I would highly recommend everyone to watch the documentary Prohibition by Ken Burns:
America has a drinking problem
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Re: America has a drinking problem
#92Earlier 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…
As someone who doesn't drink more than 2-3 per week and have in the past been in the 2-3 per day category, perhaps it's related to age and/or kids. When kids were tots, I couldn't afford the time to socialize, and now I'm older, consumption has dietary/sleep impacts and I can't afford that too much. Also weirdly I simply don't enjoy the buzz as much.
I think having children limits serious partying, but what do you drink when you’re eating your evening meals? Only water?
Maybe it’s a southern European thing, but I can’t imagine eating a heavy meal without the acidity of a red wine, for example.
Re: America has a drinking problem
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
As someone who doesn't drink more than 2-3 per week and have in the past been in the 2-3 per day category, perhaps it's related to age and/or kids. When kids were tots, I couldn't afford the time to socialize, and now I'm older, consumption has dietary/sleep impacts and I can't afford that too much. Also weirdly I simply don't enjoy the buzz as much.
I also drink about this much per week. I like a beer or wine or whiskey every now and again, but I've never really seen the point in getting buzzed or drunk (or high for that matter). When I do drink, I only have 1 or 2 at a time, not out of an express desire to stay sober, but because I'm usually pretty naturally satisfied by that amount. For whatever reason, I like sobriety. It's strange to me that people should th…
> It's strange to me that people should think we need a religious motive to prefer sobriety
I would not at all be surprised to see a strong correlation of people who are religious and people who never drink. Even "one drink a week" or whatever is a significantly different category than "zero drinks, ever."
Re: America has a drinking problem
#94I decided to give up alcohol for a year. That was three years ago and doubt I will ever go back. Aside from having better sleep than at any other point as an adult, I truly enjoy the activities I partake in just as much, if not more, than when I still paired them with alcohol. It took about 6 months to stop feeling like I was missing out, and now I feel like everyone else is. Anxiety in general is noticeably lower (t…
Genuine question: what do you drink instead? Do you stick to water or do you order any kind of soda/lemonade (or something I’m not thinking about)
a lot of beer places near me carry lagunitas hop water. It's zero calorie sparking water with a hoppy flavor.
Re: America has a drinking problem
#95I decided to give up alcohol for a year. That was three years ago and doubt I will ever go back. Aside from having better sleep than at any other point as an adult, I truly enjoy the activities I partake in just as much, if not more, than when I still paired them with alcohol. It took about 6 months to stop feeling like I was missing out, and now I feel like everyone else is. Anxiety in general is noticeably lower (t…
Genuine question: what do you drink instead? Do you stick to water or do you order any kind of soda/lemonade (or something I’m not thinking about)
Dry kombucha is a really nice alternative at 50 - 100 calories a can. My go to this summer https://www.lionheartkombucha.com/flavors/
Re: America has a drinking problem
#96Why not let everyone do what they want?
I hate these moralizing articles, if we have a drunk driving problem then write an article about that. But if people want to drink in their own homes let them be.
Re: America has a drinking problem
#97I found it pretty amusing to see how drunk our founding fathers were. I think being drunk played a huge role in the American revolution
Reminds me of the article "Were Early Modern People Perpetually Drunk? (2016)"
Re: America has a drinking problem
#98I decided to give up alcohol for a year. That was three years ago and doubt I will ever go back. Aside from having better sleep than at any other point as an adult, I truly enjoy the activities I partake in just as much, if not more, than when I still paired them with alcohol. It took about 6 months to stop feeling like I was missing out, and now I feel like everyone else is. Anxiety in general is noticeably lower (t…
> Anxiety in general is noticeably lower you were more anxious when you were drinking ? that's a first not to look naive, but there was a period of my life having a beer [0] was really the only way for me to exist outside my bedroom walls, i wasn't even tipsy.. I was just able to sit in a room without crippling dread. [0] I didn't drink, but the few times I did at parties I realized how drinking a bit was lifting me…
Conditions like GERD where stomach acids come up into the esophagus can be mistaken for anxiety or panic attacks. Alcohol can make GERD type symptoms a lot worse.
Re: America has a drinking problem
#99The statistics about alcohol consumption are so stunning that I often wonder how accurate they are. If these numbers are correct, the top 10% of alcohol drinkers consume the equivalent of 10 drinks per day : https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/09/25/think... The unit for a single drink is a fixed measurement, so someone pouring a tall glass of wine or a very stiff drink could be consuming 2-5 “drinks” in…
The average of the top 10% of anything is going to be absurd compared to the population average; probably around 2 standard deviations over the mean. If you looked at the average caloric consumption at the top 10% of people, you'd probably find the amount similarly unbelievable. Ten drinks isn't that much hard liquor: it's about 450ml. That's a little more than a can (392ml).
That's 60% of a fifth/750ml "regular" bottle of liquor. It's an enormous quantity of hard alcohol. If I drank that much in a day I would never be sober.
Re: America has a drinking problem
#100I decided to give up alcohol for a year. That was three years ago and doubt I will ever go back. Aside from having better sleep than at any other point as an adult, I truly enjoy the activities I partake in just as much, if not more, than when I still paired them with alcohol. It took about 6 months to stop feeling like I was missing out, and now I feel like everyone else is. Anxiety in general is noticeably lower (t…
> The end of the drinking activities don't leave me sleepy or craving bad food. I can go home and read a book or get some work done.
This is one of my biggest motivations for reducing my drinking during the week. Even having just one or two beers after work, the probability that I read or work on a side project drops close to 0.