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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   33352 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 27, 2023

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I feel like people who really get his comments have had some alcoholism in there life. I personally can’t buy a bottle of alcohol without finishing the whole thing in 24 hours. I end up talking myself into having a glass of whiskey to relax at the end of the night and it’s all gone the next day.

Does seem like he’s on to something about finding new drugs. Humans do need a social lubricant. I think the evolutionary biologist would say it arised from a natural fear of strangers or something like that. In the modern world where strangers are not dangerous a relaxant is needed. Something ideally without long term health problems from consumption and preferebly with low or no risks of addiction.

I sort of want to write a reply here as a woke prohibitionists using their rhetorical tricks. Scolding people who drink fine and not wanting it banned because a lot of other Americans suffer from the abundant availability of alcohol.

He seems to be writing this from the perspective of someone who knows he has some troubling drinking issues. And isn’t quite capable of taking away the bigger negative side effects on binge drinking. Seeing other comments some people just get this because they do it themselves. And some write in a style where they don’t get it and likely don’t have the same issues.

It didn't make sense to me, but he never said how much he was actually drinking. If I buy a .7l bottle of slivovitz, it lasts me 2 weeks at least, usually. Is that sort of drinking actually harmful ?

Unfortunately, yes, small amounts of alcohol have a detectable effect on brain white and gray matter volume:

Specifically, alcohol intake is negatively associated with global brain volume measures, regional gray matter volumes, and white matter microstructure. Here, we show that the negative associations between alcohol intake and brain macrostructure and microstructure are already apparent in individuals consuming an average of only one to two daily alcohol units, and become stronger as alcohol intake increases.

Here "one unit" means 10ml of ethanol, slivovitz has 50% abv, so you're drinking 350ml ethanol per 14 days = 2.5 alcohol units per day. The paper I linked has a bunch of interesting figures (fig 3 in particular is nice), and they provide this useful comparison:

For illustration, the effect associated with a change from one to two daily alcohol units is equivalent to the effect of aging 2 years (or 1.7 years in the model that excludes individuals who consume a high level of alcohol), where the increase from two to three daily units is equivalent to aging 3.5 years (or 2.9 years in the model that excludes individuals who consume a high level of alcohol).

Going from 0 to 1 daily units doesn't have any measurable effect in that study, but going from 1 to 2 and 2 to 3 does. So with your 2.5 units/day, it's equivalent to an aging-related decrease in brain volume of around 3.75 years. Not world-ending in any sense, but still not nothing.

(I'm slightly confused by the study, since presumably the effects should depend on how long you've been drinking alcohol, and not just provide a flat decrease in brain matter, but I'm not seeing any such effect reported in the paper)

Additional analyses excluding abstainers (N = 33,733) or excluding individuals who consume a high level of alcohol (i.e., females who report consuming more than 18 units/week and males who report consuming more than 24 units/week) (N = 34,383) and models using an extended set of covariates (including BMI, educational attainment, and weight; N = 36,678) yield similar findings, though the variance explained by alcohol intake beyond other control variables is reduced to 0.4% for GMV and 0.1% for WMV when individuals who consume a high level of alcohol are excluded (Supplementary Tables 1 and 2).

I mean, alcohol accounting for 0.4% of variance doesn't seem very important.

(I'm slightly confused by the study, since presumably the effects should depend on how long you've been drinking alcohol, and not just provide a flat decrease in brain matter, but I'm not seeing any such effect reported in the paper)

My first thought is that this implies reverse causality. If a snapshot shows the result without expect to duration, a parsimonious explanation would be that people with diminished brain matter tend to drink more rather than that drinking causes diminished brain matter. Feedback loops would be unsurprising as well.

Yeah that's what I thought too, but they super-duper promise they accounted for confounders:

We perform a preregistered analysis of multimodal imaging data from the UK Biobank (UKB)42,43,44, which controls for numerous potential confounds.

I probably have ten to fifteen bottles of scotch. If I don’t replace them, that will probably last me two years. Every once in a while, I’ll pour a drink (never more) if I’m in the mood. Or I’ll pour a drink or two if a friend comes over. I enjoy scotch but don’t understand the idea of binge drinking it.

I think some people enjoy the feeling of being tipsy (I know I do). However once you reach that stage your inhibitions are lowered and it's much harder to stop at the pleasant tipsy stage.

Also your body adapts to drinking by changing what BAC is tipsy and how much alcohol is required to reach that BAC as one drinks more.

I hear that, about finishing the whole thing. That's why I only buy enough at any given time to finish that night. Of course the downside is that ends up being more expensive. A 24 pack of whatever is more cost-conscious than doing one offs most days a week.

I can say I'm one who doesn't 'get it'. I like drinking, but not as much as the next guy I guess.

