Alcohol affects your body, from first flush of happiness to hangover | Hacker News Reader

Alcohol affects your body, from first flush of happiness to hangover

theguardian.com

27 pointsedward11 comments

It's the new mania huh -- the campaign against alcohol. Mostly of course from anglophone countries. They don't seem to enjoy having fun, or letting people enjoy fun in their own way.

I understand of course severe drinkers having a detrimental effect on the medical system etc. But truth be told, proposing that people drink just TWO standard drinks a week seems suspicious.

I know people that drink a bottle of wine a day in France and are living to a fine old age.

Was the anti-smoking movement a "mania"?

I think it's literally just society learning to let go of bad habits. Alcohol is a neurotoxin we're acculturated to drink, which is pretty insane when you step back in perspective. It also causes massive damage to people and families, more than smoking cigarettes ever did.

It causes massive damage to the people that abuse it. The vast majority of people have a drink or two if they're out and sometimes more if they're home. Pretending that every person who drinks is responsible for massive damage is ridiculous.

> I know people that drink a bottle of wine a day in France and are living to a fine old age.

Survivorship bias?

Regardless what is so offensive about this article and those like it? There is no mention of prohibition, rather just informing people and suggesting mitigations.

In the US, the movement against drinking has been around for a very long time. Nothing new here.

Are they succeeding? From what I can see, no - they are not.

But, perhaps the story in France is different.

It doesn't have a detrimental effect on the medical system though.

It shifts the cost in time and then we can't see the counterfactual of the drinkers and smokers not being dead younger than what they would have.

You can't see how much the current 30 year old marathon running vegan is going to cost the system 50 years in the future compared to the smoker who needs treatment in the present. We pretend that the marathon runner is somehow saving the system money over the sum of their lifetime when in reality the one who is saving the system money is the one who dies younger than they would have. The one who prolongs their life longer than it would have been is the expensive one to the system. This is patently obvious if you spend any amount of time thinking about it.

Of course, no one is going to promote a type of libertine lifestyle as a way to save the healthcare system money. The thought is so unpalatable that we pretend the opposite is true.

Depends how much is saved by vices reducing lifespan vs costs of healthcare until they kill you. It could be that in aggregate vices are more expensive even if people die younger. Consider those who become dependents, need years of medication, counseling, require multiple rounds of cancer treatments, or kill others through irresponsible consumption.

This article's intended audience seems to be high school children.

For a detailed take, listen / watch the Huberman Lab podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkS1pkKpILY (What Alcohol Does to Your Body, Brain & Health | Huberman Lab Podcast #86)

This podcast really changed the way I think about alcohol. I'll be honest, I didn't quit or even cut back very much - I just love my beer too much. But I certainly am far more cognisant of the effect it's having on me and it worries me (and it should). This podcast is overly long and Huberman can be quite difficult to listen to - he is repetitive and overloaded with caveats for every little thing - but it's worth sticking through.

I don't drink, but don't mind if other people do.

I feel bad when people discover some of alcohol's unfortunate side-effects the hard way, though. https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/a...

The Guardian seems to be on an anti-alcohol rampage these days.

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