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Comment by RcouF1uZ4gsC | Hacker News Reader

Also alcohol companies as well.

> Also alcohol companies as well.

Indeed, death in the US due to alcoholism is about 88,000 a year it is the #3 leading preventable cause of death. [1] Tobacco related deaths is #1 (preventable) by 480,000. [2] Obesity is #2 for completeness. I have loved ones that have died or are dying from one or a combination of these vices.

[1] https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/brochures-and-fact-sh... [2] https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/heal...

Most alcohol users (in many countries, the majority of the adult population) are not addicts. As far as I know, most cigarette and e-cigarette users are addicted.

Also: there are some computer games, which have the potential for addiction. Some others (especially "free to play") shamelessly monetarize on addiction.

Similar things goes from other businesses: e.g. loans, dating websites, social media, etc.

Yes, but I think that the majority of alcohol is consumed by addicts. I have a few 750mL bottles of liquor that I use to make a drink for myself once or twice a week. My alcoholic childhood friend has drunk an entire handle of liquor (1.75L) in a day and then walked to the liquor store in the snow to get more. I’m counted as an alcohol user, but my usage is a rounding error of his.

I'm struggling to find a source, but I was taught in school that some large majority of the total beer consumption is by a core group of beer drinkers that average > 3/4 gallon (around eight cans of beer) per day

I was staggered, at my last health physical, to learn that --light to light/moderate-- alcohol consumption for someone my size is 14 beers a week.

I have 14 beers (or its equivalent hard alcohol) over the course of a month or two, and that still seemed like a lot.

The normal recommendation is 2 "servings (beer, shot, glass of wine) per day, without any roll over. That's the important part. You can't really measure it on a weekly basis as you can't have all of those beers in just a few days.

2 beers a day to be specific. 4+ beers in a single day for a male is in the heavy alcohol use classification

90% of the booze is consumed by 10% of the population. They're all alcoholics. These are the people who prop up the industry.

Yes, in the past I knew a couple people that were addicted - as in, they got the shakes if they didn't drink. They would drink several 750ml bottles of vodka per day.

I’m under the impression that alcohol is substantially less chemically addictive than Nicotine. Is that correct?

This is actually a surprisingly difficult question to answer. If you had asked specifically about tobacco, you'd be correct. But, nicotine itself may not be as addictive as tobacco products are.

Remember that tobacco contains many other compounds that influence how the body metabolizes things (MAOI's and such). Here's a link with some citations: http://www.healthnz.co.nz/Addiction_TobNic.htm

EDIT: My personal anecdote is that I tried vaping when the first 901 ecigs started to hit the US market: the idea was twofold. I wanted to assess whether there was any cognitive benefit in using nicotine through a cleaner delivery system and I also wanted to get my dad to quit smoking cigarettes. Both goals were failures, I found it too difficult to dose reliably using this method and the side effects weren't worth it to me. I did not find myself addicted after around a month of use.

Substantially less chemically addictive, but causes a much higher degree of social harm for those who do get addicted.

Much more harmful even if you are not addicted. Take road accidents and fights for example.

You can die from quitting alcohol cold-turkey, which is not true for nicotine.

Was about to post this. They're really very different addictions. Nicotine withdrawal is mostly medically harmless.

This is a good point, and I either didn’t know or forgot that

I’m under the impression that alcohol is substantially less chemically addictive than Nicotine. Is that correct?

Doesn't addictiveness vary from person to person?

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