- cross-posted to:
- chapotraphouse@hexbear.net
- cross-posted to:
- chapotraphouse@hexbear.net
Not sure about grabbing that beer? You’re not alone. Americans are reaching for alcohol at record lows, according to a new Gallup survey.
The survey, out Aug. 20, found the number of Americans who say they drink alcohol sits at 54% for the second consecutive year − and health concerns appear to be a major factor.
“Fifty-one percent of U.S. adults now believe drinking one or two alcoholic beverages a day is bad for one’s health,” the survey results noted. “The figure is essentially unchanged from last year’s record-high 53%.”
In 2001, only 27% considered moderate drinking bad for one’s health, according to Gallup.
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I never had any interest in drinking alcohol, the smell is horrible and while you can supposedly push through and acclimate to it fairly easily and there are mixes that will mask that harsh scent/taste I never really saw a reason to do that since there were very clear examples around me of people screwing up their entire lives with alcohol.
I had to make a choice about 5 or 6 years ago, keep drinking and die, or stop drinking and live.
Trump had just been voted out.
I wish I hadn’t quit.
Health concerns? Maybe being priced out of the market? Canada stops buying, price goes up for americans, easy-peasey, lemon-squeezy.
I think social media has affected this as well. Video and pictures mean people don’t want to embarrass themselves as much. Also, marijuana is legal in a lot of places and doesn’t mix with alcohol as well for everyone.
I wonder how the percentages for marijuana have changed and whether they make up the difference.
I think you’re right that it’s social media, but it’s for a different reason. Social media is now the drug of choice.
Exactly got to look good for the gram or TikTok.
Most people where I live are sticking to body conscious cocaine!
I wonder how this currently matches the actual quantity people are drinking. Historically the “how much do you drink” and sales records indicated massive under estimation to the point this might really be people are drinking what they said they were in 2001.
That said alcohol is a mood amplifier for me… So I avoid entirely if not in a good mood… And really have been enjoying the na beers, not as good as a nice craft beer but when I feel like a beer while watching something at home or playing video games hits close enough without the mind altering part (and if I want to do anything later in the evening and its a weekend this is a good thing)
I certainly am not avoiding a good drink at the bar, see no real reason to think one drink day is particularly bad if that is what you are actually doing (the headlines on the recent health studies are overblown, not saying the science is wrong but nuance in science reporting is awful as usual) but if you are not enjoying it really no reason to have it just because.
There is not a lot of nuance. No amount of alcohol is beneficial to your body’s function. Any amount is harmful. Pulling out the magnifying glass looking for additional nuance smacks of motivated reasoning.
If you had to pick either healthy or unhealthy, a drink a day would fall under unhealthy, but it also might be statistically irrelevant due to having such a small impact.
I do think its worth noting that alcohol does actually change its effects the more you drink though. The effects of intoxication don’t just increase, they cascade to other parts of the brain. Someone who consistently stays under one drink is essentially on a different drug than someone who draws the line at three.
IT’S FUCKING EXPENSIVE AND LETTUCE MAKES YOU SHIT TO DEATH NOW.
Ah, well. At least they can’t tax the air.
Polluted areas will have cheaper rent and cleaner areas we will be priced out of. So many dystopian tropes about this and I truly believe it will come to pass.
Yet
I don’t drink booze, because it seems like an expensive habit. I don’t got any friends nor go to bars, so it is likely going to be a miserable experience. Also, one of my parents was an absolute boozehound, and certainly not someone to be respected. So I avoid alcohol, because I don’t know what kind of person I would be.
It is just disadvantages all around, with no upside for me.
00000
When it comes to American society at large, I suspect that capitalism is the root of why alcohol use is dropping. Third spaces are going extinct, budgets are tighter, time is limited, and work demands greater effort to make ends meet, and most people lose their childhood friendships as adults. The opportunity to enjoy booze is dying.
It’s pretty easy to tell you are in a room of people having fun and enjoying themselves. The last time I enjoyed going to a bar was in March of 2020. It is nothing like it was before. Prices are sky high, and the average bar is still relatively empty, in comparison dead, and the energy level is pretty non existent. The age mix skews much older than before.
For busy, packed bars that have lineup in the streets, the age is much lower, prices are even higher. After waiting in line, which feels absurd since there are so many empty bars even across the street, everyone seems most concerned with updating their social media allegedly having a good time. The DJ is there, music is loud, but the patrons aren’t.
