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Comment by jppope | Hacker News Reader

Probably the most interesting concept in there was how the author admits that Alcohol was a "net-positive" in life. Which adds a whole different flavor to the article. The decision to stop drinking alcohol takes a different meaning when a person can be intellectually honest about the situation.

I'm personally interested in society's relationship with alcohol now. There has been a huge change over the last decade and I don't think anyone fully understands it. Alcohol consumption is down from what I understand, but so is ALL risk-seeking behavior - which can include things like pursuing romantic relationships and starting businesses. Meanwhile there is a massive downturn in psychological well being.

Does anyone have any unbiased studies on this phenomenon? Has there been a more thorough investigation on the matter?

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Alcohol was a net-positive in so many ways for me. I talk more about that aspect in the 6 month post here: https://www.bobbytables.io/p/six-months-sober

I'm always a bit disappointed when I look at the effects of staying sober.

All these people writing about how they turned their life around, sleeping better, thinking clearer, getting more healthy, etc.

I stopped drinking 3 or 4 years ago and I don't feel any better for it.

However, I only drank like one or two nights a month, when going on a party, so most of my life I was sober anyway.

The only thing I noticed is that I'm now more awkward in social situations. I mean, sure, I might be healthier than before, but I don't have any numbers for that. It's just a thing I assume to be true.

I scored a 1-2 for AUD (12 beers a week), so extremely mild - and the only thing that has improved is having a deeper well to draw from emotionally, when things get tough. It does feel like it was a net positive too.

But there are also things like potentially living longer, which don't have a feel.

Yeah

None of my grand parents made it over 65, all of them heavy drinkers.

So, I'd probably have that going for me.

You noted that you were on the lower end of alcohol abuse practices for people with drinking problems, and bemoan that changing didn't do more to improve your life.

If you were only 15 pounds overweight, you wouldn't expect to see the same gains in health, energy, and so forth as someone who was 100 pounds overweight.

I have armchair thoughts but would love to see more studies on this. There's no doubt that reduced consumption, taken in isolation, would be a good thing. However, if this is correlated with an increase in social isolation, the benefits would be more complicated.

Do you have a source for your assertion that starting businesses is becoming less popular? I thought there was a huge surge since the pandemic / AI.

I think "risk-seeking behavior" is the wrong way to categorize declining trends. It seems more like "dopamine-seeking behavior" to me, and my armchair theory is that it's related to the infinite scroll. Everybody gets so much dopamine from their phones all the time that they don't feel nearly as compelled to go out and flirt with strangers or get blasted on drugs. The iPad kids now in their 20s must have a totally different relationship with dopamine, for better or worse.

I don't think there is any good historical data on dopamine sensitivity vs. "risk-seeking behavior" on a large scale. My hypothesis is that technological / cultural innovations that raise everybody's dopamine baselines (lowering sensitivity) may be able to explain historical shifts in alcohol consumption and related activities.

Yes, I was also surprised with this narrative because that's exactly how I have treated my drinking years, And I very rarely see this type of honest look back in the community. A lot of self-reflections are either self-flagellating or vilifying alcohol.

I find it very positive for myself to basically look back at any period in my life and be honest about it without re-purposing it into something that it wasn't.

I’ve never drank. Half a glass of what I was told was a really good champagne at my wedding 27 years ago. That’s it. It was a conscious decision at first, based on alcohol problems of a family member, then a habit. I’m pretty sure my non-existent social life/skills are at least partly attributable to this. Without something to relax my continuously racing brain (never diagnosed, won’t bother now), I’m probably pretty tedious company and there’s a limited time in your life to build a social network. I don’t complain, as there’s a ton of time that’s freed up when you simply don’t go anywhere and I’ve made good use of it. But I do miss the long glorious conversations straddling both the intellectual and the profane between a group of smart relaxed individuals who, for the moment, have forgotten the world and it’s problems.

> that Alcohol was a "net-positive"

Statisticly: It may be a net positive in a scenario where you go to a party and drink once and by whatever coincidence meet your special-spouse-partner-for-ever. Then this is counted as net positive as well.

The reality is rather: Alcohol is a HUGE net negative on every layer for every individual etc. And regarding corp drinking by the way: I have never seen any relevant decission that was done drunken at a bar (like painted in all these business bullshit warstories)

And all stuff people tell after the second beer at the corp drinking bar is ALWAYS just pure bullshit, you should rather leave.

Seems plain enough to me, we don't feel safe so we aren't taking risks. And we don't feel good because we don't feel safe.

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