I would not be terribly surprised if most of the issues with moderate drinkers concerned users were on the heavy side of "moderate"
15 drinks per week is actually the limit here for commercial drivers. If you admit to drinking more than that during your annual/semi-annual DMV physical, you have essentially just admitted to alcoholism and can't keep driving class A/B vehicles unless you enter a substance abuse program.
That is intellectual dishonesty at its prime.
Throwing around accusations like intellectual dishonesty sorta doesn’t help conversation.
I agree with you that many people like to drink to suppress or bring forth their emotions. This could be generalized: many people like to heavily alter their state of consciousness.
Now, mostly because of Big Booze and government corruption, we are stuck in a system where the only legal way to heavily alter one’s consciousness is alcohol.
Culture revolves around this. Counterculture then naturally involves illegal ways to alter one’s consciousness. Since counterculture exists defined through culture as an avantgarde-like necessity - a forefront of cultural innovation - it is again natural that the makers of mainstream culture are actually counterculturalists. It is also why mainstream art - music, books, movies, TV - contains so many examples of ”promoting” drug use.
It is thus obvious that the legality of alcohol and illegality of drugs are more significant drivers of behaviour than ”alcohol culture”.
We have hundreds of mainstream idols from Willie Nelson to Snoop Dogg openly promoting cannabis use, yet cannabis culture is literally cracked down on wherever it is illegal.
Ultimately, the law trumps culture.
Were there cultures that didn’t produce as much demand for altered states of consciousness, those might be seen as better addressing the needs of its people (in theory, not making this argument as I’m not a Puritan but just for the sake of conversation).
It’s obvious that original cultures have their own traditional substances, from fly agaric to psilocybe shrooms to cava to ayahuasca. They would be taken as a part of a prosocial setting, an initiation or a healing ceremony, and the inebriation would be seen as a transformative process: something that enables living fully. Alcohol, on the other hand, tends to only disable and provide a means to escape stress.
What happens to the aforementioned shaman culture once western values and substances are introduced?
I would assume the increase in ego-centric stress drives the population into escape mode, and the imperialist offers alcohol.
I don't drink at all anymore but when I was younger 15 beers in a week wasn't some magic alcoholism line.
If the gap between 14 and 15 is linear and not somehow logarithmic then you're telling me that consuming exactly two drinks a day will be fine, but that extra scotch you have on friday makes you an alcoholic. This term is thrown around loosely by people who have never actually met an alcoholic. Even a high functioning "weekend warrior" is noticeable.
The total risk for serious liver damage drinking a 6 pack a day for over 10 years is only 18%. Of these people, around 13% develop into cirrhosis. No one has been able to explain why. For some people, especially women, the effects of alcohol are far more damaging. Much like BMI, population statistics are not as useful as what actually matters. Body mass per unit alcohol consumed. A smaller person drinking 15 drinks a week may develop health problems. A 180 pound male may or may not.
Am I encouraging drinking that heavily because the risk is 18%? No not at all. I am simply stating that these "drink limits" are arbitrary and completely and entirely made up. Mediterraneans, regularly cited for their longevity, consume more than 15 drinks a week on a regular basis.
HN is filled with these pop-sci teetotalers who rag on alcohol but promote the uninhibited abuse of THC and other dangerous mind altering drugs. It's an absurd bizzaro world.
Exactly! People have been drinking for millenia, and while alcohol doesn't make you healthier, it's also clear that drinking "normally" doesn't cause major health issues (unlike, smoking cigarettes for example). Sure, if you drink 2 bottles of wine a day, you're going to have a problem. Not so much with 2 glasses of wine a day.
THC, microdosing and all that other stuff is relatively new and the long-term effecs are not well researched. Shorter term, it's clear that THC can cause issues like schizophrenia, especially with teenagers. I would expect much more long-term negative effects of mind altering drugs, just because they fuck with your brain.
While I generally agree about arbitrary cutoffs, 2 glasses of wine a day is a good indicator that you have alcohol in your system at least 1/3rd of your life! There are people who don’t get phased by this, but more likely people are just used to it and adapt (much like with coffee)
The concept of a line being arbitrary is a thing but it’s not a crazy line (especially if you’re only drinking every other day that’s 4 glasses a day).
My comment is specifically about people saying alcohol is bad but then smoking weed all day or taking LSD and other drugs and think it's good for them.
I think this claim is unjustified, and that's what your parent comment is trying to point out. Is 14 drinks a week too much? Maybe not, but you aren't likely to find documentary proof of that by looking to the "millennia" of people who did it during an era where those who survived childhood could expect to live to be 60 or so and there was little to no understanding of modern medicine.
If we were able to say with some certainty that 14 drinks a week will give you a 15% chance of getting a serious liver disease, possibly dying from it, I think most people would agree that 14 drinks a week is "dangerous". It's also dangerous at a level that would be near-impossible to discern for generations past.
What? The standard, conservative 'party line' quoted by national health authorities is that people process around 1 standard drink per hour. A standard glass of wine is 2 standard drinks, so 2 glasses would take 4 hours max to process, or 1/6 of a day. Unless you're using one of those giant glasses and filling it to the brim so your 'two glasses' is actually a bottle or more.
