Seriously Consider Skipping the Drinks (2022) | Hacker News Reader

Seriously Consider Skipping the Drinks (2022)

health.harvard.edu

76 pointstapanjk150 comments

The headline boils down to:

> "I don’t think that everyone who is drinking, even in moderation, needs to stop drinking urgently," says Dr. Manson. But if you do drink regularly, it might be a good idea to cut back. Also, if you’re drinking expressly because you’ve been told it protects your heart, you should stop.

Also, the following paragraph is unsurprising in more than one way.

> In addition, the WHF noted that much of the past research on alcohol and heart health consisted of observational studies — not the more reliable randomized controlled trials. When randomized trials were conducted, they failed to find a heart benefit from drinking alcohol

Was there ever a claim of heart benefits from drinking alcohol?

I thought it was specific to wine due to resveratrol, rather than the alcohol.

thins the blood, ostensibly making it easier to pass through cholesterol encrusted arteries

In observable studies you could often observe a "J" type shape. Where people drinking very little amount of alcohol are slightly more healthy than those who don't.

But that is to be expected when you are only dealing with epidemiological studies.

It is alarming how many claims are made due to epidemiological studies. Worse of all, official guidelines are based on them just as much and easy to manipulate if you have perverse incentives.

After getting a Garmin watch I’ve noticed that any drinking wreaks havoc on my body, and heavy drinking lingers for a long time. I’m getting the same readings when I’ve had a bit to drink from heart rate variability, sleep quality and such as when I’m really sick. It’s started to push me to drinking less, but I’ll never quit entirely. Life is too short and my mental health enjoys a glass every now and then.

Same. It wrecks my sleep the first night and makes me bloated and slightly off the pace mentally for the following 2-3 days. I only have a drink once or twice a year now as the after effects just aren't worth it to me.

What's annoying about drinking less often is that when I do drink (something like one big night with work people every 6-8 weeks) it absolutely destroys me the next day in a much worse way than my colleagues who drink multiple times a week. So I'm being punished for being a less frequent drinker!

Hard to establish cause and effect here.

I remember I was eating very healthfully for a while and then when heading to my job I absolutely needed food quickly and went to McDonalds. I felt pretty crappy a few hours later. The lesson ironically was that I should be eating more mcdonalds because that's the environment I live in and I should be better acclimatized :-)

I think they just can handle being destroyed better because they are kind of used to feeling a bit miserable. It’s not that it isn’t affecting them.

It's funny, because I see it the other way around: I drink less often than I used to, and now I need less alcohol to feel the effects, and I find it cool that way :).

Experiencing this too... I used to get like 225cl of 6% alcohol beer on fridays. Now I've reduced and 75cl gives me the same pleasure and effect. Less money spent, less damage on the body, feeling better in the morning...

There's no way I will stop drinking completely, I like beer too much. But reducing has really no downsides at all.

> I used to get like 225cl of 6% alcohol beer on fridays

That's like 6 to 7 cans? Dang boi, you really like beer.

Not a "boi", but yes, I love it.

Well if you drink from 4pm to 4am, that is only half a small can per hour. Maybe I shouldn't write this, but try 1 or 2 cans per hour ;)

Right? And then you can improve the quality of the alcohol so when you do drink - it's awesome!

why not drink less in that session?

I think drinking once in a while actually helps your organism flush out things that are alcohol soluble, and maybe that's why you have symptoms? It enters your bloodstream?

This would imply drinking alcohol actually has serious cons, and I doubt such statement was made so far on that basis.

seems unlikely, alcohols halflife is pretty short at 4-5 hours

Same here. I knew my workouts were harder if I had a couple of beers the previous evening, or a big session a couple days prior, but having the data to say "your heart rate is bouncing around like a moth near a lightbulb" makes ignoring it much harder. My midweek drinking has diminished to nothing now, because I like feeling well rested all day more than I appreciate a glass of wine after work.

Isn’t heart rate variability a good thing?

Mostly, yes. Heart rate variability ties into the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. When both are in balance, heart rate will fluctuate with the alternating activation of those nervous systems.

Although I'm sure there's variations in heart rate that aren't healthy.

I hear you, but you have direct evidence that booze is stressing out your system.

Have you considered that cutting it out entirely would also be good for your mental health?

Drinking helped me when I was a shy teenager. I also thought drinking occasionally was keeping my mind healthy and helped me socialize (I.E find a random girl at a random bar). When I started a diet, I cut alcohol before anything else (highest glycemic index of what I was eating at the time). After a year, i was certain I would never drink again, bar some occasion (close family funerals). It improved my mental health by a lot, I can still socialize, except now I can actually care about the people I met and they're not random to me, and overall it's a better experience (except on sport nights).

