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Comment by akprasad | Hacker News Reader

I wish I could source it, but I recall reading an anthropological study of drinking that mentioned that solo drinking is universally shunned across all cultures.

There's also something perverse about associating this with Zen given that abstaining from intoxicants is the fifth precept (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_precepts#Fifth_precept).

I would never say there is no insight that could be gleaned from this -- people are different, after all -- but I agree with the other comment that this justifies an unhealthy adaptive strategy. We have deeper and healthier modes of self-knowledge than this.

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I think being a loner is generally seen as unusual though isn't it?

I enjoy drinking alone, exercising alone, traveling alone, sitting alone, working alone. I don't really think I'm that weird by objective standards, there are also things I like doing with people (I'm married and have a family), but as a sometimes introvert, I definitely value time alone, including relaxing with a beer.

Related, when I went to university, I lived in residence and i remember sitting by myself at meals and having people come and basically think they were doing me a favor talking to me, because only a loser would want to sit by himself. I found it both annoying (because I wanted to be alone) and condescending (because people see you alone and come talk to you like you must have no friends) - all that to say, society seems to look at you funny if you enjoy being by yourself, so I wouldn't read too much into sllo drinking being shunned specifically.

No one shuns reading alone, listening to music alone, or watching a movie alone.

Drinking alone is more dangerous than drinking with friends.

Watching a movie alone in the comfort of your own home? I get that. Going to the cinema alone? Definitely shunned.

Depends on the circumstance, I used to travel for a living, and attended movies alone not infrequently, I can't recall a single occasion when someone looked at me funny, or asked me why I was there alone, nor would my friends ask "who'd you go with?".

If the topic of drinking alone comes up, there is always a warning or admonishment.

I've never been the the cinema alone in 30-odd years, and would rather not go than go alone. I wouldn't go to a gig alone or a comedy, I wouldn't have dinner at a restaurant alone and I wouldn't go on holiday alone.

All of that is to say that I very much enjoy time to myself to listen to some music with my eyes closed or just to meditate or think, I'm quite happy for solitude, but not to do _things_ (see above).

People are built differently. I saw a heist movie alone on my 21st birthday. I prefer movies alone, along with many other things like eating out. To your point, I would rather go alone to the movies or not at all. It's just a better experience.

I live on 40 acres alone. I'm snowed in here currently, without a care.

But I also own a bar, and bars make you lots and lots of friends. And I'm close with my family.

I don't drink alone, but just because I have no urge to drink when I'm not at a bar. I have a bottle that's been in my fridge a few years and isn't even open.

That was the point I was trying to make. I don't do any of those things alone but not because I don't like being alone.

I curate my friends, preferring to have few, but who are reliable, I aim not to make friends with people I meet, and the ones I do have been the one's that have clicked.

My wife, on the contrary _loves_ doing things alone, she'll happily go see a film I want to see without me if I can't find the time (she's on maternity leave with our second child currently).

I love in London and it's very common to socialise in a pub here, so drinking alone does have somewhat of a stigma attached here.

That said, I'm not sure why anyone should be dissuaded from a scotch and a cigar once the children have gone to bed.

I think drinking alone is probably healthier in a lot of respects.

Alcohol destroys relationships for a lot of people. If they drank alone, it would have a much smaller effect on those relationships.

How? I was in cinema alone and no one cared. No one said a word to me.

Not the person you replied to, but a great example is my now-wife. When we had started dating over a decade ago, she thought I was nuts for going to see a movie by myself while I waited for her to finish her shift at work nearby.

She genuinely couldn't believe I was doing that and thought I was weird for it. Obviously things worked out, but yeah.

Yeah I think it’s that’s not normally said out loud, but many people think.

I’ve even caught myself looking at someone by themselves and wondering with some level of suspicion “what/why are they out here” despite me doing the same myself.

It is not shunned tho. It is weird because most people go to cinema only because friends do, they don't see difference between cinema and watching at home. Just more expensive.

I think the fact that she ended up marrying you makes this a not-so-great example of shunning.

Take a peek at sibling threads for some real-life examples.

Note that I was only reacting to the absolutes in the parent comment, not saying that I myself condemn people who go to the movies or do any "typical" group activity alone -- at the moment, I am also practicing the craft :)

I think this is one of those things that people may self-shame over. I've been to plenty of movies on my own. I don't see why anyone else would care.

depends on the friends, tbh

Indeed. Being a part of a young high functioning group of alcoholics leads to some very interesting situations.