These people drank 14 or less drinks a week.
They didn't test one glass or half a glass or a sip per week.
Today's study said 15 is heavy drinking. Where does 14 fit in?
The biggest detriment is opportunity cost, time you'd spend doing something exciting or productive is spent on watching your Netflix queue instead. Some people claim to get a lot of creative work done while stoned but those people probably haven't tried doing it sober for too long.
If you're rolling an after lunch joint while out with friends that's substance abuse even if it's, like, not harmful at all, dude.
I figured out at some point during the last decade that the only stimulant that works for me is THC. Caffeine won't do it. It doesn't matter what I do, if I eat healthy get 8 hours of sleep, exercise, etc, I can wake up and within 30 minutes of work feel so mentally and physically wiped that I have to sleep...rinse and repeat. I've managed to force myself to get through that repeatedly (it didn't really happen to the same extent as a kid - I guess life was more fun).
But weed? Scared the hell out of me the first few times (over years, I'm in an illegal state, but of course it's as easy to get as donuts). You know the usual introspection, whoa dude thoughts, the slightly different perspective you see yourself and the world, and on the high, every time...incredible anxiety. But once I got past that, I could work for 8 hours like I used to, and like most people can.
I was high 24/7 for about 4 or 5 years. I care about my health so I took different precautions (dealers, vapes, etc). However, I don't begin to smoke like some people (I'm not into pot culture), can't physically take those amounts.
Changed my life. I was able to work through major issues like OCD, etc. Guess what? Nobody at work or school nor my family or friends that I've only told recently know that I was high. Couldn't tell at all, entirely functional (more functional than the past).
The real save lately has been delta-8 (the way of the future). It (THC, drugs) is not for everyone and you should not abuse it too young (psychosis). Don't go buy weed off the street and get really high your first time, you might have the worst panic attack in your life.
I agree we shouldn't just rave about drugs like they don't have an impact, but some of you guys don't obviously have that much experience with what you are talking about (not you). No offense, but that's part of the issue. How many decades have we lost and how many tens of thousands of lives have been lost because we are too prudish to test this stuff as it should be?
The geniuses in my state, instead of grabbing the new industry were ready to ban delta-8 to protect the non-existent cannabis industry, or god, or something. It'll all be legal in 10 years anyway, why waste our time? I can't tell you how many small businesses I've visited in the last few months that would have out of business, and how many customers that might have been put in really bad mental spots.
There's a Cowboys player, Randy Gregory, that's lost 4 or 5 years of his career to bans because he smokes pot because it helps his anxiety and bipolar issues. That's criminal.
I drink, sometimes, too.
edit:
To save the Google, delta-8 is just a different form of THC, extracted from hemp produce federally legally due to the 2018 farm bill (magic). Of course there's also CBD from that (the original big industry) and lots of other things coming out Delta-10, etc.
Most people don't get extreme anxiety on THC, but some do... someone is going to correct me if I'm wrong, but THC is psychoactive (CBD is not), so when people are microdosing this or shrooms or whatever they're getting different effects but similar end results. It plays with your perspective and chemistry in a way that alcohol does not, especially at higher doses.
People can mock it all they want, but I really do get very creative on weed. There's a reason creative companies don't test for it...
It's not something I've shared, but it always surprises me how often I smell weed on the street (again, "illegal"), how easy it is to get, and how many people I wouldn't expect "abused" it at one point or another. I was scared of telling my parents for a long time but came to find out they were both drug using hippies, anyway.
Thanks for adding the caveat. Most people on this thread are pretty ignorant about drugs, except for me, you and the person reading this comment.
I say that because we're going full on reefer madness with stuff like:
"uninhibited abuse of THC and other dangerous mind altering drugs"
After smoking every single day for about 5 years I decided to test this hypothesis about a year ago (I had my first kid on the way and didn’t want to be one of those parents that smoked weed.) I also surmised that maybe I really needed to get it all out of my system - by not smoking for months - to know how much an improvement it would be to stop smoking. In the past 11 months I’ve smoked exactly twice (both times around Christmas.)
I can’t honestly say stopping smoking has increased my productivity much. I’m so mentally exhausted from work at the end of each day that the idea of doing anything involving my brain is stressful. Weed helped with that, now I seem to lay on the couch and watch YouTube more. Before I at least used to sit and contemplate work-related stuff a lot more since I was able to relax.
Back when I was getting high every day I used to use voice memos a lot on my phone to record the random “brilliant ideas” I’d have each evening. The next morning I’d listen through them, and they actually led to some of my best answers to technical problems. Stuff I was stuck on at work, I’d be able to find solutions to while high. (Implementing them was another story, I had to wait for the next day for that.)
I’m still not going to go back to smoking weed because of the new kiddo, but I honestly think weed was a net positive for my life.
My official saying is, "because it works for me doesn't mean it will work for you."