Get rid of the watch then! And everything will be fine again. ;)

Same here. I was astonished when I realized the device could very consistently "spot" when I have been drinking alcohol. It made me realize the effect of alcohol on the body are very measurable, and lasts multiple hours after your last drink.

Have you experimented with ways to offset that at all?

I wonder if the impacts you’re experiencing are basically a mix of a spike in oxidative stress, sleep deprivation, dehydration, and probably coincidental poorer nutrition on the night you’re drinking. So, equally, I wonder if making a sustained effort to address each of those factors the next day would bring you back to baseline quickly.

To put the percentages from the article in context, a teetotaller between 55 and 59 has a 5.9% chance of developing a stroke while a moderate drinker in the same age group has a 6.7% probability of suffering from a stroke. Which is still bad but not nearly as dramatic as the initial percentages make it sound.

I've noticed there is this weird neo-puritanical movement getting in vogue as of late, but I don't really understand why. Especially in educated groups it should come as absolutely no surprise that drinking is bad for your health and I don't know a single person who drinks because it's "healthy". We drink (in moderation) because it's makes for a good time and the negative externalities are understood and considered a worthwhile trade-off. For some people this trade-off is not acceptable which is totally fine too.

If you're serious about getting healthier I reckon that for a lot of people there is a lot more impactful changes to make than to stop drinking. E.g. no more processed foods, losing weight, exercising regularly, fixing indoor air quality and maybe less/no drinking if it's actually a significantly affecting health.

Eh, the people I know who gave up drinking just replaced it with weed.

Granted, it's anecdotal - and I'm sure there could still be a neo-puritanical culture movement - but as far as I can see it's just people getting tired of the absolute bullshit associated with alcohol.

(The other thing they all got in order with is good sleep, which alcohol seriously destroys)

Edit: Emphasis change.

To befair, you should consider P( Unpleasant Condition| Drinks ) and compare it to P( Unpleasant Condition| Does Not Drink ). Small increases of probability over many conditions tend to add up.

I think there's also a difference in definitions. If you look at the comments here, there are many mentioning the effects the day after, after that night out with the gang. To me this would qualify as "heavy drinking that night" not just "drinking". So for some "drinking" means getting hammered, for me (and others) it means having a glass with a book in hand. And I see obvious (health) consequences only for one of those.

I think that's because it depends not only how much you drink, but also how often.

For example if you drink 4 beers in one night, you may consider that night as heavy drinking, but you are not heavy drinking in general if you do it once every month or two. You're more of a drinker if you get a glass of wine every night while reading your book.

While it would make sense, I don't think I've seen this distinction either in comments or in studies. They talk about the same amount daily whatever that is.

Yes, I take those comments to be about binge drinking. Which, I don't know, I assumed we all understood was absolutely horrible for your health.

I would estimate that the vast majority of drinkers and maybe the majority of average people think drinking is healthy in moderation. Most of those think 1-2 drinks actually makes you healthy.

Almost everyone I know would be surprised that drinking over 2-3 ever is considered dangerous drug abuse, and even in the 1-2 range there's enough risk to be concerned about cancer.

There's also this weird defensiveness, and all of society seems to contribute to "the cause". Alcohol should be as stigmatized as much as smoking and illicit drug use.

Maybe if you have just one with diner and get drunk a few times in your life, you'd be like the guy that does coke at a few parties.

The vast majority of heavy alcohol users suffer from the same behaviors that get you labeled as a drug addict: needing it to fully have fun, not being able to imagine stopping, being okay spending large sums of money on product, etc.

Yet people will lose your mind if you suggest it should be stigmatized like with other substances... and I don't think there's a problem with some "light" stigmatism with things like smoking, drinking, and cocaine use.

We just don't need to treat people as subhuman, but they should be similarly stigmatized. Like the chain-smoking dude presently is.

Alcohol culture is interesting, it seems to have a specially carved-out cultural niche which isn't enjoyed by nearly any other drug. The only other drug that comes close is probably coffee.

This alcohol culture has resulted in a lot of political pressure to undersell the negative health effects of drinking. I think it's fine if people are drinking as long as they're aware of the consequence. Although alcohol advertising in general still makes me a bit uneasy, I don't think any other substance could get away with the same kind of ads as alcohol manufacturers.

For most, it's probably better to live a shorter and more fulfilling life than that of a monk which abstains from all pleasures. But if we're going to drink, it's better to be honest about the impact we're expecting.

Having spoken to people who are monks, I usually come away with the impression that their lives are a lot more fulfilling than mine...

> For most, it's probably better to live a shorter and more fulfilling life than that of a monk which abstains from all pleasures. But if we're going to drink, it's better to be honest about the impact we're expecting.

Monk didn't really abstain from all the pleasures, in fact they enjoyed drinking and eating well. Ever noticed how many beer brands have a monk on their label ? That's because they were the ones brewing them, sometimes for "religious purposes" [1]

[1] https://lordsofthedrinks.org/2016/02/11/the-all-beer-diet-ge...

