- 3 hours
I’ve been working on fully cutting out alcohol from my diet. I tried for years but I think I am finally succeeding. Haven’t had a drink in almost two months.
- TheGreatRapsBeat@lemmy.worldEnglish46 minutes
Hell ya! ✊🏻 for my sober homies! I quit consuming alcohol in February. Keep it going Lemmy friend!
- Zephyr@sh.itjust.worksEnglish2 hours
Maybe we should criminalize more harmful drugs and make less harmful drugs legal?
- Zephyr@sh.itjust.worksEnglish1 hour
Alcohol is a drug that causes harm, more harm than most illegal substances. Alcohol is ranked between heroin and cocaine. Link
Although this UK study has it ranked above heroine and cocaine Link
Of course it being legal and available is a contributing factor, but there’s just better substances we could choose to make the chosen legal recreational drug for society.
- TheGreatRapsBeat@lemmy.worldEnglish44 minutes
Like Canada. We just need to outlaw the alcohol. But, alcohol consumption is down considerably since legalization of cannabis, and even more so with younger of age generations.
- Zephyr@sh.itjust.worksEnglish38 minutes
Yeah legalizing less harmful drugs will definitely help. Unfortunately a lot of the world is still fully under the influence of 1960’s propaganda.
- Zephyr@sh.itjust.worksEnglish40 minutes
A drug is any chemical substance that alters the way your mind or body functions. This broad definition includes everyday items like caffeine and prescription medications, as well as over-the-counter remedies and illegal substances. Alcohol is a drug.
6 hoursI don’t know how someone who grew up around people who drinked could have any other perception of alcohol than as poison. I don’t know a single person who drinks regularly who doesn’t have health conditions directly linked to it.
- Avicenna@programming.devEnglish8 hours
They also found that drinking raises the risk of:
…sexually transmitted infections
This statement really made we wonder if they thought about actual causality at all.
- teohhanhui@lemmy.worldEnglish2 hours
From a summary:
Drinking damages the liver and may make the body more vulnerable to infectious diseases, including sexually transmitted infections and tuberculosis.
Or from the review itself:
Infectious disease
The causal impact of alcohol on the four broad categories of infectious disease from the last Global Status Report on Alcohol and Health [1] has been confirmed in recent reviews [15, 16]. The main biological mechanism involves alcohol-induced liver dysfunction, which disrupts both non-specific innate and adaptive immune responses through acute and chronic alcohol consumption [80-84]. Lowered immune responses increase susceptibility to communicable diseases. More specific biological pathways are described in the references listed in Table 1.
- ironycanal@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish1 hour
Lol I bet they just drunk fuck a lot. It’s fine. Don’t be a nerd.
- 3 hours
Good point, highly likely the PhD students who authored this review were never taught about causation and correlation.
- Nautalax@lemmy.worldEnglish14 hours
My dad worked on a project that could have made him and his colleague probably very rich (at least, it was successfully done to great wealth by someone else many years later) but his colleague had problems with alcohol, drunk called the investors and whatever he said made them pull out such that they had to cancel the project.
His drinking got worse from there for him and he spent years in and out of prison. When I was about to go to college and my dad was meeting him after he got back out he took me aside and strictly warned me not to go crazy drinking in college. I truthfully told him that I don’t drink at all and I guess that was inconceivable to him because he started going, “You WILL drink. EVERYBODY drinks. Don’t lie and…” so on so forth.
It never seemed appealing to me what with seeing people ruin their lives and act foolish, the odor, all the money people spend on it etc. I’m sure the taste is fine if you push through and try it a bunch but from seeing the effects I never wanted to. Meanwhile visiting other people’s houses as a kid my friends would be doing stuff like asking his mom if he could sniff her wineglass at dinner. 💀
- 3 hours
You know this already but yeah you are absolutely the rational one here. I drank a lot back in the day because i had a terrible home life as a child and exhibited a few other self destructive behaviors, but in the last ten years or so ill drink one beer or glass of champagne at a wedding or super bowl watch party, but 100% just to be polite and avoid people chiding me to drink. Yes, people will actually get upset and tell me to drink sometimes, work people wcyd. Idk it’s like ethyl alcohol is exactly the stuff we used to sanitize surfaces at work because it kills everything and also dissolves the chemicals we work with. It’s just madness to drink that stuff!!
