Gallup survey data on the increasingly negative attitudes towards alcohol:
I don’t doubt the chart. What ages were the 1,010 adults they surveyed?
How about we stop defending our own positions, agree that
and move on. I’m surprised no mods have tried to herd the cats here. We’ve been way off topic for many posts now.
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Younger adults are the new puritans:
No sex, no drinking, not going out with friends, and we wonder why there’s a “loneliness epidemic”…
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This whole thread is a study in confirmation bias
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Might I remind users that College Confidential is not a debate society. If you find yourself making the same points repeatedly, it’s time to take a break. If you want to engage in OT conversation, that’s what PM’s are for.
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Two drinks a day is moderation? Referring to the graph of the answers to the question above. There is a lot of ground between two drinks a day, 7/365 and a glass of wine or two with dinner on a weekend.
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Alcohol is a neurotoxin. Plain and simple, it kills brain cells. Consuming more is worse than consuming less which is worse than consuming none at all.
I’m sure that by the time the I feel the impact of all the brain cells I’ve killed, it’ll be too late.
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One thing that I’ve anecdotally noticed is that my in-laws, who quit drinking, seem to have replaced a nightly glass of wine with junk food. I wonder if that’s common?
I have no dog in this fight but I’m going to continue to enjoy 1-2 glasses of red wine on weekends and maybe 3 or 4 on New Year’s Eve or on vacation once a year. I don’t think it’s particularly healthy but neither is driving a car or eating ice cream and I’m going to also continue to do both.
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I like to make decisions that consider risk factors, but also based on what is convenient / enjoyable / affordable / whatever.
For OUR family, here’s some of what we do. I don’t think anyone else needs to feel the same way or make the same decisions. We don’t agonize over any of it. Just figure out our priorities and resources, and try to make decisions consistent with that.
• This is the big one. We barely drive anywhere, in towns where most people drive everywhere. Many years ago, we decided we’d only look at houses less than 2 miles from our workplace(s), with a safe walking route, and near a grocery store. We’d also only look at houses where our kids could walk to school safely and easily if needed. Our kids walk to their nearby workplaces. This has been perhaps the best decision we have made for our health. Car travel is one of the riskiest things you can do, and we live so close to everything so we barely drive. Spouse and I often walk to/from work. Our kids mostly rode the bus, sometimes walked. Also, our budget is really tight and we only had one car for 20 years. Now we have 1 decent car and the other two are $1000 drive-around-town clunkers. I refuse to ever live somewhere where a shopping area including a grocery store isn’t a safe easy walk away (that’s my proxy).
• We exercise quite a lot, but don’t obsess over the specifics.
• No food is forbidden for health reasons (except crap like raw milk). We cook most of our food from scratch, and overall diet is healthy, but will eat anything including fast food and plenty of sugar.
• We drink alcohol when we feel like it, which is a few times a month for one of us, and a few times a week for the other. We enjoy it, but if it was a problem for either of us, we’d quit entirely and not be too bummed. We’re lucky that our natural inclination is to be turned off of alcohol when we overindulge. Some friends drink quite a bit, others teetotal – personal choices are a non-issue socially. College kid hates the taste and will likely never drink. Don’t know how HS kid will decide.
• No motorcycles or small private aircraft (except life flight), ever. Helmets for biking, skiing, etc. No boys’ hockey or football allowed. No guns.
I know that drinking alcohol, eating certain foods, driving, playing sports, all of it carries certain risk. We just decide which risks are acceptable to us for the return we get, and behave accordingly. Other people make other decisions, and that’s okay (not accounting for epidemiology, drunk driving, etc.).
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According to the American Cancer Society, for 2024, there will be over 2 Million new cases of cancer in the US. And new cases of cancer are increasing. The risk factors include tobacco, alcohol, diet and obesity, lack of physical activity, etc.