Monks beer was generally very weak. The modern Belgian Trappist brands you may be thinking of that are almost 10% alcohol aren’t actually drunk by monks - they were invented in the 20th century as a commercial opportunity when Belgium banned spirits in bars.

There's some research that suggests group alcohol consumption increases social cohesion. I can't remember the studies I originally read which suggested this, but a few from a web search:

https://www.psychologicalscience.org/news/releases/moderate-...

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120629211854.h...

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5462438/

Whether other psychoactive substances have similar effects I don't know, but it seems reasonable to assume alcohol's somewhat-unique social role reflects its actual impact on group bonds.

> I don't think any other substance could get away with the same kind of ads as alcohol manufacturers.

Cigarettes did for a long old time, until we regulated it away. Even when I was a kid (80s) I remember the tobacco ads mostly being kind of abstract because the regulations prevented them from saying very much. Then later they disappeared entirely.

I think I would probably be OK with most alcohol ads disappearing. Opinions on this may vary of course.

It's interesting how many drinkers judge smokers as unhealthy, when they can suffer from the same consequences.

Cancer and heart disease... maybe it's less, but it's still A LOT, like 1/3 of the total cancer cases (obvious issues with this metric aside, that's insane). Alcohol certainly causes heart disease.

Either can burn through your esophagus... there's just so much bad in both.

I find it utterly bizarre that the size of a "drink" is quoted here in ounces, so here's a conversion (assuming I have selected the right kind of ounce for my conversion):

12 ounces of beer is ~340ml, about a normal water drinking glass, or about 0.60 pints, or about 0.72 of those weird American pints.

5 ounces of wine is ~142ml, which is slightly more than a small wine glass. Most wine glasses are 125ml, although there are also lots that are 250ml.

1.5 ounces of spirits is ~42.5ml, which is somewhere between a single and a double shot.

Slightly funny when an institution such as Harvard still doesn't understand how extrapolating conclusions from a single variable when dealing with a complex system is janky at best and most of the time worthless

Just compare these two maps:

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/alcohol-c...

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/heart-dis...

Huh? Isn't the entire point of matched controls in an epidemiological study to isolate the effect of that single variable?

why make a sensationalist article about quitting drinking then?

I didn't find it sensationalist. Obviously, like, being born in a country with a poor healthcare system might have a bigger impact on your morbidity/mortality in some cases than dietary changes, but it's hard for people to change the country they are born in.

Agree, trying to isolate a single variable additionally creates an illusion: that if one removes all the negative variables and adds all the positive variables you get a super-positive result: if all you eat is fibers and anti-oxidants you will surely die a premature death to put it crassly.

It ignores that things work in concert: a healthy life is about balance, i.e. in this case: a Mediterranean diet seems to nullify the impact of alcohol (which I assume is the reason for the low heart disease rates in France and Spain, despite having double the average alcohol intake compared to say the Nordics).

For your consideration: Probably a billion people live perfectly happy lives without alcohol. Maybe it's not actually necessary after all, maybe that's not a boring life, or will cause your mental health to suffer?

I don't think anyone said it was necessary, especially in modern times. But back in the day, it could contribute to reducing the multiplicity of infection of microbes in drinks. Thus, it was clearly worthwhile enough that some populations evolved the ability to metabolize it more efficiently. The other group probably evolved a better immune system instead, or alternative ways of cleaning their food and drink (e.g. the chinese drink a lot more hot water than cold, but that comes with its own costs/tradeoffs).

... though being bored regularly is probably a good thing. It will make you think, invent and accomplish things.

Games, YouTube and pretty much anything added to HTML after 1995 is just about making you not-bored, thinking you're doing something. I admit it's difficult to tell the mind not to go for the cheap stuff, but staying bored until the _right_ urge comes up.

I live without alcohol or any drugs, and although my life isn’t perfect since nothing is, I do live it to the fullest, it isn’t boring and my mental health is solid. I believe drinking is just running away from facing your problems, or not accepting the reality, in fact, not drinking will force you to change your life to the one you want, not the one you’re running away from.

A good question to ask is what each person considers drinking in moderation:

The WHF considers moderation as 1 standard beverage per day (for a woman). This is the basis of their recommendations.

Their other definitions include: A woman is considered a heavy drinker if she has eight or more drinks per week, or a binge drinker if she has more than four drinks in one sitting.

So over to the HN forums:

What do you consider "moderate drinking"?

Taking moderate to mean "somewhere in the middle of 2 extremes": 3 drinks per event, one or two events per week (disclaimer: am a college student)

I would say here in Germany moderate drinking is 4 beers twice a week or so, or maybe a beer a day every day

.75L 2-3x/week

I don't understand why we use vague terms like "moderation" when we could just use numbers. In the UK "in moderation" is 14 units per week, and IIRC it used to be higher.

