Drinking behind 1 in 10 deaths of working-age adults • Hacker News Board

Re: Drinking behind 1 in 10 deaths of working-age adults

#81

Post by purringmeow » Sat, Jun 28, 2014, 10:46 PM UTC

tluyben2 wrote: post #78

purringmeow wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exercise. You are focused on reps or breathing and you zone out. Really effective way to shift your focus and improves mental condition too.

Agreed. That's also a good way and I do that too, actually today for an hour, but after the cooldown I want to still solve the issue today... Mind you ; I really love what I do and it's my work and hobby and passion, but sometimes I want to shut it off .

Going out with people who aren't in IT helps too. I too have had that problem of just wanting to stay until 05:00 to do something, but I tell myself that's not the effective way and go to bed regardless.

I don't know you, so I don't know what else to say. Just experiment - try mixing exercise with active social life and new experiences. Go skydive or something like that :)

Re: Drinking behind 1 in 10 deaths of working-age adults

#82

Post by andyl » Sat, Jun 28, 2014, 10:48 PM UTC

andruby wrote: post #74

noname123 wrote: post #59

While we are at it, can we list some other addictions that we use to cope with life. Me personally, it's gambling, pornography, sulking alone, facebooking acquaintances to see how they're doing better than me or worse, checking sports score and living vicariously through the lives of professional athletes on and off the field, checking TechCrunch/Hack News and doing the same with tech billionaires, making up lists an…

Thank you for sharing the honest evaluation of your life. The only advice I can give you after having lived in the, from my point of view, shallow American tech world: move to Europe. The people in most European countries will be less welcoming at first, but I can tell you, if you stick through you will find them to be more profound. It helps that we don't have an American Dream which focusses on financial prosperity…

"you will find them to be a lot more profound"

BS - there's plenty of shallow people in Europe too.

Re: Drinking behind 1 in 10 deaths of working-age adults

#83

Post by andruby » Sat, Jun 28, 2014, 10:53 PM UTC

andyl wrote: post #82

andruby wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for sharing the honest evaluation of your life. The only advice I can give you after having lived in the, from my point of view, shallow American tech world: move to Europe. The people in most European countries will be less welcoming at first, but I can tell you, if you stick through you will find them to be more profound. It helps that we don't have an American Dream which focusses on financial prosperity…

"you will find them to be a lot more profound" BS - there's plenty of shallow people in Europe too.

Of course there are shallow people in Europe.

I met one last year :)

Re: Drinking behind 1 in 10 deaths of working-age adults

#84

Post by TeMPOraL » Sat, Jun 28, 2014, 11:00 PM UTC

noname123 wrote: post #59

While we are at it, can we list some other addictions that we use to cope with life. Me personally, it's gambling, pornography, sulking alone, facebooking acquaintances to see how they're doing better than me or worse, checking sports score and living vicariously through the lives of professional athletes on and off the field, checking TechCrunch/Hack News and doing the same with tech billionaires, making up lists an…

Thanks for sharing. I'm already doing like half of the things from that list, and I'll be probably doing the other half soon.

It's good to remind ourselves that you, and me, are not alone in this, and maybe to reflect on those "choices" "we" make and see if we can learn to live more of our own lives, and less of someone elses.

Re: Drinking behind 1 in 10 deaths of working-age adults

#85

Post by dasil003 » Sat, Jun 28, 2014, 11:01 PM UTC

noname123 wrote: post #59

While we are at it, can we list some other addictions that we use to cope with life. Me personally, it's gambling, pornography, sulking alone, facebooking acquaintances to see how they're doing better than me or worse, checking sports score and living vicariously through the lives of professional athletes on and off the field, checking TechCrunch/Hack News and doing the same with tech billionaires, making up lists an…

I don't mean to shoot down the one thing that gets you through the day, but if you aren't happy now do you think hitting it out of the ballpark will help? I mean, money is great for the basics, but if you're having problems forming romantic connections I think money would make that problem a lot worse.

Re: Drinking behind 1 in 10 deaths of working-age adults

#86

Post by hunvreus » Sat, Jun 28, 2014, 11:02 PM UTC

carbocation wrote: post #75

pekk wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IIRC, someone else with more expertise may show up, but the studies showing that drinking is helpful for heart disease say that this is about drinking one. Not "way too much" - mortality increases dramatically if you drink way too much, over what it would be if you didn't drink at all. The advantage of drinking is completely erased by drinking too much. The message isn't as mixed as you think.