So have a couple drinks, spend 100 bucks, and wake up with a headache. Yeah, it’s shit.We are also in a pure surveillance state, everything we do is recorded so it is risky. What used to be a gaffe could be a career ending viral moment today.
Conversations with strangers is now the worst, complaining about rent, prices of everything, Trump, late stage capitalism, immigration , woke is destroying the world, libtards, investing in gold, or actually more enjoyable - an inebriated 60 year old with intentions, that constantly repeating themselves like an llm with 2 messages of context history. Until they finally make their move you see coming like a train wreck in slow motion.
And finally, the alcohol companies have lost control of the narrative, like tobacco, they spent heavily on funding studies that found alcohol has health benefits (in some amount) and rained legal threats on anyone saying what has been known for decades:
Alcohol consumption causes cancer.
This is in addition to what everyone has known forever, even moderate consumption often results in injury from falling or assault, get in a car - death (of other people), and while men don’t usually think about it, sexual assault.
It’s all a buzz kill.
Alcohol causes more than cancer, it’s behind most liver diseases and it’s a potent neurotoxin.
I wish they would just ban it tbh, i still feel forced to drink once in a blue moon at a wedding or something. It’s poison you guys, zero medical usage, leads to violence, one of the only drugs where withdrawal can kill you. It’s just about the worst drug out there.
I wish it was not considered cool and acceptable to advertise the most destructive drug on the planet in public, in front of addicts and children; one that has taken years of life from virtually everyone’s loved ones leaving us alone with regret. When Ford changed the rules so that there could be vendors at my local farmer’s market shouting at people to buy their alcohol on the fucking public sidewalk, I was so pissed off. I go there because it’s the only way I can afford to eat healthy food a couple days a week and I have no option to just go someplace else. Not that they have left me any place.
It depends. I have an occasional drink. Is it awesome for my health? No. Do I think that a drink every week or two has any noticeable effect on my health? No. Have I had problem drinking behaviors in the past? Yes. Was that detrimental to my physical & mental health. Absolutely. Moderation is the main factor here.
Abstention is always better than moderation when the subject is poison. This is cope.
Sounds like the ideal is never drinking another drop, like good job microdosing alcohol for no benefit?
Its one of the few drugs that actually gets worse the more you use it. We should be more honest and strict about how much someone should be allowed to drink, especially in public. Alcohol should be given an extremely short leash.
Its one of the few drugs that actually gets worse the more you use it.
That’s literally all drugs. The dose is the poison.
and thats why they lobbied against weed and glp-1.
I was shocked when I visited a moderately sized to maybe small US city and had a drink with a friend to find out the bill with tip was $45. No wonder Americans aren’t drinking.
If alcohol came out today, it would be illegal. It kills more people than all drugs combined. It’s terrible for you and 10% of drinkers account for 90% of all alcohol sales. I just wish I could stop.
I believe in you.
I stopped drinking and it has been very worth the effort. It’s hard, but I believe in you
Keep wanting to quit, I think that’s the most important thing, keep the desire to quit alive. Especially when you stop. I’d put money on you pulling through brother!
It isn’t easy at first, but the pivotal moment is merely wanting to stop. You may not believe it yourself, addiction has this way of convincing you that you can’t, but it gets easier with time.
It’s been three years or so, but my life has turned around so much it’s astounding. Highly recommend believing in yourself, and pushing through the tough days.
Stay kind to yourself friend
Hollywood needs to stop using it in every fucking scene. Two characters cannot have a conversation with beers to scotch, no cop comes home without cracking open a beer.
I’ve noticed that recently too. I watched “Life in Pieces” recently and it’s like every other scene this family is drinking.
It’s everywhere. Latest season of Reacher has at least 5 scenes per episode of people drinking.
Someone dies, drink, someone is sad, drink, someone is happy, drink, someone is nervous, drink, two characters developing a relationship, drink. Hollywood writers have no other mechanism to convey emotions.
Two wealthy people cant have a conversation without pouring from a crystal decanter of scotch…CEO offices have a full bar and people drink all day.
And of course, every male over 50 is burned out alcoholic in TV and movies. What would happen if alcohol was not allowed on screen like cigarettes?
Word. My Friday evening beer math:
I always try to stick to one beer. These days I manage to not exceed a couple.