In my mind, attacking the problem on multiple “fronts” is very doable. As we all know, cancer can include the following: surgery, radiation, transfusions, bone marrow transplants, chemotherapy, scans, blood draws, etc. and a whole lot of time spent with doctors, nurses, and various medical technicians. Horrible stuff. And then there’s the financial cost.
I’m personally really scared of the diagnosis and I’m willing to do what is necessary to avoid the personal “cost” to both myself and my family.
But this is America, we have the freedom to make our own choices.
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Sadly, 1 in 285 children in the U.S. will be diagnosed with cancer before the age of 20. Is alcohol a factor?
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Nice “red herring” you dropped there.
So, society should live a fat, drunk and lazy life, while smoking or chewing tobacco, which will increase the probability of being diagnosed with cancer and potentially other diseases?
You can choose to play or not play the statistical probabilities. Your “game.”
ETA: My “game”? I don’t drink or smoke and my visceral fat is nearly zero. I’m playing to win my “game.”
I hope that works for you. I personally had no known risk factors, genetic or life-style, and still was diagnosed with stage 2 cancer. I also had a number of factors that are considered protective for the kind of cancer I had. The statistical probability of me getting the kind of cancer I did was well below average. I agree people should live healthy lives, but we don’t know exactly what that means for any individual and their outcome.
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Isn’t the “playing it safe” game a bit dull? It’s hardly what the great spirits we study in school consider a worthy objective of human life. Try to imagine Socrates turning down that drinking festival called the Symposium - I can’t. And getting drunk didn’t worry Jesus himself very much: changing water to wine was his first miracle, and at the Last Supper there was wine for all. I believe it was Nietzsche who said that modern man’s obsession with health is really just a sign of his decadence.
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It’s not a red herring. It’s an age group that spans 19 years that essentially doesn’t consume alcohol, yet tragically gets cancer.
Here’s a list of “known and probable human carcinogens” from the American Cancer Society. I’ll do my best to avoid leather dust, opium, salted fish, wood dust and welding fumes to help even out the risk of alcohol consumption. 
I honestly don’t care if people drink or not. I care that people tell other people the degree to which alcohol directly causes cancer like it is irrefutable settled science.
I don’t think anyone has claimed that alcohol is the only factor for any group of people or any particular type of cancer, and obviously some people get cancer without having been exposed to alcohol. I’ve read that there is some association between alcohol consumption during pregnancy and some types of childhood cancer, but I don’t think it is a strong association. More broadly though here is what the CDC has to say about alcohol consumption during pregnancy:
About Alcohol Use During Pregnancy
KEY POINTS
- Alcohol use can be harmful during pregnancy.
- There is no known safe amount of alcohol use during pregnancy.
- There is no safe time during pregnancy to drink alcohol.
- All types of alcohol can be harmful, including red or white wine, beer, and liquor.
About Alcohol Use During Pregnancy | Alcohol and Pregnancy | CDC
Is it your industry’s position that alcohol use during pregnancy has no potential negative impact on the health of children?
I don’t believe this has happened in these threads at all. To the contrary, a number of the links and comments had been miscontstrued to be much more broad than they actually are. Say that alcohol is a factor, and people recoil as if a broad statement about direct causes has been made when it hasn’t. Say that evidence suggests that even modest amounts of alcohol can immediately trigger episodes in those with AFib, and this will be immediately misconstrued as a broader statement than what it is.
In short, out seems that some are intent on considering every contextual claim as a broad brush claim. I think they protest too much.
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of course, but should everyone else should have to pay higher insurance premiums for the personal choices of the few?
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I believe doctors in Ireland used to advise pregnant women to drink Guinness for its iron content. That is obviously no longer the case.
I’m unaware of any bev alc company that doesn’t have a responsible drinking initiative.
And every little store that sells cigarettes, vaping products, etc. where I live has a big poster warning of health hazards. In NY, every bar has a required poster warning against drinking during pregnancy.
Sure, manufacturers and vendors have “a responsible drinking initiative.” It sounds like ineffective public relations to me.
For what it’s worth, I drink an average/median of one glass (5oz) of wine each week.
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