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Comment by JohnBooty | Hacker News Reader

I'm not sure about this conclusion with regards to alcohol:

  > The Pareto Law states that "the top 20 percent of 
  > buyers for most any consumer product account for 
  > fully 80 percent of sales," according to Cook. The 
  > rule can be applied to everything from hair care 
  > products to X-Boxes...

  > ...But the consequences of the Pareto Law are different 
  > when it comes to industries like alcohol, tobacco, and 
  > now marijuana. If you consume 10+ drinks per day, for
  > instance, you almost certainly have a drinking problem. 
  > But the beverage industry is heavily dependent on you 
  > for their profits.

If you're having ten drinks per day you're almost certainly going to be drinking the cheap stuff, not the high-profit-margin luxury alcohol brands.

There's probably more profit in a single bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue than an entire month's supply of the cheapo local beer that's chugged by an alcoholic.

View on HN

Rich people can be alcoholics, too – and in fact they can often conceal and maintain it better. A well-off white collar worker is unlikely to spend a significant percentage of their income on alcohol, even if they're drinking to excess; they also are likely to have flexible work hours, sick time, and other mechanisms to cover for their binges and hangovers.

There are even (up to a point) social and professional benefits that come from drinking with colleagues. Alcohol is a huge part of many companies' culture, and people can easily hit the 80th percentile (>15 drinks per week) simply by accepting a reasonable fraction of the offers to share a drink with their peers in a given work week.

Some normal signs in tech companies: * Company-stocked beer fridges * Hosted weekly (or more often) happy hours * Personal bottles of expensive whiskey on desks * Expense reports for "team dinners" that are 60-70% booze

Startup cofounder here who spends ~20 days/mo on the road - also don't forget about BD meetings, meetups, happy hours, etc. A ton of deals get done over a few drinks, and when you're stacking a meetup, a dinner, cocktails, latenight, and a hotel bar together regularly, it's pretty easy to hit the 15/20 drink figure.

Also, when i'm out drinking with friends, I tend to keep a bit of a mental note of how many i've had because the tab's coming out of my pocket. When i'm on the road i'm on the company's tab, and the moral hazard totally wipes out my concern for how many i've had and instead i'm focused on whatever I'm at that meeting for (close deal, increase client expenditures, lock in investment, whatever).

The solitude also definitely plays a role, and like the top commenter on here it's really easy to be totally oblivious to how much you're drinking as it just becomes part of the routine. I had a mentor once point out that the best salespeople are usually alcoholics with shitty relationships who work too much, so I think there's a lot of parallels between the personality traits that are helpful for an entrepreneur but can be wildly destructive if pointed in a negative direction.

I was a double-major at a party school and in a top fraternity, so over the last decade i've become rather accustomed to being a borderline functioning disaster. However, over the last few months I really peeled it back and have instead spent a ton of time getting back into the gym, running, rowing, and doing crossfit.

Going out all night is fun, but getting up at 5a and cranking out a workout while it's still dark, running back to the office, and having breakfast while most people are just getting out of bed has become my new high to chase.

I find it weird that >15 drinks a week is 80%ile, given that that's a pretty standard moderate level of drinking in many parts of the world and is significantly healthier than not drinking at all.

http://www.psmag.com/navigation/health-and-behavior/truth-wo...

That study defines "moderate" as 1-2 drinks a day, if you look at the chart in the article you linked, >6 drinks per day had higher mortality rate.

It's >15 drinks per week, not per day. Let's call that 3/day, which is significantly better for your health than not drinking at all.

IQ and alcohol consumption are highly correlated. IQ and health & longevity and highly correlated. I think even a lot of alcohol in the context of a good diet is benign, but I'm skeptical about the health benefit claims. I think they're just not properly controlling for other factors like intelligence. Somebody needs to run the data controlling for IQ.

Fifteen drinks a week is not problem drinking. Fifteen drinks a week is -depending what you drink- under English government safe drinking limits for men and only just over for women.

Problem drinking anything over the current safe limits which are "two to three units per day, without saving units up for the weekend, with some days drink free (for men)".

To give some context: Alcoholism detox medically assissted treatment starts when the person is drinking forty 40 units per day unless you have a comorbid mental health problem when they drop it to 30 units a day unless it's a severe enduring problem when they drop it to 20 units a day. Under those amounts you get outpatient treatment. You're going to struggle to get treatment for fifteen units a week unless you're under 18.

40 units a day would be one litre of spirits with an ABV of 40%.

Every day.

http://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/QS11/chapter/introduction-an...

Rich people make up a smaller % of the population than 10%.

I assume the book goes into more detail about the actual economics behind the ideas. It would be silly to turn discussion about this hype piece into a pseudo-intellectual argument over methodology we haven't read.

There's probably more profit in a single bottle of JW than a case of beer, but beer is CHEAP. For example - take the local brewery in my hometown in Montana. Most of their costs in distributing their beer was canning. Each can was about 40 cents. The beer itself, the brewmaster guessed, was less than a nickel per can to produce. They sold a six pack for eight bucks, and a twelve pack for thirteen. There's a ton more profit to make in JW, but there's plenty of change rattling around in that beer can too!

I have times when I drink every day two or three drinks per day (mainly cocktails and I don't think I will ever be alcoholic), have only normal brands at home, but I don't think I would switch to cheaper brands if I ever increase my consumption.

France introduced minimum unit pricing[1] for alcohol. They saw a reduction in cirrhosis and a more profitable drinks industry.

[1] along with an advertising ban and reduced drink-drive limits.

We've had all the same (bans and minimal price per unit of alcohol) in Russia for ages and it doesn't really change much.

The alcohol industry also relies heavily on tourism and festivities. People that may not drink daily or weekly might drink at a wedding. People travel to the US from out of the country and many of them hang out in bars & restaurants and drink. Look around the bars of a major city on the weekend and it's clear even the non-compulsive drinkers are putting a decent amount of money toward the alcohol industry.

jesus when the fuck is HN getting a real quote tag

this manual linebreaks code tag with angle brackets, python triple quotes or what have you is ridiculous

> "jesus when the fuck is HN getting a real quote tag"

I just do this. I think it works well enough.

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