I feel like people who really get his comments have had some alcoholism in there life. I personally can’t buy a bottle of alcohol without finishing the whole thing in 24 hours. I end up talking myself into having a glass of whiskey to relax at the end of the night and it’s all gone the next day.

This is the same for me, but I'm a beer drinker. Part of why I only drink beer is that it's much, much harder (neigh impossible) to get physically addicted.

The way I avoid drinking is to just not buy any beer. If I buy a six pack, it's gone in 24 hours, and then I wish I had bought more. When I don't have beer I end up looking in the fridge anyway to see if maybe I missed a can somewhere the last time I looked. It's not great.

Something that really helped me was getting a garmin watch. It really lays bare how much of a difference even one drink makes. It doesn't have a "tell me whether I had a drink or not" mode, but it certainly could get one added based on how clearly it knows my sleep and recovery are worse on days I drink. My HRV and restlessness in sleep are drastically worse.

Of course I say this all while I'm hung over and feel too shitty to exercise because I drank too much yesterday...

It doesn't have a "tell me whether I had a drink or not" mode, but it certainly could get one added based on how clearly it knows my sleep and recovery are worse on days I drink.

The stress scores are amazing, one of the clearest indicators I've gotten in real time of the reality that a few drinks is doing something pretty gnarly to my cardiovascular system.

Are you me? I was about to write this same post. I also stopped buying beer. It's been less than a month, and I've done a few bouts of sobriety before (30-60 days worth, twice in the past three years), but after enough mornings after too much beer, I just resigned myself to not buying it. I'll drink if I go out, but if there are cans in the house, I'm going to find them and drink them.

I also stopped buying cannabis at the same time, mostly because getting high makes me want to get drunk, and getting drunk makes me want to get high.

And getting drunk makes me want to get drunk, and getting high makes me want to get high.

And doing either makes me want to consume really alarming quantities of industrial sugar/fat slop.

That's interesting. The more stoned I get the more I can totally forego alcohol. The downside is of course overeating.

Alcohol and amphetamines go together for me. But weed neutralizes that whole package.

I think it’s just a heavily common experience. 10-20% of the population probably falls into this grouping. And some probably limit the issue with kids keeping them busy.

It’s also very curious that 3 of our last 4 POTUS are sober. Bush was an alcoholic and fully gave up. Biden and Trump don’t drink. It’s almost like you get incredibly bored without alcohol to distract you and need to find major goals to carry yourself.

And fwiw I think a non-drinking potus is a bad thing. I think people are far more chill and get along with each other who do. It’s like being an alien who doesn’t follow the normal cultural rituals.

I think people are far more chill and get along with each other who do.

If it's social drinking, a glass of something over a couple of hours, sure. If it's boozehound stuff? No, not as much as the drinker thinks. They tend to get much more trashed, faster, and are boring/annoying/scaring the less drunk people around them. "I had such a great time, I can't remember a thing that happened!" is only fun for the drunk, not the people who had to clean up the broken shit and vomit after them.

It’s almost like you get incredibly bored without alcohol to distract you and need to find major goals to carry yourself.

That's a heck of an inference to draw from N=4. Especially since one of the guys in question is named George Bush, Jr. Gotta think that he might have gone into politics regardless. And why arbitrary draw the line at the last 4? Given that the pct of teetotalers in the US has apparently remained steady in the 30-40 pct range for 80 years, why not the last 15?

It’s almost like you get incredibly bored without alcohol to distract you and need to find major goals to carry yourself.

As someone whose normal alcohol intake rounds to zero, I have no idea what the rest of you are talking about. Being drunk is awful. My head hurts, I can't think or talk straight, I'm super sweaty, plus a few other random pulls from the Grab-Bag of Unpleasant Symptoms! There's like this teeny thin line where I've had just enough to disinhibit myself, but not so much that my body starts going haywire that's pleasant, but it's just about impossible to maintain for more than about 10 minutes at a time. I enjoy the taste of a few beers, wines, and whiskies, but barely ever drink them because the side-effects of the booze are so unpleasant.

That's not the normal reaction. Are you Asian? Could it be ALDH2 deficiency?

I am not asian. I have not had medical testing done to determine if there's a genetic component. But I do notice that I dislike most mind-altering substances. I've gotten stoned a few times and disliked it each time, and generally disliked the feeling that psychotropic prescription medications (e.g. vyvanse) had on me. Maybe I'm just ornery and/or literally don't know what's good for me. IDK.

Being drunk is awful. My head hurts, I can't think or talk straight, I'm super sweaty, plus a few other random pulls from the Grab-Bag of Unpleasant Symptoms! There's like this teeny thin line where I've had just enough to disinhibit myself, but not so much that my body starts going haywire that's pleasant, but it's just about impossible to maintain for more than about 10 minutes at a time.

