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America has a drinking problem

theatlantic.com

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Re: America has a drinking problem

#831

Post by blhack »

fy20 wrote: post #543
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…

If anything your comment just reinforces how much of a problem it is, and how deeply it is engrained in society. If sugary processed foods had been developed 5000 years ago, would you be saying the same about those today? You are associating alcohol == good times, which if you want to do so is fine (we are adults, we have free will), but know that you can have good times without alcohol as well. They aren't mutually…

I think you’re engaging in the exact sort of binary thinking that is the problem.

I’m saying: many people have enjoyed the effects of socializing and drinking alcohol for thousands of years. Perhaps we shouldn’t be so quick to demonize it since it seems to have demonstrated its utility.

You somehow read that as: “I need alcohol to have fun”.

Your reading is wrong.

Re: America has a drinking problem

#832

Post by croutonwagon »

mellosouls wrote: post #672
croutonwagon wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Im not sure I follow. Or how you would quantify that. Im sure most could probably quit cold turkey without physical withdrawal if that is what you mean. It takes a lot more than 4-10 drinks/day to be at risk of DT or even tremors. There are plenty of toxins that we freely ingest daily..Heck water in sufficient amounts is a toxin. Pretty much anything your liver has to process is a toxin in some form (i know thats sim…

I'd agree with most of those (with the caveat they don't have the same direct link with misery, mental illness, violence, crime and general anti-social behaviour) but don't see how us accepting them is justification for accepting alcohol beyond a defeatist "it all sucks so why bother". Neither was I talking about physical dependency particularly; I see enough people failing miserably on simple stuff like dry January…

because for many...food is exactly that.

>with the caveat they don't have the same direct link with misery, mental illness, violence, crime and general anti-social behaviour

Many people use it exactly that way. Epecially with depression etc.

And ultimately I am not of the opinion that we need to manage other peoples vices, or sources of temporary happiness. Alcohol is a very social vice and 99% of people can manage it responsibly.

So provided they arent direct contributors to larger issues in society (such as meth/opiates directly causing crime etc.), I dont think the government needs to be in the business of restriciting people freedoms (which does include the freedom to self-destructive behavior).

Otherwise where do you stop? Mandating exercise? Banning burgers? Ultimately we cant nerf the world. Prohibition doesnt work, if the 20's doesnt show you just look at the drug war and marijuana.

Re: America has a drinking problem

#833

Post by deep-root »

placer wrote: post #763

Since the linked article mentions Glaser’s now-discredited 2015 article which falsely claims AA is not helpful: The latest science shows that Alcoholics Anonymous is a very helpful resource for many alcoholics, and that AA increases sobriety by 7% compared to other treatments. Some references: - https://www.thecut.com/2015/03/why-alcoholics-anonymous-work... - https://www.wbur.org/commonhealth/2020/03/11/medical-scie…

All three links don't seem to conclusively support your comment and AA continues to be controversial for many reasons (e.g. adopting "alcoholic" as your identity). Quoting link #2:

"Mostly it [the new review] looks like studies of either sending people to AA or frequent counseling, and that yields similar results to other kinds of alcohol use disorder psychotherapies. That's what their main finding is," Saitz said. "And I, unfortunately, I don't think that tells us so much about AA effectiveness."

As an aside the average AA member attends 2.5 meetings a week and membership is 89% white[1], I had no idea. Where do non-white people get help in America?

[1] https://www.aa.org/assets/en_US/p-48_membershipsurvey.pdf

Re: America has a drinking problem

#834

Post by ABCLAW »

quotemstr wrote: post #709
capableweb wrote: post #656

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neither of the things you've listed sounds like diversity, it sounds like inequality. Why is half the country without proper education while the other ones are in the best research institutions in the world? And what does the people are those institutions spend their time on, if it's not helping the other half reaching the same position as themselves? The social experiment seems to be about how extreme you can really…

Why do you suppose that under conditions of perfect fairness we would see perfect equality? That's just not the case. Human talent is not sprinkled in the proportion in each person. You can achieve equality only through Harrison Bergeron measures. I'd rather have freedom.

>Why do you suppose that under conditions of perfect fairness we would see perfect equality? That's just not the case. Human talent is not sprinkled in the proportion in each person. You can achieve equality only through Harrison Bergeron measures. I'd rather have freedom.

The assumption here that perfect fairness is a perfect information meritocracy is an intellectual leap, and even if true belies the fact that what constitutes merit is defined by those who have power.