In contrast, drinking alone is more of a solemn affair. When I drink alone, I prefer to be by myself.

>In contrast, drinking alone is more of a solemn affair. When I drink alone, I prefer to be by myself.

George[0], is that you?

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4E9ydw_aDMg

>No one shuns ... listening to music alone, or watching a movie alone.

Hi! I'm an avid music and film lover who has been shunned for going to live music, or movie theaters, by myself. :)

It’s weird too, right? Why do people even go to these things together considering you can’t socialize during them. And I don’t necessarily want to talk about them after as I haven’t had time to really form my thoughts.

I had a job where I was on the road often and although I loved being back home I did quite enjoy doing things alone.

    > you can’t socialize during them

Yeah! I feel like it doesn't matter much if I'm there with friends, or not, during the performance.

    > And I don’t necessarily want to talk about them after

See, now this is the part I miss. Mostly, talking about it years later.

Yeah I typically go to live music shows alone these days! The bands I see typically play in standing-room, general admission venues.

My wife doesn't like music nearly as much as I do, and she's particularly short, so standing in a crowd of people who are much taller than her isn't a lot of fun for her.

Ideally I would like to see the show with friends, but... it's still really fun. It's 9493% better than sitting at home, that's how I look at it.

Is it more dangerous? I don't think so. It is when you already are alcoholic and drunk with friends, you will move to drink alone. And drinking a lot for social approval is very common way to alcoholism.

But beer alone vs with with friends , I am not convinced former is more dangerous.

I think all of your statements need to be taken with a large pinch of salt.

Plenty of people will give you the stink eye if you're by yourself in public. Some arse once loudly informed me I was a loser for being at the movies by myself. That happened once, but it was enough to make me realize that some people really can't fathom the idea of people having fun by themselves.

Drinking with friends is likely to be much more dangerous than drinking alone, unless you're an alcoholic, or your friends are abstaining. Peer pressure is real, and it goes away entirely when you're alone.

Everyone has their own set of experiences. I'm just an average guy living in the United States. I am particular, tall and large, so people may not want to challenge me much.

> Some arse once loudly informed me I was a loser for being at the movies by myself.

This is something public, though, while the parent only listed activities in private. Drinking alone in public is shunned even worse.

Not that I agree with that guy, of course. Enjoy your time at the movies alone, it's nothing to be ashamed of.

> Drinking alone in public is shunned even worse.

It is most definitely not shunned in American dive bars, nor anywhere in Central/Eastern Europe, nor in a hotel bar anywhere in the world.

Getting shit-faced by yourself in public is frowned upon because it’s annoying, but flying solo on a barstool is as common as can be, and nobody has any problem with it in many, many places.

> No one shuns…listening to music alone

This wasn't always the case (before the Sony Walkman introduction in 1979):

"The idea that a person could listen to music on his own was strange and novel. In Capturing Sound: How Technology Has Changed Music, Mark Katz mentions that in 1923, Orlo Williams compared someone listening to recorded music alone to “sniffing cocaine, emptying a bottle of whisky, or plaiting straws in his hair” (Katz, 20). This was an obvious exaggeration, but he emphasized the strangeness that society associated with solitary listening"

https://walkmanproject.wordpress.com/communal-vs-individual/

Many centuries ago reading alone (i.e. silently rather than aloud) was viewed with similar suspicion. In his Confessions St. Augustine defends his friend St. Ambrose for his strange habit of reading silently.

As a fellow loner, who agrees with the majority of what you just said - let's not meet.

"One of my best friends. We still sometimes never talk."

I used to feel very strange when doing anything alone. The lizard brain in me was embarrassed that I'd appear to be a loser with no friends. Then I went on a 2.5 month bike ride across the US. You get real good at being alone doing that. Hours every day spent with no company but the wind and occasional passing cars. Then you'd arrive at camp for the night and sometimes there's be other people there, but often you'd be alone. I'd go eat alone, visit museums alone, and do all the other touristy stuff I wanted alone. It was amazing. It actually made the interactions I DID have so much more meaningful. Particularly with other people doing the same bike ride I was doing. Those were such fun conversations. It's funny, being alone is a skill just like anything else and if you don't exercise it you won't be good at it :D

Was it this Atlantic article?