I truthfully told him that I don’t drink at all and I guess that was inconceivable to him because he started going, “You WILL drink. EVERYBODY drinks. Don’t lie and…” so on so forth.
There’s a lot of social pressure to drink, particularly for folks over 40. My first year at my current company, it was very normal for the department head to take everyone down to the bar and buy them shots. We definitely had folks that declined. But those weren’t the ones he got close with. Consequently, they weren’t the ones who got fast tracked for promotions and raises and such.
Not saying it’s a strict 1:1 correlation, because we definitely have a few teatoddlers in the upper wings of management. But it’s the exception more than the rule.
There’s also a lot of status in drinking - particularly expensive wines and liquors - such that having a nice bottle on hand when friends are over is considered normal. So I can see why it’s frustrating to your dad, talking to someone who isn’t in that lifestyle and culture, when he hears “Oh, I just don’t do that”. Particularly, when he’s trying to hammer home how easy it is to go from “I don’t drink” to “I drank too much”.
It never seemed appealing to me what with seeing people ruin their lives and act foolish, the odor, all the money people spend on it etc.
It’s a popular social lubricant for a reason. A glass of wine or beer is great at reducing social anxiety. I’ve got friends who insist on a drink at big events. It’s that or pop a xanax.
I also know a few girls who go from dead fish to horny af after a few glasses. So, when they want to hook up, they will take a few shots first to get in the mood. And “odor” can be a plus (for me, anyway) when it’s a petty scotch or rich cherry.
There’s also an artistry to the craft of fermentation, such that it’s as much a hobby as a habit. I know a guy who brews his own beer and loves to bring different casks to events to show off what he’s made. And another who works in the industry. He loves to pull out bottles he picked up overseas and show off different styles, flavors, and techniques of manufacture.
Then there’s just a general quality of pairing. My wife keeps a small wine collection, knows what pairs well, and regularly opens a bottle for cooking or to match with a particular meal.
So… YMMV. But there’s definitely a big gray area between never drinking at all and being an alcoholic.
- Nautalax@lemmy.worldEnglish6 hours
To be clear the guy with the drinking problem who was talking to me wasn’t my dad, he was a colleague and friend of my dad. My dad did drink from time to time but he wasn’t an alcoholic by any means and in recent years my dad gave up drinking entirely anyway whereas the other guy has unfortunately passed away some years back.
I don’t care if other people drink for some reason or other (at least as long as it’s not impacting me… wasn’t fun when a drunk roommate was waving my computer around in the air unsteadily), whatever floats their boat, I just don’t personally.
- aesthelete@lemmy.worldEnglish16 hours
Yep, it sucks. But it turns out there’s a non-stop drip of terrible fucking news, the planet continues to get hotter with more wildfires every year, my well-paying career in software might be soon over due to the advent of AI coding, I’m working for the worst company I have ever worked for and with one of the worst bosses I’ve ever seen, the president is getting shows critical of him cancelled in order to approve sales of all major media platforms to his fascist friends (and fail sons), the cost of everything is skyrocketing, social security looks likely to collapse before I can ever collect it, and there does not appear to be any relief in sight for any of this.
Maybe I don’t need to go old and healthy at 80+.
It’s obvious that drinking isn’t good for you, but it was just as obvious that smoking isn’t good for you and that didn’t keep my grandparents from doing it until it killed them — and nicotine barely gives you any buzz at all. We all gotta go some time.
- Smoogs@lemmy.worldEnglish9 hours
consider it this way: getting old may suck. getting old, sick and having strokes sucks way more and just makes you miserable and a burden to a bunch of people who didnt deserve it. you wont be taking it out your enemy. just hurting yourself and finding more reasons to hate yourself.