You can stop. I won’t give unsolicited advice, but dm me if you want to talk about it
I’ve met a lot of wonderful people through this organization that has helped me immensely:
Thank you for this. I plan to share it with people in my community who want to quit, but are struggling.
I tried SMART meetings. I felt as if the people there had significantly worse trauma and alcoholism than me and it made me feel like since I wasn’t as bad as them that I should still be able to keep drinking. When I have stopped drinking in the past, focusing on what’s wrong with me doesn’t help me focus on the positives and moving forward. Everyone is different though.
I initially got a similar feeling at meetings that others had it significantly worse, but that just made me feel better that I was getting some help before reaching that point. Nobody ever makes me feel that I didn’t belong, though. The journey really is different for everyone.
I prefer SMART to guilt-based programs like AA since it focuses more on progress with a basis in science.
Alcohol never had any sort of attraction to me thankfully. I don’t really like having an altered mental state in the first place, and I never found a beer that I liked until I was 23. I’m 45 now and I’ve been drunk 3 times in my life and each time I was just wishing the effect would wear off. But I do have addictions, just other sorts of things. Wish you luck and strength in your journey.
They don’t care if you live or die. They care about if their rich buddies are still getting your money.
Joke solution: Convert to Islam.
Serious solution: I have no idea.
I’d rather become a Buddhist and change my perspective which will eventually help me.
Try GLP-1s or ketamine treatment
Shrooms can also be highly effective
Always wanted to try and didn’t get an opportunity until a few weeks back. I didn’t stop totally, I still have a beer for meals that call for it, but I pretty effortlessly vastly reduced my drinking. Like, even the standard here in my part of Europe, what Americans call “tall boys”, is a little too much at once, I can only do a short can. Being drunk just does not feel good afterward to me. That wasn’t planned, so I don’t think it’s placebo, just kind of happened.
Maybe I will
You can stop right now.
Edit: You guys are right. It’s better to resign yourself to doom and give up. I guess my case was miraculous. Self control wasn’t a factor. No one has ever quit drinking successfully.
You don’t know how much they’re drinking. At a certain intake level, suddenly stopping can kill you. So just telling them “you can stop right now” is misleading and dangerous.
That’s not how dependency works. Depending on how bad the addiction is, alcohol withdrawal can be deadly.
I dunno… I used to drink pretty heavily (several drinks per night) and then cut back to less than one drink per month. Never felt a single ill effect.
I understand that’s anecdotal, and I’m sure some people do have dts and withdrawal, but I doubt every person who quits drinking will suffer severe side effects, just like I don’t believe anyone has ever hallucinated pink elephants from drinking too much.
I dunno
That’s right. I’ve seen people dead from alcohol withdrawal. So I do know.
Your very first sentence is very correct. “I dunno…” Yeah. You don’t. You followed it up with a bunch of “I, me, my” and can’t understand that someone may have a different issue than you.
I don’t drink daily. I’m a binge drinker. I convince myself that it will only be a few this weekend and go on a bender every time. I can’t stop lying to myself. I keep telling myself I’ll quit next weekend and do it all over again. Cut back? I cut back every week.
We are the same.
I did 11 months last year and thought I could “reintroduce”. It was good at first, I still kept my Fri Sat rule but then it crept and as I watched my weight loss regain and my control loosen it wasn’t so good.
Now I’m just trying to avoid going back to my lowest which is like major blackouts and no sleep. Puking.
Unfortunately it will probably get worse before it gets better. I wasn’t even a heavy drinker, but when I started seeing shadows jumping and little flicks of light out of the corner of my eyes, that’s when I called it quits. Turns out that’s a symptom of alcohol withdrawal.
several drinks per night
that’s not much for a garden variety alcoholic.
You’re an idiot spreading an admitted anecdote. Use your phone and look it up before you spread your ignorance to other people.
Alcohol and benzo withdrawal can be incredibly dangerous and medical professionals should be consulted whenever possible.
Booze, Benzos, and Barbituates: the three deadly “B”s, merely cessation from which can kill.
If people are getting medical advice from lemmy they have bigger problems. And at least I called it out as anecdotal. Go rage somewhere else.
I did the same thing. Cold turkey quit after 15+ years of drinking. Going on 4 years sober now.
That’s awesome. I’ll get there soon, I hope.
The other horrible thing about alcohol compared to most other drugs is that quitting when addicted can kill you. In many cases special care is needed to ween, which is kinda a thing alcoholism doesn’t facilitate.
if you are a heavy alcoholic.
