This was effective in stopping me from drinking til age 20. Too drunk to google it right now, can someone enlighten me about this phrase?

In that vein, I propose another slogan: "Capitalism kills brain cells."

        • Pezevenk [he/him]
          ·
          3 years ago

          My dad's uncle was a binge drinker and chain smoker for literally all his life and he somehow died at 95. He did die because of his smoking though. Dude developed respiratory issues and he had to wear an oxygen mask the last year of his life, and he took it off to smoke.

    • Pezevenk [he/him]
      ·
      3 years ago

      No amount of alcohol is safe in the same way that no amount of red meat or processed sugar is safe. It’ll kill you eventually

      This is a really weird thing to say. You could literally say this for anything.

        • Pezevenk [he/him]
          ·
          edit-2
          3 years ago

          Some amount of kale is good for you.

          Kale if I'm not mistaken contains some nitrates which is a carcinogen. Also if you eat way too much and then you also eat some kale, that's clearly not good. What I'm saying is, it isn't so one dimensional.

          The thing itself is harmful, not just excess amounts of it.

          It's not at all conclusive.

            • Pezevenk [he/him]
              ·
              3 years ago

              That’s the most up to date data we have on the subject. Unless you have anything better, observable reality seems to flow my way.

              I posted earlier two studies, one of which was inconclusive but didn't appear to show any difference and the other showed a mild improvement in cognitive function and some health aspects with light use. Someone else posted a big study cited by an article with a title along the lines of "no safe quantity of alcohol", and the research didn't appear to show anything like that. There was a cohort of 100,000 people who drank no alcohol and another similar one of light drinkers, the first one had 914 people who suffered disease or injury typically associated with alcohol, the second had 918. That is a very tiny difference even though it was looking specifically at stuff that is generally associated with alcohol consumption, and even if it is not just a random fluctuation, it's general enough that it may just be because some of the second group drank a lot once or something like that.

                • Pezevenk [he/him]
                  ·
                  3 years ago

                  I mean OK, suit yourself but I didn't really care about having am actual discussion with an aggressive weirdo who was calling me a drunk ass for not accepting that even tiny amounts of alcohol are the worst thing you can possibly do for your body.

      • RedDawn [he/him]
        ·
        3 years ago

        No, you can only say it about things that are bad for you. It doesn't apply to things that aren't bad for you, like water, or vegetables, or exercise.

        • Pezevenk [he/him]
          ·
          edit-2
          3 years ago

          Lmao you can literally say it about all these things. Especially exercise. There are negative effects to the consumption of everything. Yes, that includes water. Even though you will literally die if you don't drink water but that is beside the point. Basically the only thing that doesn't have a negative effect on your body is if your body is constantly in some kind of cryonic sleep, frozen in time.

          • RedDawn [he/him]
            ·
            3 years ago

            No, you can't. "There's no safe amount of exercise" makes zero sense whatsoever, it's factually wrong, what the fuck are you on about?

            • Pezevenk [he/him]
              ·
              3 years ago

              There is no safe level of exercise. I know someone who slipped and twisted their ankle while lightly exercising. So it is unsafe.

              • NaturalsNotInIt [any]
                ·
                3 years ago

                Exercise is not inherently bad for you body though. You can have an accident doing anything, even eating can make you choke. No amount of alcohol is safe. It's a carcinogen, it raises blood pressure, and it irritates your digestive system.

                • Pezevenk [he/him]
                  ·
                  3 years ago

                  it raises blood pressure

                  That's not always bad. My blood pressure is a little bit too low sometimes and I have to eat something salty etc to make it go up. And there is some evidence that light alcohol use decreases risk of strokes.

                  It's not really good for you either but how bad something is depends on many factors and I don't think there is a good reason to call it unsafe. When I think unsafe I think "this carries a heavy risk of giving you nasty health issues". And binge drinking is unsafe for sure. Likewise I don't think sugar is unsafe, neither is red meat unsafe "in any quantity". They simply increase risks of certain diseases, significantly after a certain point. Ripe fruit also contains some alcohol (more than people often realize), but I don't think anyone would claim they are unsafe for that reason in any quantity. I feel it kind of dilutes the meaning of "safe".

                  • NaturalsNotInIt [any]
                    ·
                    3 years ago

                    Likewise I don’t think sugar is unsafe, neither is red meat unsafe “in any quantity”. They simply increase risks of certain diseases

                    Sugar and red meat aren't inherently unsafe (though cooking methods can introduce carcinogens). Their danger to health comes from overconsumption causing metabolic issues. Alcohol is an acute toxin and irritant, as is, and a carcinogen. If we actually cared about public health, we'd treat booze the same way we treat tobacco. We only don't for cultural reasons.

                    When I think unsafe I think “this carries a heavy risk of giving you nasty health issues”.

                    Alcohol consumption meets that definition.

                    Fwiw, I drink and smoke weed regularly. The amount of alcohol that The ScienceTM says is safe is far lower than what people actually consume in practice (even moderate drinkers), and any amount raises your risk of health issues of some kind. We're already seeing a rise in liver disease among women in their 30s and 40s in the US, from a combo of heavier drinking and increases in the number of people who are obese at a young age.