- aesthelete@lemmy.worldEnglish7 hours
We have locked everything anyone needs to live a decent life behind a massive paywall, make a habit of eliminating any way besides debt to make it over the massive paywall, and then scientists do research on people’s coping mechanisms so that others can use that as a way to feel righteous condemning a stranger’s habits.
Notice how you didn’t spend a moment discussing where relief for any of the very real problems I mentioned is coming from because you likely know it isn’t.
- Smoogs@lemmy.worldEnglish7 hours
Nope. And that’s not why I didn’t discuss it.
There are things you are definitely responsible to yourself for. Such as you’re decisions of what you are doing to you’re own body with what you are cognitively aware of consuming. Such as smoking or too much alcohol or food.
You’re just talking about all things that seem impossible to control just to get the focus off yourself.
That’s how an addict would speak. That’s an old addict trick.
- aesthelete@lemmy.worldEnglish7 hours
Nah, I wrote that and this sober dude, just as I spend the vast majority of my waking time.
The point is that these very real problems have no solutions but somehow the only thing we can do in these threads is handwring and concern troll people coping with them.
There is lots of online encouragement to live a long, sober life in an unaffordable, polluted hellscape.
I’m not attached to a bottle, but having a beer at the end of a long day provides a lot more relief than podcast bro pseudoscientific bullshit about meditation and wellness which is the only alternative on offer. (Because we live in a country where everything is purposely broken and the only way sold to fix it is for each of us individually to be perfect.)
- MochiGoesMeow@lemmy.zipEnglish18 hours
Its either you get the diseases getting drunk or get the diseases sober but from unregulated food industry.
- Tollana1234567@lemmy.todayEnglish14 hours
even casual drinking increases your risk of cancers by alot. also promotes heart disease, alochol related damage, blood pressure issues. and thats where omezpic steps in, to curb alcohol abuse, plus type 2 diabetes.
also besides alcohol is use to subdue a population from causing an uprising.
even casual drinking increases your risk of cancers by alot
Not according to the CDC. Binge drinking carries a host of risks, even if done infrequently. Moderate (ie, less than 2 drinks a day) drinking is generally not associated with negative health impacts.
also besides alcohol is use to subdue a population from causing an uprising.
I’ve heard both sides of this. Beer as an intoxicant reducing the population to drunken louts, incapable of self-defense. And beer as a social lubricant, capable of bringing people together for collective action.
I don’t think the alcohol is the proximate cause, either way. Certainly, there have been a multitude of hard-drinking Revolutionaries and Reactionaries alike (Hoffbrau’s were popular with both Lenin and Hitler). Meanwhile, Prohibition as a public policy was largely used to harass the working poor and monopolize production/imports into the hands of well-positioned political insiders.
- JackFrostNCola@aussie.zoneEnglish8 hours
Makes you wonder why weed got such pushpback then. Alcohol subdues a lot of people but aggravates a lot too, but hard to stir an uprising of stoners unless they are storming capitol hill’s taco bell
- 21 hours
Eh, I quit a few years ago. When you have to have conversations with yourself about it, it’s time. So cold turkey I went, luckily NBD for me. The only time I miss it is after a really trying, long day; or I’m just craving flavors that aren’t sugary drinks like soda. I don’t like sweet drinks very much. Alcohol lends an intensity to flavors that’s impossible to replicate.
Looking back at it I’m really glad I quit.
Anyway, hopefully added years/stopped shaving years off my life. We’ll see.
- xylol@leminal.spaceEnglish7 hours
kombucha is really good for that, it may contain small amounts of alcohol but its really difficult to get it as potent before it turns more like vinegar. but the carbonation and even variations with hops are out there and are great.