My sister was a very light alcoholic under 100 pounds – that makes it even worse believe it or not.
As far as I’m aware, the only other drug class aside from alcohol, whose withdrawals can kill you are benzodiazepines.
I was in rehab once with someone who had a terrible Xanax addiction. They had to wean him off, and he still had psychotic episodes where he would hallucinate some very bizarre things accompanied by these terrible panic attacks while they weaned him off, not to mention the seizures he would have.
They eventually stopped, but the first few weeks he was there were an absolute nightmare for him.
Yup, people always talk about opiate withdrawals, and they are awful, but they don’t usually kill you directly. It’ll make you want to die, and that sometimes does people in, but in terms of directly killing you not so much. Alcohol and benzos absolutely will.
Hospitals stock beer cans because dealing with withdrawl is too difficult with other health issues.
This is true. A medical hospital can assist but it will be straight drugs and monitoring. You’ll sit in a room with a TV and whatever books or electronic devices you bring with you. Outpatient support? Maybe. Probably not.
A mental health hospital will monitor you and provide the drugs to keep you out of danger. Little room time. No electronic devices. Group therapy. Exploration of why you’re drinking with some Coping Skills 101 training. Discharge plan to include outpatient support.
That special care seems to be ativan, in my area. It’s not replacing the poison, it’s calming the neurological side - effects of detox.
Ativan is one step removed from a lobotomy in terms of damaging a patient to make them more manageable.
You think if I could, that I just wouldn’t? No. I have been trying for years and can’t. I may not get withdrawal symptoms, but the societal pressures and habits drive me back to it.
Only reason I still use Reddit is because of R/stopdrinking… my virtual little AA meeting whenever I want/need it.
I was a daily drinker for 10 years, and the last few were… well if I kept it to a fifth of cheap canadian whisky a day, I was “doing well.” 🙄 , I didn’t do well most days.
Anyway, I was sittin on the couch one day, thinking about string theory. about how our decisions create little offshoots of different realities, and I thought about the string where I kept drinking, and where it
mightwould lead.Went into the kitchen, poured out the handle I had in the freezer. I remember looking into the sky… it was so blue.
From then on I only used weed and shrooms. Shrooms for figuring out big stuff, going through traumatic shit from my past. Weed sometimes did that too. Have you heard of EMDR? it’s where you just sit and follow a light bouncing from side to side. Well I’d get real high, sit on my Marcy recumbent stationary bike, and play Mariokart on my old Nintendo 64. And shit, I swear that acted as a perfect EMDR machine. I’d be on there dissociating, thinking about shit, making major breakthroughs.
Anyway, this year I finally found the courage to face the trauma from my past, confronting my past abuser, then confronting my parents that ignored it… and you know what? went from smoking weed almost everyday to… not. Like at all. I just don’t feel the need anymore. It’s crazy. My life isn’t perfect, but it’s so much better it’s nuts.
I dunno. just my own story. Hope you get there someday, brother. I promise it’s worth it.
I wish you the absolute best moving forwards.
Everyone is aware there are steps they can take to get free of whatever substance they are dependent on. If it were as simple as that, addiction wouldn’t be the scourge that it is.
That’s not how addiction works.
Weed is legal in more places than ever. People are aware of cycles of abuse and trauma, we don’t want to keep repeating the sins of our alcoholic parents. And now recovery is out in the open like never before, regular folks and celebs both openly talking about their journeys.
There’s a big class of folks like myself who don’t do hard drugs, don’t drink, but will use cannabis and hallucinogens, maybe dissociatives. This is pretty reflective of our times - we’re disconnected, our journeys are isolated, our experiences tend to be isolated. So these drugs work well for that, without being destructive like drinking alone is.
Weed is legal in more places than ever.
I will say from experience though that long term, chronic, heavy use of weed comes with its own problems, though. Probably not as bad as alcohol, but pretty unfun still.
In Canada, we are seeing all kinds of cannabis syndromes in ER, with psychosis and schizophrenia on a steep rise. The problem is the dose, 60s weed had 2% THC, but shops sell very highly concentrated THC. Government won’t regulate it because the whole point of legal weed was to make investors rich.
Yup. There’s a reason ABC and Total Wine have a whole isle dedicated to THC drinks. People don’t not use drugs anymore, they just found a cleaner drug.