There was some study posted here many years ago that showed a clear increase risk of cancer starting at 5 units per week, so don't drink more than 2 pints/week (or 1 pint if you like Belgian ales like me :P)

Moderate drinking is being able to drive home from the bar while keeping your BAC under 0.05%

1-2 drinks 1-3 times per week. Everything else is drug abuse. Maybe the abuse is minor.

I've all but stopped drinking alcohol ever since I watched an Andrew Huberman video on the same subject. I was mostly drinking beer and nowadays thankfully they are making great alcohol-free versions. Visited Germany this summer and was surprised to see that almost half of the beers in stores were without alcohol. I highly recommend them.

I've listened to the podcast version of that video and it made me reduce drastically my alcohol consumption. It's been a year and I've listened to it a few more times. I lost 20kg (44lbs) in like 5 months. Granted, stopping drinking gave me more energy to exercise more frequently, which helped immensely with weight loss. But I've always been very active, I've had long periods of exercising very frequently and intensely, and never before had I observed such an improvement in losing weight. I attribute this to all the calories I've stopped consuming regularly. Since then, I've been able to maintain my weight without really needing that much exercise anymore.

I'd say that listening to that episode was one of those defining moments in life for me. It completely changed my relationship with my own habits as I started to reevaluate every other habit and was able to successfully pick the ones that made sense to me and the ones I could let go. For example:

- It was easier to quit smoking, which is something I used to stop and pick up again intermittently.

- I quit drinking so much coffee. Now I only drink it if I wake up super early and I know I have a long day or maybe I have a very complex task at the job.

- I've been able to maintain the overall cleanliness of my home at a higher level. I don't feel that feeling of "I'll do that later" as much anymore. In this podcast, Andrew talks about how chronic alcohol consumption hinders our ability to postpone satisfaction in the short term in favor of long-term benefits.

- I started being able to actually enjoy things instead of just enjoying having that alcohol buzz.

What I don't like is how engrained alcohol consumption is in my culture. People look at you weird or ask you questions when you don't drink. That should be more normal and just accepted without having to justify yourself.

That said, I will not stop drinking. A good old night out with some friends is just too much fun.

I've completely quit alcohol for a few years now. It was pretty sparse for me past 30 and lately my conclusion was even one glass of champagne I can sort of feel the next day.

Don't miss it at all.

OK, great.

The thing is though, that people like a little chemical relaxation. After a tough day or just because whatever. I know I do. I'm not a daily drinker, but I enjoy a glass of wine or beer several times a week. More on occasion (probably monthly). I'd go so far as to say it's quite important to my mental health to be able to have a little escape switch like that after a tough day of work, under high pressure to get something delivered.

"Just don't" is not a good answer for me. "Adjust your life so you don't feel like that" only goes so far as well, would probably involve a complete career change, relative poverty (and the associated health outcomes there etc etc.), and quite likely no real reduction in stress.

Most of the west still lives with cannabis prohibition, and god forbid our advanced medical science be used to research potential recreational substances with lesser harm profiles, despite the massive effect on health this could have. That'll never fly politically after decades of demonising anything that can be referred to as 'drugs'.

So what to do?

(I'm not trying to claim it's impossible to be alcohol or drug free, it clearly works well for a lot of people. Though I will say that most people I know who have given it up entirely have done so because of issues with self-control and addiction, either that they saw in themselves or in family)

> So what to do?

Have you tried sports or meditation?

I exercise regularly, I cycle and I work on our land (we have a few acres that need a lot of management).

None of that is available to quickly switch me off and relax me at 11.30pm after we had a production failure and the shit needed to be saved from hitting the fan.

I'm not really the meditation type.

It's true I could easily not have that glass of wine at that point, but I'd probably then go to bed in a more stressed state and sleep worse. :shrug:

A beer after sports is the best beer. Like cherry on top.

It is interesting to observe how people react as if directly attacked when confronted with this study, the original publication is much more targeted towards policy makers. The original source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9306675/

My partner and I are on a one year break from booze since July.

Which is great.

But as others mentioned. Meat, fried stuff, anything carbs, the list of stuff you should avoid to stay healthy never ends.

Same with interesting past times. Climbing, paragliding, street/ramp skating, horse riding etc. Much higher risk of injury or even death than with "boring" sports or no sports at all.

The issue I rather have with the topic at hand & the general discussion people have around it is that the comparably "healthy" substance alternatives are illegal and/or hard to come by.

That said -- we live in Berlin.

You can easily get pure MDMA delivered to your door. Testing kits can be ordered from Amazon.

A shop around the corner sells high quality (beautifully packaged) mushroom chocolate under the counter; in different strengths.

