Hacker News Reader

Comment by rkk3 | Hacker News Reader

> Smoking is magnitudes more addictive than alcohol.

No it is not magnitudes more addictive. Alcohol is extremely addictive, 1 in 12 Adults in the US has an alcohol problem [1] and withdrawal can literally kill you, unlike nicotine.

1. https://www.ncadd.org/about-addiction/alcohol

View on HN

1 in 12 adults had met the criteria for abuse or dependence at some point. 1 in 12 aren't present drinking themselves to death and it is highly likely that this figure that has gone up substantially has more to do with our screwed up society and less with the properties of alcohol.

Notably 90% of Americans have drank alcohol at some point without becoming addicts which one can't be said of nicotine.

> 1 in 12 adults had met the criteria for abuse or dependence at some point.

That year, not some point in their lives.

Nicotine is very addictive, but it's not an order of magnitude (10x) more addictive than alcohol.

>That year, not some point in their lives.

What could be possibly so special about this year that you're so adamant to talk about it?

Also, nice website, definitely not partisan.

> That year

> This year

Your other points aside (I agree, they should probably at least include some citations to their statistics), this article is from 2015, so I don't think anyone is making it about 2020/covid other than you.

I cited the article. The initial refutation was not even the date (covid) but a baseless claim that the statistic was at some point in there lives.

I understood and was pointing that out (given that GP appeared to be insinuating things about 2020, but to be clear the list of one-sided talking points you posted puts no effort into citing sources for its "facts", so the technicalities of the 12% number (what qualifies as abuse, for how long, etc) are left for the reader to interpret.

I got 12% and 1 in 12 and the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions-III survey which IS your entire life mixed up in my head and was arguing that point not about 2020 specifically.

From 2015.

If you don't like that source Here is the NIH [1] in 2019 saying 5.3% have AUD, slightly lower stat but it is including 12 year olds.

I consume Alcohol and accept the health risks, but it is a hell of a drug and highly addictive.

1. https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/brochures-and-fact-sh...

I was looking at the wrong article there was a clickbaity article in Washington Post that 12% of Americans were alcoholics which is based on a based on National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions-III (NESARC-III) which is about your entire life and I got my wires crossed.

1 in 12 being 6% seems fairly accurate and supportable

Your stats in absolutely no way counters my claim about addiction.

Almost everyone who smokes to any degree becomes addicted and a regular user. Tens (100 million+) of millions of Americans drink occasionally with no addiction.

Alcohol is a dangerous drug in every dimension, and I specifically said that. But their addiction profiles are dramatically different.

> Your stats in absolutely no way counters my claim about addiction.

There is no standardized addiction metric. The product, the dosage, age of user, and social habits matter significantly. Alcohol is extremely addictive and habit forming it kills 95,000 people a year in the US. I think it is disingenuous to dismiss it is as orders of magnitude less addictive than nicotine.

Most people can smoke a Cigar without becoming addicted to nicotine and a regular user. In the same way most people who are exposed to alcohol in the US don't get addicted.

This is an absolutely ridiculous claim given the number of people I know who've had a first cigarette and not touched a second. Business Insider claims 76% of the population have smoked and 24% have become addicted, while 92% have consumed alcohol and 14% have become addicted[0]. That's nowhere near "almost everyone", it's 31%, and 15% for alcohol.

[0] https://www.businessinsider.com.au/most-addictive-substances...

Addiction rates are lower than people think; heroin, even, is lower than you'd assume (the rate I remember seeing was about 25%, in-line with nicotine).

Of course, 1/4 is still a HUGE amount of people, and an absolute health crisis.

I think there's an important difference to make, I know a lot of people who have smoked once or a few times and have not become addicted but I don't know anyone who smoked regularly and didn't become addicted.

On the other hand for alcohol, I know a lot of people who will have a glass of wine whenever they go to a nice restaurant yet are not addicted.

So there's a magnitude of difference. Nicotine is significantly more addictive for anyone who uses it semi regularly whereas alcohol is not as addictive in that case.

"given the number of people I know who've had a first cigarette and not touched a second"

Okay, now exclude people who did that as children, an experience after which they had zero access to cigarettes. That same survey if demanding an adult experience would be much, much closer.

Everyone has a "Jimmy lit up a smoke and I took a drag and coughed my guts out when I was 9" story.

Overwhelmingly people either had a problem smoking (one that they had to quit through extreme effort), or they never smoked cigarettes at all as adults.

The one "exception" I can recall is a "social" smoker who would tell everyone that she controlled it by only smoking when she drank/at social events, a consequence of which was that she sought drinking opportunities at every venue. She was a problem smoker that turned it into also being a problem drinker.

I've smoked tobacco on somewhere between 5 and 15 occasions over a decade since becoming an adult, but I didn't become a daily smoker or addicted to smoking. Am I just an extreme outlier?

Another data point:

I'm some kind of introvert, if i hang out with people, my social "battery" drains and i get tired. I smoke because it gives me much more time before my social "battery" is empty. I don't smoke otherwise.

Right now i'm at two packs a year.

That sounds like a lot to me, almost once a week. Then again it's normal to drink that often without being considered an alcoholic.

A person would usually smoke more than one cigarette at an outing, so its more acute than chronic, I'd assume. Not sure what impact that would have in terms of health differences, but in terms of addiction potential it definitely would.

I used to smoke occasionally. Only when I was drinking, as a matter of fact. I never became a regular smoker. I also don't smoke at all anymore, even when drinking.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com