back
71 comments
I think HN should add drugs/alcohol to the forbidden topics list next to politics. All it does is bring on a bunch of pointless anecdotes: humble brags from teetotalers and awkward justifications from everyone else.
> I think HN should add drugs/alcohol to the forbidden topics list next to politics.

There is no forbidden list, and banning politics was a short-term experiment years ago that failed miserably.

Of course, if you think a post is inappropriate given the guidelines re: intellectual curiosity, you are free to flag it individually, which happens heavily enough to bury them a lot (but not universally) for political posts despite them not being banned.

This post already paid itself for me since I learned a new word (teetotaller - a person who never drinks alcohol).
It is a bit interesting and telling though how no one ever says they went sober and regretted it, or an ex-teetotaller saying they picked up drinking and it was the best decision they ever made and wish they did it sooner.... but you almost always hear the inverse of these stories in such threads.
Im sure plenty of people feel that way, but they have no reason to go around telling everyone that, especially when many other people will argue against them and admonish them for it.
I went sober for many years and decided it was not for me (i.e. regretted it). Now... look at my username, it's there for a reason. This site is a massive echo chamber where you hear the same things over and over again, just like any other one.
I stopped drinking for a while and then started again. "Going sober" makes it sound like an ordeal involving Alcoholics Anonymous and significant lifestyle change, but I was originally drinking less than once a week anyway.

Personally I think the debate about whether there's a healthy level of drinking is pointless when all the evidence suggests the risk scales linearly. My grandfather would have one drink at weddings and one drink at Christmas. As far as I can tell, the difference in life expectancy and general health between two drinks versus zero drinks per year is negligible.

To be fair, those who go sober likely did so because alcohol was having a negative impact to start with. (Simply using the word sober in that context implies that drinking was a problem to start with. Otherwise people typically say that they stopped drinking or don't drink any more). I am guessing that those who started drinking later on in life don't wouldn't want to go around making statements that may be construed as promoting drinking, after all drinking is a problem for some people.
Because the "virtuous" fashionable thing is stop drinking, when they realize it is OK to drink moderately, and go back, there is no need to announce how less virtuous they are

(In the case of addiction is obviously good to stop)

Like stop eating meat, or stop drinking milk, vegetarian, doing keto diet, Huel meals, Herbalife, powder protein, creams, drugs, vitamins... or other crusade you find your self at the moment that you need to announce to everyone, especially when they didn't ask you

This is something I've heard in person, but never online. Same for giving up being a vegetarian.
I don't know how I feel about adding it to a forbidden list, but I agree this topic has been litigated to death.
I realize the article is trying to convince people to ideally have no alcohol at all, advice I consider to be sound.

But in terms of the question in the title, to me, "moderate drinking" is where your drinking doesn't impact those around you, i.e. no one around you is disturbed and no one really notices that you sometimes drink. Regardless of whether you believe drinking should happen less, indisputably, people who let themselves get drunk such that it causes them to be obnoxious or possibly even violent should absolutely be criticized for their level of drinking.

Back to the advice though, I've found that even a single beer or glass of wine can make me feel tired the next day, because I don't enjoy the feeling of fatigue, I largely avoid it and probably have less than 12 units of alcohol a year. I do still somewhat often (maybe every few weeks) enjoy having 1 or 2 Heineken 0.0's.

>I do still somewhat often (maybe every few weeks) enjoy having 1 or 2 Heineken 0.0's.

If you're in the US, try Athletic Brewing, they make craft-like beers that taste awesome also without alcohol.

Big fan of their brews as well. The Run Wild IPA is delicious
They're VC backed, will be interesting to watch how enshitification works for NA beer.
Me I get headaches, though not consistently and mostly from beer, not wine.
Since I quit alcohol in early 2020 (save for special occasions, which no, are not every evening but a few times a year), I gave up a habit of a tasty beer a day for the following benefits:

-Saving $1.50-2.00 per day (~$550-730 per year; which is at least 500% of what I spend on other things I want, and a not-insignificant savings compared to my family's net income)

-Better sleep

--Easier mornings (even one beer in the evening was starting to not feel good the next day. I'm in my 40s)

-Less craving for coffee (in keeping with much anecdata, these observations are not at all scientific and confounded by another variable: also quitting caffeine, though not as strictly)

-More personal freedom, as I have fewer consumption-habits to hold me down; this time flexibility has afforded numerous engaging opportunities

-Less contribution to pollution; however small a reduction in resource churn, every step counts

-No apparent downsides. Since becoming a parent and fully embracing parenthood, I confidently do whatever I feel is right, regardless of what other people might think. That's their sense or nonsense, not mine, though still an opportunity to learn if I pay attention.

