News

drinking 1 -2 beverages can or bottle a day it already significant raises your chances for diseases.

My docs have all begrudgingly accepted that I value enjoying my life more than I value longevity. I'm sure it makes them sad. But I don't see this world / humanity suddenly growing a conscience during my time on this planet, so if I shorten my life a bit, I really don't care. If anything, people will likely get dumber and make me not care harder and faster.

I like a drink (obviously, as mod of the cocktail community) but would not consider one or two a day moderate, everyday drinking is heavy drinking, or at least habitual drinking.

Two or three a week is the way I drink. Sometimes one or none, and I take a month off at least once a year, never want to get into a habit.

Good. This is good.

I actually like to drink but especially beer can give me really bad stomach cramps. Not always, but often enough that I rarely risk it. Also my sleep quality is suffering after drinking and with age I no longer can afford bad sleep. Honestly I'm not sure how people after 30 manage to drink regularly. Even though I'm a fit and healthy person, alcohol just affects me too much to be a regular and enjoyable part of my life.

I get it can be "relaxing" in some ways, but having to recover from alcohol the day(s) after makes it a very inefficient way of relaxation.

If alcohol came out today, it would be illegal. It kills more people than all drugs combined. It's terrible for you and 10% of drinkers account for 90% of all alcohol sales. I just wish I could stop.

From 1997 to 2023, at least 60% of Americans reported drinking alcohol. The figure fell to 62% in 2023 and to 58% in 2024, before reaching 54% today. Prior to the most recent poll, the rate has been under 60% fewer than 10 times, including 58% in the initial 1939 poll and a one-time low of 55% recorded in 1958.

"weird" that usatoday leaves all this important information out lol. "record lows" still means half the population are boozers and the number was never much higher.

IT'S FUCKING EXPENSIVE AND LETTUCE MAKES YOU SHIT TO DEATH NOW.

I was just reading a thing about this the other day.

For decades, scientists told people that 1 to 2 drinks per day is better for your health than 0 drinks per day. They determined this by asking a ton of people how much they drank, and then asking about their health repeatedly over a long period of time. And they found what they called a J-curve. Basically when they plotted drinks per day vs health over time, people who had 0 drinks per day actually had slightly worse health outcomes than the 1-2 crowd.

So everybody agreed that light drinking was better than no drinking. This became guidance from governments, it got repeated on the news all the time, and it was a huge boon for the alcohol industry.

However, in recent years, scientists went back to take a closer look at this J-curve, and they noticed an obvious thing that wasn't accounted for initially: some people who don't drink have existing health conditions that prevent them from drinking. And some people that don't drink are in recovery: they'd spent decades being heavy drinkers and just didn't drink now. But damage had been done, and worse health outcomes were to be expected.

Once scientists started to correct for these cases, the J-curve disappeared. Not drinking at all was suddenly clearly the safest thing for longterm health outcomes. So that's been the new guidance coming down from agencies and health organizations.

That said, the difference in risk between 0 drinks per day and 2 drinks per day is significantly less than the difference between 2 drinks per day and 5 drinks per day. It's riskier than not drinking, but we do plenty of risky shit because it's fun or easy or convenient. See: driving, flying, eating fast food, etc. So, yes, a complete ascetic chasing immortality may not want to drink, but for most people occasional light drinking is an acceptable risk.

Edit: Autocorrect-induced typo

Weed is legal in more places than ever. People are aware of cycles of abuse and trauma, we don't want to keep repeating the sins of our alcoholic parents. And now recovery is out in the open like never before, regular folks and celebs both openly talking about their journeys.

There's a big class of folks like myself who don't do hard drugs, don't drink, but will use cannabis and hallucinogens, maybe dissociatives. This is pretty reflective of our times - we're disconnected, our journeys are isolated, our experiences tend to be isolated. So these drugs work well for that, without being destructive like drinking alone is.

I like wine with dinner, maybe a nice homemade cocktail on weekends. All this talk of prohibition makes me uneasy. Ban alcohol today, what will you ban tomorrow?

I don't drink booze, because it seems like an expensive habit. I don't got any friends nor go to bars, so it is likely going to be a miserable experience. Also, one of my parents was an absolute boozehound, and certainly not someone to be respected. So I avoid alcohol, because I don't know what kind of person I would be.

It is just disadvantages all around, with no upside for me.

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When it comes to American society at large, I suspect that capitalism is the root of why alcohol use is dropping. Third spaces are going extinct, budgets are tighter, time is limited, and work demands greater effort to make ends meet, and most people lose their childhood friendships as adults. The opportunity to enjoy booze is dying.