Additionally, alcohol absolutely feels like it destroys my body. Like, two drinks kills my productivity the next day, guaranteed.
I found that indeed I am able to concentrate more deeply with it. Without it, I find myself far more tempted to drink to relax -- which breaks my personal rule for alcohol use: never for stress relief, only for celebration.
While I enjoy a drink, booze gives me splitting headaches within 15-20 minutes of drinking anything more than a small (40-50ml) amount.
I rarely smoke weed, maybe a few times a year (typically as a joint on a summer day after lunch with friends, actually) and I can say I am much more likely to sit around and watch Netflix sober.
I live in the Netherlands, so maybe things are more relaxed around here. I rarely if ever run into someone throwing their life away to it.
I also know two people with PhDs who smoke, they are the kind that limit themselves to smoking in the evening. But then I also know at least 4 people in their late twenties who prefer weed and gaming over getting a job. Both groups are the exception.
Most of my friends still smoke so I'm fine with it, but I'm 100% convinced that people who try to legitimize it as some sort of productivity thing, and try to sell weed usage as anything other than "I like how it makes me feel", are lying.
Though judging from the other comments here maybe I'm just wrong. Maybe it's because I like to do stuff like maths and programming in my free time which is absolutely impossible while high.
I can't do the stuff you're talking about when I'm not high (or couldn't) because I couldn't stop anxiety and other issues from getting in the way. Weed liberates me from that.
I have friends that hate weed, friends that become different people while high. It's just how it is, not for everyone, though I do prefer delta-8 way more than regular cannabis, not as intense of a high, much more about the focus.
Medical issues are a big exception yeah. I wasn't able to focus at all while high, at least not for a prolonged period of time... I guess it's just different for me. Mostly I stayed up way too late doing nonsense and got very little sleep as a result which impacted my day-to-day activities. It wasn't a good time.
It definitely hits different people differently. My wife doesn't get high. I've seen her smoke good weed and she didn't change in demeanor at all and claimed it didn't do anything.
Personally all it makes me do is think about how shitty my life is for hours (hint: my life is fine..it's just the weed) although some indica stuff will make me giggle for an hour before I pass out. I'm worse than useless when high.
There's a huge range in response.
I find this kind of phrasing confusing. I think most people would prefer their substance and activity of choice over getting a job, most people just don't have that option. I'm guessing these kids are being supported by their parents or partners?
I really miss one guy in particular, none of our group ever see him anymore. The only way I can know what's happening in his life is to talk to the dealer who I hang out with occasionally. Hope he wisens up soon. Used to be a pretty smart guy too but all the doing nothing for years made him dumb.
Many people love math and can do it while high at a higher level.
But the people I know who smoke do if in the evening or on weekends, and are nothing like what you describe.
I've never seen this. Do you have an example article or comment that supports this? It should be easy to find since "HN is filled with these pop-sci teetotalers".
In the absence of concrete evidence showing explicitly why your drug of choice is superior to someone else drug of choice, it's hypocritical to shit on their preferences as moral weakness while you happily indulge your own substances.
Pretty sure we have nothing of the sort for alcohol. Just the opposite, in fact, like this article.
I can’t speak for THC.
I wouldn’t say that this evidence makes any substance more morally “superior” to any other, it all depends on the context of use.
They think the ones who are gullible are the ones that hear something on the news and repeat it as fact without ever thinking about it.
Anti-science is anti-politics around science not anti-evidence. Things like questioning the Covid bat theory. Glad to see the news is coming around on the lab theory.
I'd expect it also depends on how you drink it. One restaurant-pour glass of wine with dinner every day adds up to 14 drinks a week but no reasonable person would call it "heavy drinking". (Yes, plenty of people here are saying that it is. No, they're not being reasonable.) I'd expect drinking 14 drinks in one night once a week would absolutely count as heavy drinking, though.
What's the difference between a glass of wine after dinner and 700ml of beer (which is what GP's calculations work out to)? They both have the same amount of alcohol.
Disclaimer : former 'functioning' alcoholic.
Based on the Netflix documentary I watched, it seems like they’re starting to standardize the labels of alcoholic drinks in the UK to inform consumers how many units of alcohol it represents, and also encouraging people to keep their consumption below X/Y units a day and week.
This is interesting. In the US a standard drink [1] is often considered roughly equivalent to one can of 5% ABV beer, or a 1.5 fl oz shot of 80 proof liquor. That comes out to about ~17.5 ml of alcohol.
I not-infrequently have beers that are 9% ABV. Maybe I should rethink how many servings of alcohol I have a week by international standards...
This layout seems to point towards smaller units, with the smallest British unit being 10ml of ethanol (25ml at 40ABV), while the smallest possible American equivalent would be 17.6ml for a 1.5 oz shot. Thus if we’re using a single shot as our measure of a “standard drink”, then Americans will be consuming about 70% more pure ethanol than their British equivalent per drink.
Also, health authorities have begun rethinking how much drinking is too much, hence the downward deviation of what the international standards say.
That are two crates of beer a month.
I drink 1-2 times a month and 4-5 beer a night is as much as it gets.