Conversely, I do amphetamines (legally, prescription) and still occasionally drink. At the height of my drinking I’d have 3 drinks in a night (usually more like 1-2), maybe 4-5 nights a week, but the rule has always been that I would only drink if I felt safe to do so, had something else to do (while drinking), and most importantly, am not in any negative mood or depressed. These days I only really drink for celebrations, and looking around there isn’t much left to celebrate. I still drink occasionally, but it’s been down to like 1 drink every other week, with company (and only mead, my body can’t handle beer or even wine anymore).
“Apathy had to make out of body the status quo” -Clipping (Daveed Diggs)
I was just reading a thing about this the other day.
For decades, scientists told people that 1 to 2 drinks per day is better for your health than 0 drinks per day. They determined this by asking a ton of people how much they drank, and then asking about their health repeatedly over a long period of time. And they found what they called a J-curve. Basically when they plotted drinks per day vs health over time, people who had 0 drinks per day actually had slightly worse health outcomes than the 1-2 crowd.
So everybody agreed that light drinking was better than no drinking. This became guidance from governments, it got repeated on the news all the time, and it was a huge boon for the alcohol industry.
However, in recent years, scientists went back to take a closer look at this J-curve, and they noticed an obvious thing that wasn’t accounted for initially: some people who don’t drink have existing health conditions that prevent them from drinking. And some people that don’t drink are in recovery: they’d spent decades being heavy drinkers and just didn’t drink now. But damage had been done, and worse health outcomes were to be expected.
Once scientists started to correct for these cases, the J-curve disappeared. Not drinking at all was suddenly clearly the safest thing for longterm health outcomes. So that’s been the new guidance coming down from agencies and health organizations.
That said, the difference in risk between 0 drinks per day and 2 drinks per day is significantly less than the difference between 2 drinks per day and 5 drinks per day. It’s riskier than not drinking, but we do plenty of risky shit because it’s fun or easy or convenient. See: driving, flying, eating fast food, etc. So, yes, a complete ascetic chasing immortality may not want to drink, but for most people occasional light drinking is an acceptable risk.
Edit: Autocorrect-induced typo
how much they drank, and then asking about their health
this kinda read as if they asked them about there health while they were drunk :) Would have made for an interesting curve.
So, yes, a complete ascetic chasing immorality may not want to drink
Either you’re missing a ‘t’ or you’re chasing immorality the wrong way.
Thanks, fixed.
Only one grammatical error/typo in a comment that long is way better than I could have managed :-)
scientists told people that 1 to 2 drinks per day is better for your health than 0 drinks per day.
One lab from one country, heavily promoted by the California wine industry. In Europe, this is confused with the fact that historically people drank weak ales because it was safer than water due to cholera.
Another scam with wellness influencers is resveratrol from wine -it does fuck all.
Ethically because of the known dangers of abuse, no medical professional or organization should recommend alcohol consumption. It is NOT a safe drug to use by anyone’s level of evaluation. It runs a similar levels of risk as driving a car, another activity that no health professional should recommend.
That being said, for those that are genetically predisposed to heart disease and diabetes, the proper dosage and timing of alcohol consumption helps to regulate cholesterol and insulin. This is backed not by surveys which are prone to the errors you described, but blood draws etc. aka testable evidence.
Genetically 3 out of 4 of my grandparents had diabetes and 4/4 had high blood pressure/heart disease. So when my blood tests started coming back with screwed up cholesterol ratios and my blood pressure started increasing in my 30’s I read a shit ton of the scientific papers.
So I started having around 1.5 drinks per night. Within 1 year my cholesterol and blood pressure normalized. They have remained so for the past decade. My one glass of wine or whiskey after dinner is acting as a very enjoyable medication.
Anecdotal health stories are the dog shit of the Internet. You have no idea if alcohol affected those numbers.
Great insights thank you
That’s just because I can’t afford it, and I want other things more. I’d love an occasional wine with an anticipated good meal, or some coke and rum in the evening.
Cocaine and alcohol is a particularly dangerous combination fyi
I drank hard liquor pretty much daily for a few years up until I started having health problems. while at work one day I felt nauseous and delirious, and could only lay on the floor of the bathroom for a while in order to barely function the rest of the day. That day, valentines day 2024 I swore off the stuff for good.
From what I understand what i went through was just considered a long hangover or something, but it was the worst I’d felt in a long time and I didn’t want to feel that way again.
That sounds like withdrawal
Might have been that, yeah
I’m doing my part!
