Alcohol and social bonding in humans (2018)
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Proximity, unplanned encounters and the privacy to confide with someone have been identified as key factors in making friends as an adult.[cite] I find it unfortunate to read about the closing of so many neighborhood pubs in England over the past decade or so.
Because other places have stronger social and family bonds (Africa, Asia, Latin America). Exceptions is the West and very westernized societies in Asia (e.g. Japan).
It's partly cultural (e.g. protestant cultures being more impersonal), partly because of necessity (you need more family/friend support in less developed countries), and partly because of the development model chosen (or imposed onto people) which sacrifices personal and social time and binds for productivity and consumption. Where western style productivity has not been applied (e.g. in vast expanses of global rural areas, non-factory cities, slower economies, etc), even the poor have plenty of social time. When that has been eroded and people are forced to factory work, sweatshops, or worse (mines etc), that drops closer to zero.
Quite a lot of social time was the norm in the west too, both in the pre-industrial past, and when a middle class emerged that overcame the Dickensian working conditions (e.g. sometime before WWII, up until some point in the 70s - late 80s or so. Thank neoliberalism/globalization for the changes...).
If you have your own observations, or opinion, or point of view, or counter data, or some citation you'd like to share, please do so. I've written mine.
I lived and worked since the mid-1990s in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, plus have a related degree. And no, I will not give you sources to contradict your "facts". That's not how science works. If you present "facts", then its on you to present the sources. And don't downvote people asking for a source. That's yet another level.
On the bright side, your close friends are likely to be even closer than how friendships existed in the past
I know there's other aspects to bar culture that's more conducive to forming relationships for some people, but I also think the reason why "local" pub culture is dying is because people finally have alternative options, though no doubt many of those options are solitary activities. Though I'm not convinced loneliness is bad in itself, or social drinking is necessarily the antidote. Plenty of people getting worse in misery loves company situations.
Past threads have shown this to be a bit of a triggering topic, but this is an interesting and substantial article. We changed the title to make it less baity, in accordance with the HN guidelines. If anyone suggests a better title (i.e. more accurate and neutral), we can change it again.
I think the important insight in the article is "how alcohol and social activities trigger the endorphin system in humans".
I object to the article's proposition that alcohol is useful, except in controlled amounts. Two or three ounces of wine is enough, not the whole bottle.
As a taxi driver, I dealt with a lot of people who had trouble with alcohol, and trouble with "social activities". I had trouble with social activities, but talking to random people in my taxi was much more useful to me than any of the drinks I've ever had.
One of my most successful interventions was for the passenger whom I'd later learn had been written off by her family as a hopeless drunk. Her family and friends cared about her, but they didn't know what to do, and had their own problems to deal with.
I didn't know that when I arrived at that passenger's apartment. She provided simple directions. I quickly realized we were going the drive-thru liquor store. I took a few minutes out of my day to detour to a fast food restaurant, spent a few extra minutes talking to her, and called back a few times over the next two days. Then I forgot about her...
After her taxi ride, her friend called one of her sons and said, "GO SOBER UP YOUR MOTHER!" She did well for two or three months, that time.
This passenger later told me she'd fallen into alcoholism because drinking "made [all her problems] go away". Prison for her 3rd DUI did not actually provide the help she needed to pull herself together.
Eventually I told her daughter that what her mother really needed was to know that she had her children's support. They stepped up to take care of her. She's doing quite well now, and is useful to her children instead of a burden.
Johann Hari's book [0] talks about how social connections are what people actually need to break their addictions.
Enough for what exactly? A common pour of wine is 4 - 6 oz.
Also, I'm sorry you don't like alcohol, but not all use is abuse. I wouldn't even go as far as saying occasional and mild drunkenness itself is problematic.
I don't disagree that in many cases substance abuse happens because of external problems and unless those are fixed relapse becomes almost inevitable. Sometimes that has nothing to do with connecting to others; there is a reason the opioid crisis is hitting rural areas that have been hit very hard economically.
2-3 ounces of wine is enough to "trigger the endorphin system in humans" to facilitate social interactions, for people whose endorphin systems aren't already overloaded with pain signals.
People for whom 2-3 ounces is not enough can refresh their endorphin system using the drug mentioned in the article.
Drink more beer/wine/etc in pubs if you want to bond with people.
Yes, alcohol can be a social lubricant, but there is no shortage of evidence that social bonding can/does occur without it.
The "article in the British Medical Journal" is here.[1] The "Whitehall study" has been tracking a group of British civil servants since the 1980s. The alcohol effect seems to be slightly above the noise level. But the level of alcohol consumption at which things start to get worse is quite low. "Alcohol consumption >14 units/week was associated with an increased risk of dementia in a linear fashion". 14 units a week is about one glass of wine a day.[2]
Also, in this study alcohol consumption is self-reported, so it's probably low.
You can't just instruct an alcoholic not to overdo alcohol. Bonding over a beer is fine if you are able to control your consumption (or you don't care,) but don't push it on people who you know don't drink or have drank in the past but have since quit.
As Artie Lange likes to joke “People who don’t have the disease say, ‘Artie, you can have one drink, one beer, one five-dollar bet. If I put down a five-dollar bet on roulette in a casino, half an hour later, it’s beer, vodka, weed. By 11:30, I’m doing blow off a stripper’s ass... By 8 a.m. I’m running guns to Cuba.”
