Marc Andreessen has an essay On Pausing Alcohol, and a followup. Both are brief, and MA is entertaining.
Unfortunately, in recent years, it’s become clear that most or all — probably all — of the scientific studies on the benefits of alcohol are fake, the scientists unwitting or witting victims of selection effects. As Michael Crichton says, “wet streets cause rain”, or rather wet streets don’t cause rain. It turns out that sick people often don’t drink, or subjects just lie to researchers about their consumption outright. There go the studies.
Andreessen feels better consistently the whole next day if he has no alcohol. But he is angry about it, because he feels better during when he has alcohol. I find all this irritating, as he does, but the fact that there are fewer and fewer forms of alcohol my digestion will tolerate allows me to see his point. I am trying to be an honest broker here, posting even the things I don't like if they seem true.
WRT substituting weed, the studies which show that it is not as bad as alcohol in several ways are true enough but often are comparing apples-to-oranges. Of those who start either substance young, those who smoke marijuana are much more likely to rapidly move to smoking a great deal. Comparing light uses to light users and heavy users to heavy users is only half the story.
Its poison. The older you get, the harder your liver has to work to do the quite complicated, make the poison worse, as it can't be dealt with directly, then deal with that, which can be dealt with.
ReplyDeleteI had pretty well quit alcohol except for special occasions, and after the last one, I don't think I will drink again.
He mentioned a couple of replacements. Do you like green tea?
ReplyDeleteNot that I know of.
ReplyDeleteAs I mentioned in January, I always take January off, and I always have the same experience: by day 4 I wonder why I don’t do this all the time because I feel so good; by day ~21 I can’t wait for the month to be over so I can have some beer.
ReplyDeleteIt’s like he says, about all the color draining out. But his close is good:
“What’s the best counterargument to all this? That life is not lived to be safe, that alcohol helps people bond, mate, and reproduce, that alcohol encourages people to fight and fighting drives civilization forward. That men and women should work hard and then play hard, the Greeks had their Dionysia and the Romans their Bacchanalia, and we should too. Frankly, over the long sweep of human affairs, this is probably right, but I’m still not drinking for a while.”
It's just hard as hell for me to believe that beer is a bad habit. But it's good that a medical falsehood has fallen.
ReplyDeleteA few days ago my wife decided to limit alcohol to weekends after hearing NPR report on a new study from Canada saying that even what had been considered moderate drinking was 'toxic'.
ReplyDeleteGiven my previous experience with NPR science reporting, I was skeptical. I easily found and bookmarked what I suspect was the study the reporting was based upon, but had not yet sat down to read it.
So this is timely.
I've got acquaintances planning to rip out their gas ranges based upon a bullshit study, and I've got friends changing their chocolate brands based upon factual reporting that uses bullshit safety thresholds for lead and cadmium. So -- since I like whisky and wine -- I was fully prepared to assume that whatever my wife heard was more of the same.
The cost-benefit for humanity seems to be good, though the costs are indeed real.
ReplyDeleteThe cost-benefit for the individual is trickier. I start with the premise that both the costs and benefits are real, as I have seen both, in myself and in others. Grim's summary of Januaries sums up a lot in a few sentences. But that's only a starting point for any other individual.