concept, in a weird way. The "self-reliance/liberty/frontier-as-a-virtue" culture, which is strongly tied to Southern culture, is the culture that is more open about socializing with anyone. It's Northern and West coast US culture where people don't even want to look at each other in the e…

There's a deeper "independence" in American culture that has nothing to do with north vs. south that foreigners can smell a mile and a half away, even (especially?) on "northerners".

[deleted]

Re: America has a drinking problem

#567

Post by [deleted] »

TameAntelope wrote: post #440
throwaway21531 wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>America also has a cultural obsession with self-reliance/liberty/frontier-as-a-virtue which makes "socializing" a bit of a taboo concept, in a weird way. The "self-reliance/liberty/frontier-as-a-virtue" culture, which is strongly tied to Southern culture, is the culture that is more open about socializing with anyone. It's Northern and West coast US culture where people don't even want to look at each other in the e…

There's a deeper "independence" in American culture that has nothing to do with north vs. south that foreigners can smell a mile and a half away, even (especially?) on "northerners".

[deleted]

Re: America has a drinking problem

#568

Post by gher-shyu3i »

Alcohol is an extremely dangerous drug that is unfortunately normalized and expected by society. I wonder how much it is costing them in terms of healthcare, accidents, crimes, rape, etc.

Islam prohibited intoxicating drinks over 1400 years ago, and for good reason.

Re: America has a drinking problem

#569

Post by chewz »

svachalek wrote: post #127
handrous wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have some similar thoughts about this. Take Internet media streaming: am I happier being able to watch any of 10,000 things with no effort, rather than having maybe a couple dozen at hand and the ability, with some time and effort, to acquire one or two more if I really want them enough? Or is the ability to select exactly a certain thing to watch with low effort just scratching an itch that only exists because I c…

There was a book about this called the Paradox of Choice. Basically, that we want choices but they make us less happy. There's a related phenomenon, I don't know a name for it, where given a choice between convenience and happiness people will almost always choose convenience, generally without even realizing they've made a choice. Our genes have a deep, deep preference for minimizing energy expenditure.

Making each even insignificant choice uses your mental energy and each day we have limited amount of these. Consumer capitalism prays on that...

https://youtu.be/hZ7lFV9Z2hk?t=32

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