The last paragraph -
> So, if you want to know the secret of a long and happy life, money is not the right answer. Get rid of the takeaway in front of the telly, and bin the hasty sandwich at your desk — the important thing is to take time out with people you know and talk to them over a beer or two, even that bottle of Prosecco if you really must. There’s nothing quite like a convivial evening wrapped around a pint to give you health, happiness and a sense of wellbeing.
Personally I dont really enjoy talking to other people. People used to tell me to join the gym to meet people, get out for a coffee and a drink and all that stuff, so I did, but truth is that I dont really enjoy it. I think it is a hassle and boring to talk to people. Sorry..
I used to think there was something wrong with me, since I had such a hard time fitting in, but then I realized that I am just different and I dont need all that socializing. Life got much better after that realization.
I used to like drinking also for the sake of getting drunk, but that urge faded also for some reason. The socializing made me want to drink probably.
If there is a population of folks that have trouble affording food every month, that sort of simple happiness isn't available. Money - to a point - is part of the answer.
The problem is not money, per se in my view. I'm coming to believe now though that humans have a baseline of social health in the same way that there is a baseline of physical health - and that baseline health is rather reasonable and flexible. Money correlates somewhat with social health.
If someone heart pounds and they get dizzy whenever they stand up, then something is clearly wrong and they should see a doctor. Normally healthy humans should be able to stand and walk around at least.
Likewise, if someone cannot afford (their society's equivalent of) a pint of beer with friends, it means that something has gone wrong: being able to socialize with friends is the baseline, however socializing is defined in that society. A person unable to afford to socialize is a socially ill person.
There is absolutely nothing morally wrong with being poor just as there is nothing morally wrong with being ill. But it is not baseline. Moving the baseline expectation from "pint of beer" to "playing musical instruments" or "telling entertaining tales" or "making costumes" or "listening warmly" will still mean that some people will still be unable to afford to socialize.
Is that awful? I guess, but lots of things in life are.
This is superficial because it does not last nor does it change your experience of life profoundly. It only useful to find comfort in a way you see the world, this is why people you know is a requirement. Strangers will destroy your fantasies in many ways.
>There’s nothing quite like a convivial evening wrapped around a pint to give you health, happiness and a sense of wellbeing.
If your sense of well-being is when 5 people confirm your opinions - this simply means you are still in your 20es.
Relationships created: 0
Relationships destroyed or severely damaged: 2
To clarify, I was not the one affected by alcohol in those 2 cases. So thanks, but no thanks.
That weird "must be something wrong with you" attitude is pretty unique to alcohol, I would say.
Relationships created: 8+
Relationships destroyed or severely damaged: 1-2
Not so bad, most of our social gatherings include a lot of alcohol, though drinking at home or by yourself is really weird.
Of course, it would depend on my particular ancestors. If my dad or mom died of cirrhosis of the liver, I would choose differently.
Alcohol (i.e. ethanol) is essentially a poison, but so are many other things that we regularly consume. Our bodies have evolved to handle small to moderate amounts of these naturally occurring poisons, so small to moderate amounts aren't really a problem.
It has been shown that there are side benefits to alcohol and/or other compounds commonly found in alcoholic drinks. From the articles I've seen, I believe these benefits to be real, but I'm less convinced that they are significant in the context of safe amounts of alcohol. It's all a trade off. I think this is why it remains controversial; there is not a clear answer.
So, it's almost certainly safe to consume small amounts of alcohol, but you are probably not losing anything if you don't. Consuming large amounts of alcohol, of course, is known to be bad.
I'm not one to judge anyone for what they dont do and certainly don't buy into any of the miracle cure stuff, and respect people's decisions on what they ingrst, but most threads seem to have an overwhelmingly negative response to anything regarding alcohol or drugs.
Not saying it isn't poison, just that the body can deal with it in small amounts.
Most good things in life don't come free of drawbacks.
https://www.fatherly.com/news/global-study-finds-that-no-amo...
—Paracelsus
I have never consumed alcohol - historically for religious reasons, but now due to personal convictions - so take my opinion with a grain of salt.
I am of the opinion that it’s much easier to fall into addiction and/or abuse of the drink if it’s available as an option. I am not at all condoning prohibition here; that never worked anywhere it was attempted, and never will. Rather, I am looking at this from a personal level.
I am definitely open to hearing reasonable arguments for drinking, other than the social aspect, which was covered (poorly, imo) by this article.
In neither case is it really that difficult to abstain and still socialize, but presuming you don't have a problem and can drink moderately, I can see why the benefits outweigh the negatives.
Can you tell us more about this? Genuinely curious.
I'm not making the judgement you mention.
That's not his argument. The argument is that it enhances social bonding.
Well, I can only say that drinking is a lot of fun. It probably provided me some of the best times of my life. Now, fun, happiness, pleasure, joy, are really hard to quantify and compare. In retrospective, I am under the strong impression that my life would be less fun, pleasurable and less joyful without it, though I might be just as happy (or maybe a little bit less, but still quite happy).
Some people fall pray to it from addiction, others seek its pleasures too much and end up with collateral health issues or in accidents due to impairment. I never suffered from it, so it was really just all good fun.
So ya, it's fun. That's all.
P.S.: The fun is partly due to the effects, but also a lot of it is due to the social interactions it creates, as well as being able to get into mixology and craft beers, spirits and all that and geek out on it.
There are so many choices of recreational and commercialized drugs in modern times if you remove the strange treatment some substances get over others there are probably better answers for all common uses.
Not quite sure I buy that
_if_ that is the case then it opens up carbohydrates to us that other animals pass up. Maybe it's even testable in a lab.