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/07/america...

This looks like a great article, but I believe I first saw it here (& thanks to pelagicAustral for finding it):

http://www.sirc.org/publik/drinking5.html

And there's some related HN discussion on the article here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17488786

That's certainly the one I had on my mind, but I'm another user.

That doesn't surprise me. Going against cultural mores and breaking taboos has a long tradition among gnostics and explorers of our internal landscape. It's not a safe and stable life path but it can certainly be rewarding.

- From "Social and Cultural Aspects of Drinking" [0]:

"The most important of these cross-cultural constants in the social norms governing alcohol use is the near-universal taboo on solitary drinking. The fact that drinking is, in almost all cultures, essentially a social act, is recognised throughout the anthropological literature, and ethnographic data from a wide range of cultures indicate that solitary drinking is at the very least ‘negatively evaluated’, and often specifically proscribed."

- Drinking and masculinity in everyday Swedish culture [1]:

""Drinking alone should not be done. To drink alone is to be anti-social (by not wanting to share); it is commonly thought to be an indication of alcoholism. And alcoholism is shameful: to be labelled an alcoholic is a condemnation beyond words…""

- Also touching solo-drinking: "America Has a Drinking Problem" [2]:

"He and his onetime graduate student Kasey Creswell, a Carnegie Mellon professor who studies solitary drinking, have come to believe that one key to understanding drinking’s uneven effects may be the presence of other people. Having combed through decades’ worth of literature, Creswell reports that in the rare experiments that have compared social and solitary alcohol use, drinking with others tends to spark joy and even euphoria, while drinking alone elicits neither—if anything, solo drinkers get more depressed as they drink."

- Pandemic related, "When Drinking Alone Becomes A Problem" (2021) [3]

- From Kasey Creswell, "Drinking Together and Drinking Alone: A Social-Contextual Framework for Examining Risk for Alcohol Use Disorder " [4]

"The context in which drinking occurs is a critical but relatively understudied factor in alcohol use disorder (AUD) etiology. In this article, I offer a social-contextual framework for examining AUD risk by reviewing studies on the unique antecedents and deleterious consequences of social compared with solitary alcohol use in adolescents and young adults."

---

[0] http://www.sirc.org/publik/drinking5.html [1] https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/97802030... [2] https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/07/america... [3] https://www.cmu.edu/dietrich/psychology/news/2021/creswell-a... [4] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/096372142096940...

Thank you! I think the first is where I first read it.

"drinking with others tends to spark joy and even euphoria, while drinking alone elicits neither—if anything, solo drinkers get more depressed as they drink."

I wonder how much of this is "set and setting", something that is well known with other drugs. Maybe people tend toward depression when they drink alone because that's what they expect to happen?

> "drinking with others tends to spark joy and even euphoria, while drinking alone elicits neither—if anything, solo drinkers get more depressed as they drink."

Never been the case for me, even when I used to do it a bit too often.

Maybe people with depression tend towards drinking alone?

I have zero problems agreeing that drinking alone because one is sad is potentially a very, very, bad habit that in a worst-case scenario can lead to full-blown alcoholism.

Yeah, I have to wonder if people are seriously mixing up correlation and causation.

I think the danger (or lack thereof) of solo drinking is highly dependent on a person's reasons for drinking.

I like to get mildly drunk, alone, perhaps... an average of once per month? I've been doing this for about 20 years with no increase in frequency. The key is, I only do this when I'm happy. It's like a little celebration.

For whatever reason, I do not desire alcohol when I'm feeling down. The thought of alcohol's effects seems repugnant to me at those times.

The joy and euphoria aren't a result of the presence of people. They're effects of the drug. Whatever asshole wrote this would probably say the same thing about being sober alone.

That also seems to ignore that people can be drinking to enjoy the taste or sensation of the drink itself. I find plenty of joy in having experimented with a cocktail that worked out to be an improvement, or having a wine or beer that just fits the moment. Sure, both are also fun with other people, but I feel like so many of these discussions assume the people drink purely to become intoxicated with no care for the taste or composition of the drink.

If anything, the depression that comes with drinking for me is that I feel the intoxication and know I need to stop drinking, no matter how much I enjoyed the taste and would prefer to continue and not switch to water or something I enjoy the taste of less. It's part of why I've been so excited by the new innovations and improvements in non-alcoholic beer/hop water.

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