I used to do edibles every once in a while when they became legal here and found that alcohol was terrible when high because Id just get dizzy so i started drinking kombucha and it was amazing
- batmaniam@lemmy.worldEnglish9 hours
I destroy those since going sober. I think it’s that carbonation itself has a flavor, and in cheap beer that carbonation was actually the majority of the feel/flavor. Occasionally I’ll feel silly buying so much, but then I remember how much I used to spend on booze without batting an eye and grab another 12 pack for $2.85.
- 8 hours
We also picked up a carbonation setup so we can make our own sodas and mineral water. Just to reduce plastic waste, I don’t think it’s cheaper than what you’re buying, though.
- 19 hours
That’s good, and just fizzy mineral water too. Luckily the NA market for more interesting adult drinks is growing, so things like fake Moscow mules, Hop Tea, or other mocktails that have interesting flavors are starting to become more widely available and have zero alcohol. Not the same as the real thing, but generally pretty good and better than soda or other sugary stuff.
- partofthevoice@lemmy.zipEnglish18 hours
What is the intensity that can’t be replicated, burn of the alcohol?
- iocase@lemmy.zipEnglish18 hours
Depends. Alcohol dissolves things that normally are only fat soluble so you can get an entirely different flavour from common foods (wine and beer tastings/pairings for example)
For fermented beverages the yeast and malt make a pretty unique flavour. Same with hops in a good pale ale or IPA. There’s also the body and mouth feel that’s hard to replicate without making alcohol. Residual sugars after fermentation are also kind of unique to alcohol since you always have normal sugars mixed in with other foods.
- 8 hours
This is right. Alcohol is almost a flavor multiplier and also holds flavors that might be more volatile and disappear. That’s why if you were to completely remove the alcohol from a drink like gin or something it would taste wildly different and probably very flat even though the rest of the beverage is the same.
- Malyca@lemmy.zipEnglish1 day
While all of this is true and concerning, now is not the time to raw dog reality.
- Phoenixz@lemmy.caEnglish23 hours
Doing weed is also bad for me. It got me quite severe health effects that I’m dealing with right now.
I’m not regretting it for a second and the second my issues are under control I’ll use weed again (in much lower doses) because living in the raw reality right now just makes you depressed and suicidal. I’m m neither, and I’ll contribute that happily to pot, it made life nice again for a few years
- bitjunkie@lemmy.worldEnglish1 day
Right? What’s to stop one from interpreting these results as “alcohol will get you off of this dogshit timeline sooner”?
- 8 hours
Not legal everywhere unfortunately. Alcohol is because it must be “safer” right? RIght?
- AlexLost@lemmy.worldEnglish3 hours
Most drugs were scheduled to incriminate the lower income groups (i.e. mostly not white folks) They tried to ban alcohol once too. It didn’t go very well. Marijuana is less addictive and far less destructive, plus anyone can grow it, it’s like a fucking weed. Also, hops and Mary Jane are from the same family of plants.
- FantasmaNaCasca@lemmy.worldEnglish1 day
Its the worse sexual transmissive disease.
The only cure is death.
- HugeNerd@lemmy.caEnglish19 hours
Dose makes the poison. Water can kill you. There’s nothing wrong with alcohol.
- 7 hours
As a nurse, yeah no, you can’t really compare those. Water is essential for the human body. Alcohol has no benefits for the human body, quite the opposite.
As far as I know, medicine came to the conclusion that there is no amount higher than 0 that won’t harm your body.
- ZILtoid1991@lemmy.worldEnglish10 hours
In theory, cocaine, opiates, etc. too. It’s just that our culture does not fearmonger about “ethanol addiction”, does not call “drinking” a slang term of junkies, and you cannot go to the shop to buy “Wallstreet Rush Hour”, “Businessmen’s salad”, or “Charlie’s Home-made Snowstorm”.
- ReluctantMuskrat@lemmy.worldEnglish18 hours
There’s nothing wrong with alcohol.
Science says otherwise
- Tobberone@feddit.nuEnglish15 hours
Depends on what the alternative is. I’d prefer a beer to the water water of Flint i.e.
