Despite growing evidence of alcohol’s harms, it remains deeply embedded in social norms and cultural rituals, both in the US and abroad.

Few substances are as deeply woven into everyday life as alcohol. It is a fixture at holiday celebrations, work-related social gatherings, sporting events, airports, and brunch or dinner tables. A raised glass for a toast, the ubiquitous wedding open bar or drinks shared during a Fourth of July celebration all demonstrate how deeply alcohol has become embedded in social customs and cultural traditions.

Yet alcohol contributes to millions of deaths globally each year and is linked to cancer, liver disease, unintentional accidents, violence and, importantly, dependence and addiction. Despite this, the disconnect between alcohol’s cultural role and its serious health burden is striking.

    • Bluescluestoothpaste@sh.itjust.works
      1·
      2 天前

      Yeah but it doesn’t have to be alcohol like it doesn’t have to be heroin. Alcohol is worse than heroin by just about any scientific metric, and yet we just choose to view them very differently because of tradition.

        • JadenSmith@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          3·
          2 天前

          Yes. I haven’t gone as far as heroin, however over a decade ago I quit sniffing morphine powder (like that character from that show, Mr Robot I think the name is? Couldn’t watch that for long).

          As a result of stress from childhood abuse, and bullying, I drank alcohol from a young age. I first remember being drunk at about 5 years old. At 12 I would often have a cap of brandy to start the day, before school. Alcohol provided it’s issues, and whilst I cannot drink now for health reasons I could at least stop, go for long periods of time without drinking, and it didn’t provide such a hold on me.

          The morphine was something else.

          When it’s sniffed, it has a different effect. There is a strong initial rush of euphoria, as if my brain was on its way to having an orgasm. That feeling subsided into a sort of… Content numbness. Satisfaction to an unnatural degree. The feeling of accomplishment, from the drug, felt more fulfilling than… Anything. It removed desires, because it felt more worth it to just do the drug instead of even sex, because that felt empty compared to how fulfilling the morphine felt.

          The withdrawals were an absolute nightmare.
          Once I realised I was developing a dangerous problem, I went cold turkey. Sweating from head to toe, and a lot. Constantly shivering, cramping in my gut, throwing up and having to force myself to drink water. Nightmares so incredibly vivid. I felt like I was going to die, and this lasted for almost two full weeks.

          Alcohol is dangerous for sure, but if heroin is anything like the morphine I was sniffing… It just isn’t comparable in my experience.

          Been clean since 2012. That shit is the devil if there ever is one.

          • schipelblorp@sh.itjust.works
            1·
            2 天前

            I honestly don’t know about that. I don’t want to fall for drug paranoia propaganda, but there’s people who literally take heroin substitutes every day, but I’ve never heard of anyone addicted to non-alcoholic beer.

    • Séimhe (sé / é)@lemmy.world
      513·
      4 天前

      You can experience altered states of mind without it. It dulls your minds and blunts your senses, making you think you’re having a better time than you are. Hardly the gift to humanity the marketing tells us it is.

      • lightnsfw@reddthat.com
        11·
        3 天前

        It dulls your minds and blunts your senses, making you think you’re having a better time than you are.

        Yeah, that’s literally the point. People are too annoying to socialize with for any amount of time without the help.

        • Séimhe (sé / é)@lemmy.world
          35·
          3 天前

          If you can’t tolerate your existance in the same space as people without being inebriated then that’s a skills issue. I’ve gone to therapy for less.

          • lightnsfw@reddthat.com
            5·
            3 天前

            Whatever you say buddy. I tried rawdogging being sociable for 15 years and couldn’t find a way to enjoy it. Once I started drinking it became easy and people like me better too because I’m not stressed out after 20 minutes of being somewhere.

            • Bluescluestoothpaste@sh.itjust.works
              1·
              2 天前

              I just stopped being sociable lmao. If you need to get drunk to do it it’s because it’s not good for you, doesn’t even make you happy. You can socialize just fine over dinner and be home by 9PM so you can get ready for bed. The whole going out until 2AM is just an insane thing the bar industry sells to make money. Sure, a wedding some once in a lifetime event, yeah go crazy all night. But it’s insane the amount of clubbing people do, as soon as i stopped drinking and going out late everything in my life got much better very quickly.

      • Ledivin@lemmy.world
        8·
        3 天前

        making you think you’re having a better time than you are.

        What does this even mean? How can someone be having a less good time than they’re having? Are you drunk?

        • Bluescluestoothpaste@sh.itjust.works
          21·
          2 天前

          Happens all the time, they think they’re having a good time but then they wake up look at their texts and photos and start to remember they were miserable the whole evening and texted an ex several times.

        • Séimhe (sé / é)@lemmy.world
          24·
          3 天前

          Are you? Because that’s not what I said.

          To elaborate, alcohol reduces your sensibilities so things that aren’t that fun seem fun, and conversations that aren’t that interesting seem as though they are. Look up altered perception and diminished perception.

          I’m not saying it’s completely useless, but to become the central crutch of social interaction like it did is not healthy for your brain or your quality of life.

