Weed is cheaper.
And is less likely to turn certain people into assholes the way that alcohol does sometimes
Yeah I never get high and want to fight
I’m gonna be honest. I need to do a lot more reading because I’m just more confused about alcohol consumption now.
I’d really like to better understand the direct health effects, like cancer mentioned in this article with low or moderate consumption.
“There is no safe level of alcohol consumption” isn’t the most helpful piece of information. A lot of things we consume aren’t completely safe. Whether it be carcinogens, red meat, or microplastics, we are always ingesting things that have both negative and positive effects.
Life is about managing risks. Eating fatty or high caloric foods, affects us a whole lot differently than eating whole foods, vegetables, and low carbs. Alcohol is just another item on the list of risks to manage.
How does low to moderate alcohol consumption compare to the risks associated with all the other sources of consumption?
🤔
For decades the line was that a glass or two of red wine had health benefits, but they were largely deriving that by comparing data to places like Italy, France, and Spain where wine consumption is normalized and they have other health factors.
Same stuff that started driving “The Mediterranean Diet”.
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/heart-disease/in-depth/red-wine/art-20048281
On further study though, it gets complicated:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10146095/
"Acute and short-term RW consumption seems to exert positive effects on antioxidant status, the lipid profile, thrombosis and inflammation markers, and the gut microbiota.
Importantly, a longer duration of treatment with RW has been shown to protect renal and cardiac function parameters in T2DM patients, suggesting that a moderate intake of RW may serve as a dietary supplement in diabetic patients.
On the other hand, blood pressure values, homocysteine levels, and gastrointestinal function seem to be impaired by short-term RW intake."
This is helpful.
Of course, it’s focused on positive health benefits. I’m not actually looking to justify alcohol consumption as healthy. What I would honestly like to know is if it is proven to be unhealthy.
This article is the first time I’ve actually heard it associated with cancer risk. And that is with the presumption of frequent and excessive alcohol consumption.
I’m more concerned with low to moderate amounts and what the proven negative effects are. Is it worse than consuming red meat, carcinogen ingestion, microplastic congestion, and any number of other negative factors we ingest due to a bad diet (e.g. high cholesterol foods).
I have been following this subject for decades as I have spent most of the last 30 years selling booze.
You should think of it as like smoking weed more than eating a steak.
This makes sense. However, I’m not familiar with cannabis ingestion. I do know that smoking anything at all has increased negative risks.
I drink infrequently, but certainly more than I consume red meat. I might consume one steak a year, for example.
It’s also so incredibly dependent on genetics that it’s not even funny.
Beers cost $15 per pint!
Damn, only $3.50 at my local bar. $5 or so for a nicer one. And if I’m feeling cheap, Applebees has $5 LITs.
Earlier this year, the outgoing U.S. surgeon general, Vivek Murthy, recommended a label on bottles of beer, wine and liquor that would clearly outline the link between alcohol consumption and cancer.
“Alcohol is a well-established, preventable cause of cancer responsible for about 100,000 cases of cancer and 20,000 cancer deaths annually in the United States — greater than the 13,500 alcohol-associated traffic crash fatalities per year in the U.S. — yet the majority of Americans are unaware of this risk,” Murthy said in a statement in January.
The federal government’s current dietary guidelines recommend Americans not drink or, if they do consume alcohol, men should limit themselves to two drinks a day or fewer while women should stick to one or fewer.
men should limit themselves to two drinks a day or fewer while women should stick to one or fewer.
7-14 drinks a week feels higher than “moderate” to me. You can go out and get quite drunk before exceeding that average.
My having a few glasses of scotch or cocktails a month realistically I think are worth whatever accelerate all cause mortality awaits me.
I get that recommendations is zero as the optimal to minimize risk, but we really should ask about acceptable and meaningful risk, and the studies are that drinkers like me are not really much higher risk than baseline non drinker rates. Plus at that amount BMI, activity, diet are all more important factors for health.
I do think the habit makes the difference for these things. It’s good to avoid making these things a habit and keeping them in moderation.
Have a look at the tables on page 25 and 26 of this report: https://www.ccsa.ca/sites/default/files/2023-01/CCSA_Canadas_Guidance_on_Alcohol_and_Health_Final_Report_en.pdf
That table actually makes me feel much better about my drinking habits.
It’s very well presented in that way.
The table for females is super interesting, it’s a lot more extreme
I’m 42 and I barely drink, even when I was in my crazy 20’s I would drink a little but I never got crazy with it. I believe personally it’s because I grew up with an alcoholic parent and most of my family were heavy drinkers and smokers. And seeing them destroy their lives was a reality check for me at a young age. Idk if that’s a factor with the younger generations now but just like politics I feel like the younger generation has learned what not to do. At least I hope so.
Same with me, I binged a few times in my 20s and it wasn’t good at all. So I just stopped drinking altogether, alcoholism is in my family genes. It’s a dumb ass habit to be honest. Waste of money, waste of health, waste of everything.
It’s nice to see some good news once in a while.
I keep a bottle of grapefruit vodka in the house. It doesn’t go bad (easily), it tastes like grapefruit with very little alcohol taste when added to anything vaguely sweet, and if I do want to experience a buzz, I just add more.
That being said, I drink rarely in private and simply would rather not buy it at some insane mark up from a bar. A single beer should not cost the same as an entire 6-pack of the same brand from any store that sells it.
Drinking is expensive and overrated. I was sober for the majority of my life. Went on a 1 year drinking binge due to problems at home. It was fun but I paid a hefty price for it. Not worth it honestly. 2/10 wouldn’t do it again.
Try drugs, instead
Alcohol is a drug.
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I just hope we don’t slide into another Prohibition, honestly. Between people who don’t drink because health, and the social conservatives who want a fundamentalist theocracy, we are squeezed.
For me, it’s money - I finally have a good job AND a husband with a good job, and over time have accumulated a collection of booze to use for cocktails. And if we want to go out for a drink it won’t bankrupt us. I practice moderation, one drink 3-4 times a week but never more than one, plus two months off each year, and really like that much drinking, feel good physically.
I only drink with friends, but one friend doesn’t drink, one is an alcoholic, and one also only drinks with friends. It’s kinda hard to make it work even if we’re able to meet up.
Only drink on the weekends. 2-4 drinks spread across the second half of the day.
I quit.
Work stress, financial stress, time stress, family stress… I didn’t used to drink much, but it sneaks up on you when it helps quiet the noise in your head about all the stresses. You find yourself looking forward to drinking even if technically you’re not an alcoholic.
Yeah, you know intellectually what the dangers are, but so much social life revolves around alcohol and media really doesn’t help by pushing the idea. Out and drinking, bbq at home and drinking, watching sports and drinking…etc.
I quit for a bit, tried to ease into light social drinking and hated looking over my shoulder all the time to see if an extra drink or three was going to sneak up on me. Hated that. Stopped being fun.
Only? Still seems like a lot.
Seems about right. My partner doesn’t drink alcohol, and I very seldomly drink alcohol. I petty much buy it if I’m going from cook with it, but beyond that, it’s money I’d rather spend (or need to spend) elsewhere.
If I’d had to guess, I’d say it’s a combo factor of people being poor, health consequences of partaking being more widely known, and adults choosing to socialize more online instead of going to bars.