A legal shop down the road[1] sells a LSD variant that seemingly changes every six months, as the government adds the variant they're currently selling to the controlled substance list.

We found microdosing the aforementioned three, depending on occasion, is similar/better than having a glass or two of wine. With the added benefit that you can choose the substance for the occasion, for better effect.

Specifically MDMA for social gatherings and mushrooms for tango dancing (which is our non-dangerous favorite past time). LSD for either, depending on mood or what we have on the shelf. And yeah, I also use LSD microdoses sometimes when writing challenging code.

And while we admittedly were "a glass of wine or two a day people before" -- which seems to be the norm when you live in central Berlin --, we find that we take the above three substances only once or twice a week, mostly during weekends and always in isolation & microdosed.

For MDMA the reasons are obvious (although literature is not conclusive about long term serotine depletion even being a thing with MDMA when taking it strictly in moderate doses & in isolation from other substances on the resp. occasion -- we are just not gambling there).

For mushrooms and LSD the reason is simply that you don't want psychoactive effects at all.

Kinda why you avoid drinking a bottle of wine by yourself during a dinner -- you still want to enjoy talking to other people.

[1] https://maps.app.goo.gl/AzA9uvJx7NsxquvN8 resp. http://lsd.store

Ever since alcohol free beer has exploded in popularity and several of the alcohol-free versions of the normal beers have gotten to the point where the taste is more or less similar, I can absolutely do without.

The only alcohol-free beer I've found in the UK that tastes very similar is Adnams Ghost Ship. Others I've tried have tasted too malty or with an entire missing section in the flavour profile.

If you come stateside, search out Athletic. It's what I and most people I know swear by nowadays.

Well well - looks like they have a UK supplier too. Thanks for the recommendation!

You might find Brewdog beers in the UK, they are good. (In France they are hard to find and unreasonably expensive.)

Around Paris, Monoprix tends to carry some of their lineup. The Punk IPA is fairly easy to find in most supermarkets, though it is indeed quite expensive.

Thanks. Here in the Yvelines it's hit or miss at Monoprix. Instead I found a German store in Paris that stocks about 20 AF beers, so I'm set for a while.

That one is OK, yep.

You might want to add stuff by "Big Drop" to the 'to try' list. They do a good (if highly calorific) milk stout and some of their pales are pretty decent. If you like weissbier then Franziskaner Weiss alcohol-free is available in the UK and to me tastes as good or better than their version with alcohol.

When brewdog have their Hazy AF available, which is not all that often, that one's really worth a go. I like "Nanny State" too, but I see why not everyone does, and I'm not a huge fan of Punk AF. Hazy AF is damn good though.

Big Drop is my go to for NA beer in the UK. Their whole range is quite good (and I usually drink alcoholic beer)

> an entire missing section in the flavour profile

I think you sort of get that simply by excluding alcohol, but you can’t really expect that to still be there in my opinion.

But almost all the alcohol free beers in the Netherlands now are very good (heineken in the UK too, but heineken doesn’t really have a very unique taste to begin with).

I'll have to look for that. I haven't found a single one that's not missing the alcohol bite, but I think the closest NA beers are Guinness, Deschutes Black Butte Porter (US), and Corona, of all things.

There are a couple other US breweries I like, both of which I doubt distribute internationally: Ration Ale and Best Day Brewing.

I think the citrus hops give enough of a bitter aftertaste to mask the absence of alcohol. I can't imagine a red or golden ale doing the same, the malt would make it taste like Horlicks.

I'm a lifelong teetotaller, but I can attest that the innovation in alcohol free stuff has really been impressive. Obviously I can't compare it to "the real thing", but it's funny to try e.g. the many new alcohol free liquor products and observe that yes, this in fact tastes quite unlike anything else I've tasted.

What about alcohol replacements? Would Alcarelle be better? Maybe the alcohol industry can be disrupted. Good VC project.

Health professionals seem to be failing drastically at public communication when it comes to alcohol.

It's an issue of systemic discrimination. Since society sanctions it, we tolerate so much... strange how that works.

Just an individual experience: I was long against alcoholism, but it didn't seem to have helped my overall health or life expectancy at all. That dilute ethanol thing feels more benign than whatever my brain just learned to liberally discharge into itself whenever it reports unfelt pain in the software.

To me, consuming alcohol gives no sparkling and sharpening and over-joyous feeling or anything of that sort, which aren't safe effects to receive from substances at all, let alone automatically released; only relaxation and very mild euphoria and temporary impairments, which still aren't desirable effects but probably not as devastating as the above first group of effects.

I would not encourage anyone doing alcohol unless they must, and encourage minimizing use if possible, but if your brain is always out of office for another naked skydiving session... it's more preferable he do motorcycles in evenings with his helmet on.