      • schipelblorp@sh.itjust.works
        6·
        4 天前

        The dirty little secret of a lot of meditation gurus–especially those that were in the first wave of the 1950 and 1960’s–is that most of them experimented with psychedlics to find the doors first, then tried to find it themselves without drugs.

        • Bluescluestoothpaste@sh.itjust.works
          1·
          2 天前

          Alcohol isn’t a psychedelic though, yes absolutely we should decriminalize/legalize a lot of psychedelics. Alcohol is just a polar solvent that poisons every cell in your body, literally it dissolves across every cell membrane you have and fucks shit up.

          • schipelblorp@sh.itjust.works
            2·
            2 天前

            Yes, but alcohol doesn’t challenge social reality the way psychedlics do; is it any wonder that THAT is the drug that’s legal? The one that numbs the pain without offering any different perspective?

            Also, not sure who you’re replying to me twice, but I’m bringing up psychedlics in context of the person I’m replying to, not the overall context of the post.

        • Séimhe (sé / é)@lemmy.world
          15·
          3 天前

          Yes, it was a hodgepodge of indulgence/decadence and an attempt to find meaning in the psychedelia. We seem to be in a better place these days when it comes from teachers/leaders, thankfully.

          • schipelblorp@sh.itjust.works
            3·
            3 天前

            What do you mean “we’re in a better place”? You mean teachers aren’t handing out tabs of LSD anymore?

            I tried meditation for about 3 years, daily. Never really got into it. Couldn’t do more than 30 minutes without things getting buggy.

            I’m very interested in taking a mushroom trip to see what’s out there. Psychedlics are risky, yes, but they have their place.

            • Séimhe (sé / é)@lemmy.world
              21·
              3 天前

              You cannot in good faith make the argument that white Western meditation is still at the naive and primitive state it was at in the 60s / 70s. We are awash with well-seasoned meditation teachers today who do not use any substances. Getting high is not meditation.

              I know people who forage for these things. They walk around with a slight smirk, in response to something that is not actually happening except in their own minds. It’s called derealisation. Please consider the underreported harmful effects people are living with before engaging with this stuff. It’s not a substitute for alcohol.

              There is research showing that Psilocybin and other substances can help depression, PTSD, etc when administered at very specific doses and in a specific way. But that’s a different thing.

              • schipelblorp@sh.itjust.works
                2·
                3 天前

                Getting advice on psychedlics on the internet is pretty crazy; the people most active in the forums say there is no danger and they’ve been at least micro-dosing every day for years… but I guess if it really messed with your brain, you wouldn’t be active on the forums.

                That’s great that there’s a “specific dose and specific way” to carefully use psilocybin, but I don’t have the money for that, much less even know who to talk to.

                But my point about meditation is that it is a dead end for a lot of people and that maybe if they’d had a trip before, they’d know the experience was something worth pursuing and maybe having an easier time getting there.

                • Séimhe (sé / é)@lemmy.world
                  2·
                  3 天前

                  I’m not arguing that you can’t or shouldn’t, but for the benefit of anyone interested in meditation: tripping on drugs do not take you to the same place. It is not a “shortcut” to meditation. It’s a “play random song” for brain chemistry and structure that may be entertaining or life-ruining. It depends on the day.

                  For anyone interested in social lubrication (which is what motivates a lot of alcohol consumption), tripping on drugs is not the way out.

                  If you need medical attention, I can understand. I was considering psychedelics before I got my ADHD diagnosis.

                  I’ve worked in the area of mental health since, know people who’ve taken ayahuasca, iboga, psychedelics & amphetamines. If you feel you’ve nothing to lose, then irreversible change that everyone except yourself notices might be acceptable. But I’ve even had a friend die under the guidance of an experienced officer of ceremonies at a publicly-advertised retreat. If you can afford targeted medical treatment, I’d advise that first.

                  Anyway, not to lecture you. I’m nearly fifty and just want to help people where I can. I’ve seen and learned a lot. People who are experienced with psychedelics are not as sagely as they think.

      • Madzielle@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        41·
        4 天前

        One thing that clicked for me when I quit alcohol for someone I loved, was how even after one drink, my decision making was not my own, but the alcohols.

        • Séimhe (sé / é)@lemmy.world
          42·
          3 天前

          I realised that going “just for one or two” drinks meant that even when I returned home, I wouldn’t do any of the more wholesome things afterwards like reading or gardening. I certainly wouldn’t have felt right spending time with kids in the family. I’d just watch TV or something. So yeah, while moderating my drinking I realised there was no point in having any.

  • valar@lemmy.ca
    228·
    4 天前

    It causes a lot of problems but also its one of the things that make life worth living

    • Madzielle@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      112·
      4 天前

      Yet alcohol contributes to millions of deaths globally each year and is linked to cancer, liver disease, unintentional accidents, violence and, importantly, dependence and addiction. Despite this, the disconnect between alcohol’s cultural role and its serious health burden…

      yeah, so cool