- ReluctantMuskrat@lemmy.worldEnglish10 hours
Actually it doesn’t depend. Acknowledging alcohol is bad for you makes no claim that other things are better or worse.
- 19 hours
As someone who enjoys drinking alcohol: there’s no beneficial or harmless amount of alcohol.
- batmaniam@lemmy.worldEnglish9 hours
Yeah I’m sober a year now due to drinking myself into severe heart failure (ejection fraction of 17%, up to 47% now) and this is correct. If you can enjoy it great, but the second people start making excuses it’s over, it’s just a matter of how long the slide takes.
- 18 hours
I say this as someone who deeply enjoys the occasional drink: there is no known minimum safe dose of alcohol. Every drink shortens your potential lifespan.
- DagwoodIII@piefed.socialEnglish1 day
On the other hand, why do you think we gave up the hunter/gatherer life style?
Cultivating grapes for wine and grain for beer was the origin of civilization!
- NoSpotOfGround@lemmy.worldEnglish1 day
I hate that alcohol, such an obvious health detriment, is so ingrained in culture that people don’t even question it… Your link makes it worse!
- DagwoodIII@piefed.socialEnglish1 day
Like the link points out, we were drinking before we had written language.
It’s a matter of dealing with life on life’s terms. The reality is that people like drinking. Sometimes people drink too much, and a few unlucky folks can’t drink anything without risking death.
I ocne read a story about a Vietnam era war correspondent. He was a pacifist before going to cover combat and seeing combat up close made him hate war even more.
At one point a publisher asks him to contribute an article that ‘deglamorizes war.’
He wrote back that deglamorizing war would be as easy as deglamorizing sex.
I hate that existence, such an obvious health detriment, is so ingrained in culture that people don’t even question it…
- 1 day
With one important difference: Wine was often diluted back then and beer was not as strong as it is today, so it was much less dangerous on the whole, and it was so weak that even children drank it instead of the terrible water of the time. Though they also drank water when it was good.
- 1 day
Less strong, but since they drank beer instead of water overall consumption was higher. Lots of people should still drink less though.
- 1 day
Yeah! It was seen as an everyday good feeling healthy thing back then and not just something to get wasted on, though that happened a lot too. I’d take the ancient mindset of moderation over today’s alcohol addicted society anyday.
- a4ng3l@lemmy.worldEnglish1 day
Not sure it was so much about good feeling. From what I read it was more about booze being less likely to grant you a plague debuff than water back in the days.
- Cethin@lemmy.zipEnglish1 day
It’s almost certainly both. It’s not like alcohol is the only drug humans have used. Most do not have that justification, yet they’re still used.
- stickly@lemmy.worldEnglish1 day
So you’re telling me without alcohol I could have spent my life picking berries before I died of a toothache at 25? And instead I’m reading excel sheets and will die a prolonged death after years of chemo at 85?
Damn alcohol really is the cause of all my problems…
- Mearcfara@lemmy.mlEnglish23 hours
The “dying at 25” thing is the result of a common misrepresentation of data. Infant mortality rates were significantly higher in the past, so the average gets thrown off. But, if you remove those data points (to reflect post-infancy mortality), you’d be living roughly the same amount of time.
- stickly@lemmy.worldEnglish1 day
True, but its illegal for me to wander my neighborhood and pick berries from “private property”
- DagwoodIII@piefed.socialEnglish1 day
Realistically, if you eat out of trash cans you’ll have the same experience, and if you’re quiet and neat, no one will report you.
- 1 day
Good thing someone else did the work long ago, so I don’t need to keep drinking it.
- DagwoodIII@piefed.socialEnglish1 day
Popular misconception.
There were a lot of people who never made it out of childhood, which skews the average down.
But if you made it to adulthood, you had a pretty good chance of making it to 65 or so.
- NocturnalMorning@lemmy.worldEnglish8 hours
That’s also why averages aren’t a good measure of a lot of things and are misleading.