This is essentially correct as far as I understand things. There is epidemiological evidence that As a physician I tell my patients that there may be a benefit from such very carefully controlled, modest drinking, but there is almost certainly a benefit from abstaining rather than over-drinking. Alcohol overuse makes you look old (yes I will appeal to vanity); it suppresses your bone marrow and makes you anemic; it c…

Same opinion here. Many possible interpretations.

For example: social interaction seems related to mortality as well, and social interaction leads to the very popular activity of consuming alcohol. Moreover, alcohol acts as a social lubricant, helping to fuel back these interactions.

Re: Drinking behind 1 in 10 deaths of working-age adults

#87

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jun 28, 2014, 11:05 PM UTC

throwawaywayway wrote: post #67

ryanmim wrote: post #12

I drink way too much. I've accepted this. What stops me from drinking way too much? Not much, because I'm able to rationalize my drinking with the many beneficial effects touted. There's a lot of information about how drinking a bit is helpful for heart disease and how it basically reduces mortality across the board. More information is needed about how drinking is HARMFUL beyond cirrhosis and the short term effects…

Honest question: How much is too much? I drink about 2-4 fairly strong beers a night (5-7% ABV), almost every night, and while I certainly feel it, I've only been "shitfaced" (or whatever you call "drinking to the point that you lose control") maybe half a dozen times in my life. The fact that I'm not doing the (apparently) normal thing for young folk and getting trashed every Friday night (or ever, really) gives me…

[deleted]

Re: Drinking behind 1 in 10 deaths of working-age adults

#88

Post by middle334 » Sat, Jun 28, 2014, 11:09 PM UTC

bluehazed wrote: post #47

I've pretty much resolved myself to slowly drinking myself to death, I'm pretty sure I'd have killed myself due to boredom or stress otherwise. Hopefully maybe getting out of my current field (devops) and going back into school (have a CS degree to finish) will help a bit.

I drank very heavily for ~ 20 years, a high functioning alcoholic and software engineer. Most of you have heard of stuff I've worked on. My other HN account has a pretty high karma, this one is a throwaway.

I was maybe three months from being homeless, and after being out of work for nearly a year (nobody wanted to hire me, go figure. I thought I had things pretty well covered up...) I found a job with a small company writing simulation software. Two weeks into working for them I lost control and went on a binge and didn't show up for a week, and the CEO went by my condo and asked WTF. I told him. Went into detox later that day, did two weeks in-patient at The Camp in Scotts Valley, then did AA really solidly. It mostly stuck; my earlier visits to AA hadn't been absolutely desperate, and I figure I was pretty close to dying through suicide or something a lot more slow and miserable.

I don't work at that company any more, but it took the caring of a CEO who I barely even knew to really wake me up. I'm still sober 15 years later.

Just switching jobs won't help. Nor will making promises, or going to school, or switching majors, or exercising, or moving, or just about anything else that doesn't exactly target what alcoholism is all about. This sounds deadly serious, and it is, but in fact AA was a lot of fun and I made a number of fast friends. (Feel free to substitute the organization of your choice, but AA worked well for me and I don't have experience with another group).

Re: Drinking behind 1 in 10 deaths of working-age adults

#89

Post by TeMPOraL » Sat, Jun 28, 2014, 11:09 PM UTC

frozenport wrote: post #68

logicallee wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

lol @ going to college so you can stop drinking. Only the engineering department... :-)

After what happened when Facebook came to our campus, I would assume CS degrees don't fall into this category. Perhaps the folks in Electrical Engineering still got it.

Nope, EEs also party hard. Try maybe some theological university.

Re: Drinking behind 1 in 10 deaths of working-age adults

#90

Post by hueving » Sat, Jun 28, 2014, 11:11 PM UTC

bagels wrote: post #37

ryanmim wrote: post #12

I drink way too much. I've accepted this. What stops me from drinking way too much? Not much, because I'm able to rationalize my drinking with the many beneficial effects touted. There's a lot of information about how drinking a bit is helpful for heart disease and how it basically reduces mortality across the board. More information is needed about how drinking is HARMFUL beyond cirrhosis and the short term effects…

Simple google search, first article: http://www.webmd.com/mental-health/addiction/features/12-hea... Anemia, Cancer, Cardiovascular Disease (many of them), Cirrhosis, Dementia, Depression, Siezures, Gout, High Blood Pressure, Infectious Diseases, Nerve Damage, Pancreatitis Also: Obesity, and likely higher risk of falling or other blunt trauma, it's really annoying to those around you, and it's a waste of money.

Everything is correct except for the last two. Only some people are annoying when drunk. It's also not a waste of money if you are intentionally consuming it for its effects. If that's a waste of money, so is every experience you pay for (travel, amusement parks, donkey shows, etc).