Find me a substitute activity that can reduce group inhibitions, cause strangers to get along better with each other, and foment fun new spontaneous relationships and I'll consider your proposal for an alcohol free life.

Team sport, or any sport for that matter.

All of the friends I've made have been through competitive sport, the gym, running, team sports.

Involuntary military conscription.

All kinds of people getting together and bonding over traumatic experience. You also get a workout. What's not to like.

It's been a few years since I spent much time around those in the military, but as a bunch they seemed like heavy drinkers in general.

Alcohol does none of those things. From cultural anthropology, we know that it's all convention: cultures vary widely in what attributes of this sort they ascribe to alcohol.

We've decided to hold each other less accountable when drinking, so we take more chances socially, knowing that we can blame it on the drug.

But this isn't a free lunch. When we make up a social state where we hold each other less accountable, we hold each other more accountable anytime else, and leave less room for those things in everyday life. If we hadn't had these magical beliefs about alcohol, we'd be much more forgiving for people who e.g. were "seeking fun new spontaneous relationships" when sober.

Aw man but I like the drinks, they’re one of my favorite things!

Live a long boring life and create lots of value for shareholders

Indeed, don't drink beer and wine. Don't eat meat, just eat bugs instead! Don't eat white rice, oh wait, don't eat brown rice instead! Don't eat gluten! Don't eat dairy because it was not suppose to be this way after infancy.

Jesus, where is the line. I'm tired of other people to tell me what to eat and drink on a weekly basis.

Are you seriously complaining that some academics are advising you about the health consequences of some habits, while you constantly are bombarded by commercials and other media trying to influence what you eat and drink?

policy is forced on you, advertisements make suggestions. one is communism, the other is free market. if you value individual freedom, you should care about these things.

Uh, what exactly is forced upon you in this case?

Wheres the policy saying you cant drink, cant eat bread, cant eat meat, cant smoke?

A study being published saying "this this isn't great for you" is not at all remotely communism.

look at something like cigarettes and notice how policy tends to translate into "ban" over enough time

«Forcing a policy» is not communism.

Yeah, what's next, to tell people to stop smoking, remove asbestos from houses and not let kids play with mercury any more? /s

Why are you comparing bread to asbestos?

Also yes people should be allowed to smoke

> Also yes people should be allowed to smoke

Yes, assuming that I never have to inhale any of your smoke. Even outdoors. I don't care what you do to your body, but I do care what you do to mine.

Bread is an absolutely massive number of calories for what it is.

In a pastrami sandwich, about 50% of the calories will be from the bread alone.

People can eat bread, but when they wonder why it's hard to lose weight they tend to ignore this unconsidered contributor (conversely if you're working in a field or at hard labour job, breads a pretty great, compact calorie source).

> but when they wonder why it's hard to lose weight

Dude but it's their problem. You can get heroin and crack on the streets right now. I do not want things to be banned just because some dumbass is doing it wrong.

Literally reminds me of the anti-cannabis activist who's biggest argument was that "I smoked some weed, went home and they said my relative died and I laughed. Now I think nobody should ever use cannabis and it should be banned completely."

Dude literally no one is calling for a bread or alcohol ban in this thread.

You have been complaining about a study which suggested that people who care about their health might want to re-evaluate their risk appetite in light of updated data.

People should do whatever they please as long as they do not pose danger or inconvenience to other life forms on this earth.

And cause health care costs for others, in countries that have national healthcare.

All bodies are different: some people react well to a vegan diet, others get so broken by the FODMAPs in plant-based proteins that they can only eat meat and greens. When you interpret dietary advice not as "this is what you should eat and drink" but instead as "this worked for me; it might work for you too" it brings a whole lot more inner peace. The basic tried-and-tested ground rules are pretty simple: cover your nutritional needs, enjoy vices sparingly. How that looks specifically is entirely dependent on your own body and mind. Maybe the minor physical-health hit from social alcohol consumption is offset by the mental-health gains from socialising with friends.

As a non-drinker, it’s bizarre that there is this rather prominent belief from others that life would be insufferable without alcohol.

I agree. I totally fail to see the attraction of alcoholic drinks. They're grown-up drinks, which means that they taste vile and make you feel sick.

Well, I definitely see the attraction. What I don’t get is the projection.

Just because you think your life would be miserable/boring without alcohol, doesn’t mean my actual life without alcohol is miserable/boring. To me, I find people that lean into this projection don’t even realize that their life is already miserable and the drink is what makes things tenable

My experience is that non-drinkers are incredibly boring people.

My experience is that drinkers are incredibly boring people.

My experience is that boring people are not corelated to their alcohol consumption.

I know people who don't drink often, much who still party and are "fun" to be around. And I know people who are boring who don't mind a drink.

