Hacker News Reader

Comment by nialse | Hacker News Reader

I spent some time working with CBT for alcohol use disorder, mainly treating "active individuals". I've heard your line of reasoning many times. No level of alcohol consumption is considered risk free from a scientific point of view, at least the view of the senior researchers and professors I worked quite closely with.

So, I don't think this is providing "great public value", on the contrary I would suggest spending time with the research and treatment of the many individuals starting out thinking that "a glass of wine for lunch every day or so" can't "harm us".

View on HN

From a certain point on we must start being adults again and become aware that some health risks are worth the price when it comes to drinking a glass or two of wine/beer every-once in a while. Because wine/beer have helped us become more of a social animal over the millennia, i.e. have helped us become humans, and suddenly reversing that for the sake of, I don't know, 6 months-a year of prolonged living in their late 70s - the 80s is not worth it.

With that said, I'm fully aware that excessive alcohol intake (i.e. alcoholism) has been destroying lives for millennia, too, but that's what life is, we can't turn it into this aseptic thing where every risk is accounted for.

I almost completely stopped drinking because it hurts my surfing performance, and surfing so so much nicer then drinking, so it was a good trade off.

But I’m curious nonetheless, can you give some examples of those risks? I keep seeing people mentioning them, but haven’t seen many well informed reasonings

Medical risks are the most commonly mentioned, for instance, alcohol is a major risk for cancer and, in some regions, has overtaken smoking as a leading risk factor. But in my personal experience, the most damaging consequences of alcohol use (disorder) are its negative effects on relationships with spouses, children, other relatives, and friends. It doesn't only affect the person willing to take the risk, but also others.

> No level of alcohol consumption is considered risk free from a scientific point of view

From scientific point of view life leads to death in 100% of cases.

I love the sock puppet throwaway account trolling here.

There are risks getting out of bed in the morning, but there are greater risks NOT getting out of bed in the morning.

Risk is apparently a very difficult subject.

I love you too.

What a puritanical response. By your argument, anything that could be abused is verboten. Feel free to live (and argue that way). I'll do the opposite. I'll trust to documented, well researched data rather than someone's "Trust me bro" reasoning.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com