I used to drink quite often and often in large amounts. I don’t think it was ever problematic drinking, but also not on the moderate side.

At some point in my mid 30s the ROI started turning negative. Started getting sleepy after a couple of drinks, sleep was noticeably worse, and next day felt worse physically.

So while for me it wasn’t an explicit decision to stop drinking, I sort of naturally mostly stopped because it just didn’t make much sense anymore. All the same benefits described above.

I will sound lame and boring but here is my sobriety story:

- Where I am from kids start drinking at 16 or earlier and it starts with beer. Which is bitter and "an acquired taste", one "you have to learn to enjoy". I did not want to "learn to enjoy" anything that is objectively bad for my body, the cause of all sorts of issues for people (career fuckups etc) and on top of all that expensive.

- I used to drive all the time and therefore not starting to drink made it easy to not miss it. If you never made it a habit, you won't crave it, you won't miss it.

- I grew up with family around me drinking a glass of wine or other drink on a routine: at dinner, after a long day of work... => this worked for them, no judgement, I personally will try to build routines that make me sleep better, actually bring me lasting joy.

- Time wasted by alcohol, even at moderate amounts, is none-zero. I want to reduce my time feeling shit as much as possible, because why would we want it any other way?

IDK, I am probably weird for not drinking any alcohol ever. But I enjoy parties as much as my friends. Its all a matter of being influenced by peers making drinking 'the norm', breaking the norms for your own good works out most of the time.

Good for you.

I noticed, before I stopped drinking, I never was on a party where I didn't at least got tipsy.

Meaning, all my social skills relied on alcohol. It made it easier to talk to people, date women, etc.

I never learned to do all that sober, and so now that I'm pushing 40, I feel kinda lost at events.

This hits close to home for me. Recently I’ve been reflecting on this based on a similar situation.

(It’s not worked and still new.) I’m trying to force myself to find new hobbies and as a result interact with people while sober. I’ll report back, good luck to you!

> While the specifics remain unsettled, there is one thing most experts have come to agree on. “Less is more; less is better,” Dr. Stockwell said. “Drink less; live longer.”

I read this entire article, hoping for some new informational updates on this topic, but the whole article ends up being filler and unsubstantial.

The belief that drinking one or two cups of red wine a day is good for your health is still deeply ingrained in many Mediterranean cultures. I think it's worth spreading awareness of the fact that the threshold for "healthy" alcohol consumption is probably much lower, if not zero.
Isn't that pretty precise advice, though? You may have thought that there was a level of alcohol consumption that was harmless or even beneficial, as was widely speculated. Now, we know that at any level short of total abstinence, your health is improver by decreasing further.
Most all of the studies are also receiving a majority of their funding from problematic sources: alcohol conglomerates.

The fact is if global multinational liquor mega corporations actually wanted you to "consume responsibly" their advertising budget wouldn't soar into the billions. TV shows wouldn't glamourize alcohol. Movies wouldn't feature it prominently. Pop music would abandon the ceaseless pursuit of alcohol in all its songs.

> Movies wouldn't feature it prominently. Pop music would abandon the ceaseless pursuit of alcohol in all its songs.

I doubt that would go away simply because alcohol marketing ceased. Plenty of references to illegal drugs despite no marketing campaign.

Alcohol has and most likely will always be a staple of human society. I don't think its ubiquity is the conspiracy you think it is.
A quick google seems that is not the case

But I am sure big pharma will be funding studies against Achohol consumption, to increase pills consumption

Also most drug and vaccine studies are done directly by the manufacturers

I gave up on alcohol, cannabis and basically almost every stimulant with caffeine and tobacco more than a year ago with sugar and carbs remaining as the last substance I abuse.