Is this perfect fairness outcome or opportunity based? Is the equality measured purely in terms of economic outcome or in terms of individual value maximization?

There's too much swept under the rug to generalize a model about the direction of society.

Re: America has a drinking problem

#835

Post by [deleted] »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #545
TameAntelope wrote: post #261

I'm going to generalize, but the US is more diverse (rank #90 vs #151 for Germany, #169 for France, #111 for Croatia [0]) and we also have a very painful past and present that makes us acutely aware of our inability to socialize. 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. It's a crutch to "need" to be around…

>we also have a very painful past and present that makes us acutely aware of our inability to socialize. What are you talking about?

[deleted]

Re: America has a drinking problem

#836

Post by tolbish »

ARandomerDude wrote: post #805
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #702

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fundamental moral basis of the US is that some people are born better than others. If you have money, you're one of the chosen ones. The more money the better, without end. The losers who don't have money are not your problem. If they were as superior as you are they'd sort themselves out and have money too. But they don't, and of course that just proves how inferior they are. It's absolutely an 18th century aris…

This simply doesn't match the facts. For example, the United States ranks near the top of the World Giving Index, which certainly wouldn't happen if "the losers who don't have money are not your problem". Importantly, this is a man-on-the-street level index, not a government spending index, meaning it more or less assesses the charitable attitudes of the people in various countries. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worl…

It does match the facts. It is not uncommon for Americans to need GoFundMes for major medical procedures.

Re: America has a drinking problem

#837

Post by mellosouls »

croutonwagon wrote: post #832
mellosouls wrote: post #672

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd agree with most of those (with the caveat they don't have the same direct link with misery, mental illness, violence, crime and general anti-social behaviour) but don't see how us accepting them is justification for accepting alcohol beyond a defeatist "it all sucks so why bother". Neither was I talking about physical dependency particularly; I see enough people failing miserably on simple stuff like dry January…

because for many...food is exactly that. >with the caveat they don't have the same direct link with misery, mental illness, violence, crime and general anti-social behaviour Many people use it exactly that way. Epecially with depression etc. And ultimately I am not of the opinion that we need to manage other peoples vices, or sources of temporary happiness. Alcohol is a very social vice and 99% of people can manage i…

99% of people can manage it responsibly.

This sounds like a made-up figure - even assuming you are being figurative, I suspect you are very optimistic.

So provided they arent direct contributors to larger issues in society

See previous comment. Alcohol clearly is.

Re: America has a drinking problem

#838

Post by ABCLAW »

bumby wrote: post #808
netizen-936824 wrote: post #806

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay so someone said it in a time when the "experiment" was slavery. I'm not sure what your point is.

While your response is entirely predictable, it’s obvious why such a reaction misses the point because the scope is much wider than one issue. Yes, it was said during a time when slavery was the norm. But the “experiment” also included allowing systems that challenged that notion rather than maintaining the status quo. That’s the point.

I don't think this really addresses the core issue, being that experimentation is used as an excuse to not apply the results of the experiments after they've been performed.

I don't think the idea is that experimentation is de facto bad. It's the use of experimentation as a tool to avoid implementation following experimentation that's being decried.

Re: America has a drinking problem

#839

Post by thehappypm »

silicon2401 wrote: post #45

Title is definitely true (america has a drinking problem), in a way. Excessive drinking is normalized, though not as common as problem drinkers think. Since college I always drank too much, but my real issue was that I assumed everybody drank as much as I did (maybe 20-30 drinks per week). Since I wasn't drinking as soon as I woke up or getting shakes without drinking, I thought I was fine. It wasn't until I realized…

I am in your same boat, I have always liked drinking very much, but I never dipped into any sort of serious "drinking problem" territory. For me the best way to reduce alcohol -- and stay healthy in general -- is to count calories. It's impossible to overdrink if you only have 200 calories at the end of your day and can only drink 1 beer. Nothing else has helped me cut back like that.

Re: America has a drinking problem

#840

Post by thehappypm »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #64
rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, as someone who has 2-3 drinks per day, I've always been more surprised by the amount of people who basically don't drink at all. In that chart it's over half of Americans. Travel a bit, any you'll quickly discover that a couple drinks in the evening is basically normal in much of the world. I'm not arguing that it's healthy (it's not), but the median American really doesn't drink much - our Puritan values r…

> 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 Puritans also drank a ton.
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