Maybe you are consuming too much at once

For reference, the amount of alcohol intake I find pleasurable in an evening is [two fingers of whisky / a glass of wine / a beer] consumed slowly over a 2- to 4-hour period. Anything more turns unpleasant quickly.

Yeah but that's the thing with alcohol. Need to consume your way through initial discomfort into a tolerance that allows for responsible, pleasurable drinking.

What initial discomfort?

My first impression in my late teens after discovering there were other drinks than just beer and wine (which I still don't like) was "Wait, this actually tastes pretty good?" followed some half an hour later with "Whoah, this is fuuuuuuun!" (being mildy and sometimes not so mildy intoxicated in good social company). That qualifier is also the reason I've never been in the slightest danger of getting addicted to it.

Taste of alcohol takes some getting used to, and some people are just super low tolerance initially.

It’s almost like you get incredibly bored without alcohol to distract you and need to find major goals to carry yourself.

This is certainly a creative way to spin what would seem to be an unalloyed positive into something that sounds vaguely negative.

And fwiw I think a non-drinking potus is a bad thing. I think people are far more chill and get along with each other who do. It’s like being an alien who doesn’t follow the normal cultural rituals.

This to me feels like it fits in the same camp as people who say they'd be more likely to vote for someone that they could have a beer with. I get the sentiment, but it just seems to be a pretty terrible way to think about national leaders. I've had drinks with many people and not once during (or after) those encounters have I thought to myself that the person I was drinking with should be given control of a nuclear arsenal, or the ability to alter the fate of nations. I would in fact be much more comfortable handing that responsibility off to some sort of hypothetical stone cold sober ubermensch, whose only joy in life was found by bettering the lives and futures of his people.

A drinker will drink with anyone even their worst enemy and get along. While finding human connections. I don’t think they are capable of some of the worst aspects of todays culture wars.

Drinkers will also smash glass bottles into each others heads over imagined insults, frankly you sound like an addict trying to excuse their drug of choice.

A drinker will drink with anyone even their worst enemy and get along.

Yeah - so long as the booze is flowing, and even better if the other person is paying to keep it flowing. Put that drinker with their worst enemy without booze, and what human connections do they find? What human connections do they maintain after they sober up and need to go hunting for the next patsy to buy the booze?

Personal confession: I've had strangers, guys who were plainly dependent on booze, try to ask me to go to the pub with them and I knew it was only because they thought they could get me to pay for their booze in exchange for 'male company'. It was not about "finding human connections", it was "get someone to buy my next fix because I drank all my money today and have nothing left". I'm not the type, even in my younger days, who gets asked by random guy "hey can we go for a drink" because I'm just simply that attractive.

I think you may have experience with an entirely different type of drinker than others here are talking about. It may be the rest of us who are unusual, I only really drink with other people who have their shit together so I've never experienced this, if anything the people I drink with fight over the check as a status thing. And none of them are going around asking random people to go to the bar with them as they all have friends that would like to go to the bar with them already.

I think you may have experience with an entirely different type of drinker than others here are talking about.

See above what I said about the Irish problem with drink 🤣 For the record, these events happened in bus station tea rooms (when they still had the tea room in the bus station). So yeah, guys who were plainly what you could call alcoholics but not yet at the level of the guys lying on the street with the bottle in the brown paper bag.

So this is why I start twitching when reading things like the comment above about "I need a drink with my meal, when I'm watching TV, when I get home from work, when I'm hanging out with friends, when I'm out socialising" or "things are more fun than when I'm sober" because to me, that's not "social drinking", that's "eventually you'll be leeching off others for drink because you've drunk all your money".

Different environments, different types of people. If your experience of drinking is "a few beers when I'm hanging out with the guys", I'm happy for you. But there are reasons people do support prohibition campaigns about a wide range of activities, because for every person who is "why are these killjoys trying to do away with harmless fun social activities?", there is another person whose experience is "that activity is not harmless, fun or social".

Agreed. Absolutely willing to accept that I'm the outlier, but I have never had someone invite me out drinking with them with the expectation that I would be paying for their drinks (if anything the opposite, where the person inviting others out pays for the first round for everyone).

The only situations I have heard of that align at all with that are sketchy situations meeting women in East Asia where at the end of the night guys with baseball bats come out along with the bill to make sure you pay the inflated drink prices. And even then purely in a "friend of a friend heard this happened to another guy" sense.

if anything the people I drink with fight over the check as a status thing.

We all tabulate it and figure it out Venmo, even if we're pretty drunk. Bunch of nerds, I tell ya.

Bush and Biden are rather well known for getting along with people and finding human connections. As are, honestly, most successful high-level politicians.

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