As a casual drinker, it's bizarre that there is this rather prominent belief from others that you cannot enjoy your life more if you drink from time to time

That's a straw man though. Nobody said that you can't enjoy life when you drink from time to time. The thread is a response to someone saying that a life without alcohol would be a boring life (and a life focused on consumption, which is an even weirder argument).

That’s like saying your drinking status is immutable. I’m a non drinker but that sure as hell doesn’t mean I’ve never drank in the past and know exactly how it affects my enjoyment in life.

Also I say I’m a non drinker as I think it’s the most accurate description but it’s also not a law or taken super duper literally. Middle aged Me probably averages 3 drinks a year. Some years I might have ten, some years zero. I had a few years where I drank every day. I partied a lot as a teen (regular shitface drunk), quit for most my 20s, then started drinking wines when I was in my early 30s, and quit again and have been super infrequent drinker since (about last 12 years). I’m always surrounded by people drinking, I know they enjoy it, I don’t frown upon them for imbibing. It looks like a hobby to me, people talk about whiskey/wine/brewers like they talk about sports teams. I’m just not very interested in it. Sports either for that matter.

Alcohol is a very important part of many European countries cultures

wait til you find out some people prefer their faculties dulled by a hangover than being fully present and in the moment for their dreary morning-midday routines.

Strangely some of my faculties are actually made keener by a mild hangover. I'm more empathetic, have keener hearing, and am in a reflective, more receptive frame of mind.

Unfortunately these effects are inseparable from less desirable ones: guilt, anxiety, upset guts, hypersensitivity to smells, hair-trigger impatience, flop sweat.

Just because you don't find your life enhanced by something doesn't mean that something is useless... And of course we can live without it. I posit we can live quite a fulfilling life as a hunter gatherer in the kalahari.

Anyway, you can be quite a successful billionaire and have no one likes you. Being right and rigid is boring, sometimes being unhinged is interesting.

Back when I was still smoking I also had the feeling that life without smoking wouldn't be worth living.

I succeeded in quitting and of course it wasn't true. Literally every aspect of my life improved. An addicted mind is an unreliable narrator.

Imagine if your life was just going utterly wrong. You're working hard as you can but you can barely make food or rent, and you're so tired every day that all you can do is just lie there like a dull sack remembering constantly and inescapably mulling at just how wrong everything is in your life. There's no end in sight, no light at the end of the tunnel, your existence is just this until you are broken and thrown out.

Now imagine there's a magic potion that make it feel like it all goes away even if for just a little while.

Does that help explain it?

Then that life is already insufferable in my view. As a non-drinker, I would focus on fixing some of the root causes versus trying to dull my misery.

The fact one chooses to imbibe instead is not the thing bringing you joy, it’s escapism. So the fact you would conflate that to others that are content and have no need to escape is ass backwards logic.

If the criticism was phased as, “a drink really helps me unwind after a stressful day/week” I’d get it. But it’s usually projected outwards as “you must be boring/miserable for not drinking”. That’s the rub.

But many times you can’t fix the root cause. Maybe one of your parents is dying. Maybe your relationship with your spouse is falling apart. Maybe you bought a house in the last year and now you’re $50,000 underwater.

Who says a life without (or even just with less) alcohol is boring? There’s millions of things to do besides drink. There’s thousands of hobbies and sports to enjoy. There’s vast areas of natural and cultural beauty to explore. There are countless cities and cultures to visit, cuisines to taste, music to enjoy.

Seriously, people who think that drinking is the only thing to do are the boring ones.

Trouble is, alcohol goes really well with a lot of those things.

To be fair most people can't visit countless cities weekly, can't visit or don't care for the nature you like, and the increased injury risk of many sports (compared to just cycling for cardio and doing resistance training) is probably as bad as the risks from moderate drinking.

People obviously do not think that drinking is the only thing to do.

But in your example, when exploring a far-away land, a few beers with the locals in some pub can greatly enhance the experience.

> There’s millions of things to do besides drink.

Drugs \o/

Alcohol is a drug, literally. So is caffeine and nicotine.

Translation: "Don't be a cog in the giant capitalist machine, be an adventurous free-thinking rebel, by..."

*checks notes*

"By regularly buying goods from alcohol companies, and especially by making those purchases (and chronic low-level self-poisoning) a core part of your self-identity like a good little consumer!"

Oh wait, was I not supposed to draw attention to that second part?

There’s nothing inherently consumerist or capitalist about drinking alcohol. Making beer for your own consumption is safe, easy, and cheap, which is probably why it’s been drunk since before recorded history. Hard alcohol can be more difficult but entirely possible to do yourself

Except this is not how the majority of the population experience or consume alcohol.

What is your point?

The guy I was replying to was satirizing beer drinkers as consumerist cogs in the machine. I pointed out that of all the things to criticize someone for enjoying alcohol is probably one of the least corporate. If buying alcohol makes you a monopolist’s bitch then so does buying anything and everyone in the entire world is hopeless.

