this post was submitted on 02 Sep 2026
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OP is referring to the j-curve historically seen in studies about drinking. Because researchers didn't control for people who stopped drinking after years of abuse or people who couldn't drink because of other health issues, it looked like having 0 drinks per day led to worse health outcomes than 1-2 drinks per day. Because of that, many health organizations spent decades telling people that 1-2 drinks per day was better for you than 0 drinks per day.
Someone finally controlled for those variables a few years ago, and the j-curve vanished. Most health organizations now say they're is no amount of alcohol that is safe to consume.
So it's got nothing to do with Gen Z drinking habit specifically, and the science has been corrected since. But a lot of people still internalized and parrot the "1-2 drinks is healthy" thing.
i get what you're saying, but what i'm wondering is, while alcohol is bad for your liver and damages your health in that way, it also leads to social occasions and less loneliness, i guess. so you might have psychological improvements; and was that also tested for?
Alcohol on its own does not cause social occasions or reduce loneliness. Plenty of people drink alone, and plenty of people gather socially without drinking.
That said, while the advice from a health standpoint is that no amount of alcohol is completely safe to drink, humans do risky shit all the time for fun or convenience. More people get hurt in car accidents than develop alcohol-related diseases, but no one is stopping driving. The difference in outcomes between people who have zero drinks per day versus 1-2 drinks per day is much less than the difference between 1-2 and 5+ drinks. So occasional/light drinking is still relatively low-risk. It's just not actively good for you as previously thought.