I really thought giving up on alcohol and caffeine would have a much bigger impact on me but the only thing I notice is the minor negative effect it has on my social life from not being able to join people in for a beer or not using coffee when needing to pull all-nighters. Maybe it's just me being in late 20s and not old enough for it all to catch up to me.

Same.

I stopped drinking 4 years ago and the only thing that changed is I had to start learning social skills from zero in my mid 30s again.

I don't have an issue to go out with friends who drink, it's just that I don't feel inclined to talk to people anymore.

Ya, it wasn't until my early 40s where a daily drink started to affect me. I never started out that way... had maybe 1-2 drinks/week in my 20s but over time the usage crept up there until 1 drink was a weekday thing (glass of wine with dinner or a cocktail later), maybe 2 drinks on a weekend night. It slowly normalized itself from something special to something routine. Once I noticed the effect it was having I started to dial it back and now I'm back down to 1-2 drinks/week... usually a glass of wine or a cocktail with my wife. I imagine it will continue to dwindle as I lose interest in it.
So given that you are only experiencing negative effects of quitting, do you think you'll start drinking alcohol/caffeine again?

I'm finishing a 3 month period of not drinking after two or so decades of moderate to heavy drinking, and I'm not really experiencing world shattering positive effects from it. I'll probably go back to drinking because in general I like it and I don't really feel the same negative effects others talk about (or at least not to the same magnitude). Curious about how you're thinking about it.

I'm having the same experience, trying Sober October. Hangovers suck, but I've stopped drinking to that point years ago so now I feel like not joining in socially is a net negative, limiting my ability to participate in the same experience as my friends (I'm 33).
The rhetoric around teetotaling always bothered me. Life is extremely difficult and painful and there are times when drinking gets people through things. So I feel a little mistrustful of people who are proud of not drinking. If someone's lived such a charmed life that they can't understand why sometimes people need to drink, then can they really relate to regular people?

I hope that makes sense. I don't mean that I think there's something wrong with not drinking exactly, it's just that there's a certain segment of non-drinkers that seem like they are coming from a position of not understanding what most people have to go through.

I never felt the "need" to drink to "get through" things, and I really haven't had a particularly charmed life. I just drink beer or wine because I like it – that's it.

If drinking is a coping mechanism that works for you: great, hope that works well for you. But for many people it's not.

It sounds terrifying to me to connect drinking to a coping mechanism at all. The two things should be unrelated. I would reach out to a doctor and ask for a serious drug if life is challenging enough that I need a medical coping mechanism (and this is totally fine). Connecting something used for pleasure and socialization suddenly with a coping mechanism sounds like a recipe for a disaster.

Same with sugar, to be clear.

> Canada’s latest guidelines, which Dr. Stockwell advised on, are more stringent: Low-risk drinking is defined as no more than two drinks total per week, regardless of sex.

That's where I'm at. Heading down to one, and then someday zero.

Alcohol is poison, unfortunately. Denying that is, well ... "denial."

It can also be super delicious. So far this year I’ve had something like ten beers, a couple glasses of wine, and one or two cocktails and I thoroughly enjoyed each. Made the meal I had them with better. I think if I totally gave alcohol up, I would lose more than I would gain.

Aside from the obvious drinks, alcohol can be a great addition to food because lots of very tasty compounds are dissolved by alcohol. It’s why deglazing a pan with some red wine is the start of many great sauces.

The dose makes the poison. We all consume substances every day that would be lethal in a higher dose.

Many common foods contain alcohol. Basically anything fermented, such as bread, will have a small amount. No one is actually worried about that low amount.

Depends where you live. ‘Moderate drinking’ varies a lot in different cultures.

Americans will of course assume theirs is the only position that’s valid as always.

With respect to social normality sure. But I feel like the primary focus here is moderate/low risk with respect to health which isn’t dictated by culture
I sincerely doubt most Americans have an opinion on a definition of moderate drinking.
As with ambiguous terms like fast, slow and moderate, it’s all relative
"moderate drinking" is an industry term invented and used for liability shedding and blaming the victims works very well you see it everywhere
It’s literally described by Hippocrates but OK.
consuming poison for reasons

remove the false reasons and your environment will benefit too