It’s like claiming solar panels make you a slave to factory owners when they can be used, operated and repaired in a distributed manner. Sure, maybe, but like what a weird hill to die on?

It feels like you're completely ignoring the comment that started this all, which then throws your comparisons out of whack. Here's what it looks like to me.

______

1 - Luminouslow: "Pfft, health shmelth, the corporations want us to be cowards who don't drink alcohol, and this is playing right into their hands!"

2 - Terr: "That's hypocritical nonsense. If anything, people like you--ones who treat regular alcohol as an important part of their identity and try to ostracize people who don't drink--are the real corporate sheep here."

3 - Subjectsigma: "Alcohol isn't always corporate, people can brew their own at home."

4 - Xornot: "That would be a very different situation than the world we're discussing right now."

5 - Subjectsigma: "But Terr started criticizing people who drink as consumer sheep, which is very unfair because they could have bought locally."

6 - Terr: "Dude, WTF, did you even see what I was replying to!? Where the guy suggested not buying anything was worse!? [Recursion error]

It was more of a reaction to how smug and condescending you came off as, but no I don’t agree with your interpretation of the original comment, which I interpreted as making fun of HN yuppies as opposed to a comment about society. I don’t know how or why (I really doubt Big Weed ™ is astroturfing the orange site) but the way people on HN chomp at the bit to defend weed and other drugs but decry alcohol for being “evil” feels distinctly robotic and manufactured.

That aside - the more I think about it the more I don’t understand how you could look at such a globally distributed and diverse product as alcohol and think its consumers can be easily stereotyped. Not even months ago in America there was a boycott of a massively popular brand of beer on political grounds; how very sheepish of those consumers!

Proponents of legalizing marijuana aren't necessarily advocates for it's use or benefits: for example, I am one. I have absolutely no interest marijuana, and don't particularly care for people who's identity is "I smoke weed" (I mean, the same would also apply for alcohol too).

But that's quite different to thinking the current regime of anti-drug enforcement, incarceration, and generally catastrophic waste of time, resources and lives - is at all a productive or even useful thing to do for society.

I'll discourage everyone from drinking alcohol or smoking weed, but that's very different from thinking any of this should be banned.

Though I'll happily commit to the notion that I suspect you'd get a lot fewer fights among dedicated stoners then drinkers on a friday night.

I don't know where you're from, but in the UK, over £50 billion is spent on it each year.

If you've seen anybody who lives for Friday / Saturday night and a Sunday hangover, it fits the consumerist image pretty neatly. Many (obviously not all) are slaves to alcohol.

We've all heard the wine'o'clock jokes from middle aged women in the office, people struggling to complete "Dry January" and similar challenges, colleagues talking about how excited they are to get a drink when they get home.

These people are held under the thumb of a handful or two alcohol companies. In many cases, it's simply a wasted weekend and quite a sum of wasted money, especially when you can't remember any of it.

Yep, also the 10 biggest beer manufacturers control about ~66% of the global market by volume. (And way more of that by profit.) [0]

So as a matter of current reality, alcohol-culture overwhelming means megacorporations. Things could be different... but they aren't.

[0] https://www.businessinsider.com/sabmiller-ab-inbev-would-dom...

> There’s nothing inherently consumerist or capitalist about drinking alcohol.

Okay, but so-what?

This isn't about every single possible alternate universe of alcohol economics, this is about the weird argument given by the parent poster.

Do you really think they were advocating for everyone to engage in self-sufficient home brewing?

See my other sibling comment I’m not retyping that shit.

I understand this point of view and I used to share it, but I see it from the other side now:

I used alcohol to cope with stress at work/life and when I stopped, the switch flipped and I saw how much I numbed myself to the pain that was necessary to change any of it. I basically grew a pair over 90 days. Now, none of people's manipulation or crocodile tears affect me.

If you are stress- and anxiety-free, you don't have this problem and can afford it, but I highly recommend to people to quit drinking and doing drugs who recognize themselves in what I described.

How much did you drink? I went from 2/day during my phd - clearly to cope with the stress - to 1/day to 3/week...

I however really love the taste of good specialty beers and the meme of drinking a beer while cooking&eating food. Not sure if I want to cut down any further, I enjoy drinking too much. But investing any technique to increase anxiety resistance sounds worthwhile to me, otoh...

Funny and there I thought the alcohol industry is a multi-billion dollar business creating lots of value for their shareholders (arguably externalizing the cost for general society).

It's also quite telling that you consider not drinking a boring life, in my experience (obviously this is anecdotal) people who are not drinking are more active and are typically more open to try new things.

The shareholders of Anheuser-Busch InBev thank you for your service.

If you're relying on drinking to live a fulfilling life something is very, very wrong. Your life shouldn't be dictated by drinking or not drinking.

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