                • Pezevenk [he/him]
                  ·
                  3 years ago

                  No, I actually do know people who twisted their ankle while lightly exercising, and it would be weird if you didn't know anyone who got injured while exercising. Doing fuck all carries some kind of minute risk.

                  • RedDawn [he/him]
                    ·
                    3 years ago

                    This argument is so dumb how am I even supposed to respond to it? Exercising for 30 minutes a day or whatever is literally good for you, it has tons of health benefits and not doing it is far more likely to cause you an early death. The opposite is true for alcohol, red meat, tobacco, and other harmful things that people put into their bodies.

                    • Pezevenk [he/him]
                      ·
                      3 years ago

                      Well my friend was really sad he twisted his ankle. NO SAFE LEVEL OF EXERCISE!!!

                      I will only do exactly what clickbait health and fitness articles tell me to do next time. Until they change their minds next month. Otherwise I may do something that increases my risk of alopecea by 0.000963%.

                      • RedDawn [he/him]
                        ·
                        3 years ago

                        I promise you the science of alcohol being poisonous and carcinogenic isn't going to change next month or ever for alcohol any more than it is for tobacco. But the alcohol industry does spend a lot of time and money trying to create doubt around it.

                        Otherwise I may do something that increases my risk of alopecea by 0.000963%.

                        Yeah I guess that's pretty much the same as severely increasing your risk of dying of cancer

                        https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_and_cancer

                        • Pezevenk [he/him]
                          ·
                          3 years ago

                          Yeah I guess that’s pretty much the same as severely increasing your risk of dying of cancer

                          Yes, it is actually comparable very frequently if you understand absolute vs relative risk.

                            • Pezevenk [he/him]
                              ·
                              3 years ago

                              Yeah it is. It's the favorite shtick of alarmist articles. "X increases you risk of Y by 600%!!!". Of course they don't bring up that in practice that means something more like a 0.001% increase in absolute risk, which doesn't sound so scary any more. It's like what that other research that was posted here said. The risk for light drinkers increased (if it was even reliable and not some random fluctuation) by 4 people in 100,000 for all alcohol related diseases/injuries. That is a 0.004% increase in absolute risk, which again is hard to determine if it was even just a chance fluctuation. This doesn't sound nearly scary enough so an article like that would probably opt to compare it against the 914 in the control group and determine that your risk increases by about 0.43%. Well, that still sounds sort of unimpressive, so often they try to find very specific things so that they can say it increases your risk of x by 300%, or that something else reduces your risk of y by 500% or whatever, and omit what that actually means in practice, or the question of whether the data is even very reliable when it comes to rare complications.

                              There is practically no way you can get a prion disease if you don't eat meat. If you do eat meat, getting a prion disease is incredibly unlikely. However, it is a non 0 chance, and that is a huge increase from the practically 0 chance that exists if you don't eat meat. You could easily come up with some kind of number like a 900,000% increase in risk or something like that. From that standpoint it appears insane that anyone would even taste meat once or twice. In reality it doesn't really mean all that much.

                              I've stopped obsessing over all that stuff because the misery this shit causes to people probably outweighs any benefit they may cause. I know many people who lived ridiculously long and healthy lives, none of them ever paid any attention to this kind of stuff. They didn't do anything particularly unhealthy either (with a couple of exceptions) but the one common element seemed to be that they didn't worry about things all the time, and this kind of stuff is kind of the opposite of doing that so I'd much rather try to do that instead of worrying about the 4% relative risk increase something I do may carry. Just don't overdo it.

                              • RedDawn [he/him]
                                ·
                                3 years ago

                                No, it's objectively not at all comparable, you're just way off base in how dangerous alcohol is. In many respects it's the most dangerous and harmful of any of the common drugs.

                                so that they can say it increases your risk of x by 300%, or that something else reduces your risk of y by 500% or whatever, and omit what that actually means in practice,

                                We can be really clear about what the harms of alcohol use are in practice and it's literal millions of deaths per year.

                                https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/alcohol

                                I’ve stopped obsessing over all that stuff because the misery this shit causes to people probably outweighs any benefit they may cause

                                Literally not a chance in the case of alcohol, the public perception of it is far off from reality due to obscene amounts of propaganda promoting it, so being honest about how dangerous it is is a positive thing for society in much the same way public health campaigns regarding smoking have been a hugely positive thing.

                                • Pezevenk [he/him]
                                  ·
                                  3 years ago

                                  In many respects it’s the most dangerous and harmful of any of the common drugs.

                                  Lmao yeah cool.

                                  We can be really clear about what the harms of alcohol use are in practice and it’s literal millions of deaths per year.

                                  Yeah I'm not gonna keep talking with someone who seems to act deliberately obtuse and pretends to not understand the difference between binge drinking and occasional use.

                                  • RedDawn [he/him]
                                    ·
                                    3 years ago

                                    You seem to be missing the part about how alcohol is an addictive drug and anybody using it at all runs the risk of becoming addicted. You're the one being "obtuse" here, but I'll chalk that up to the fact you have very little experience with alcohol overall. Alcohol causes millions of deaths per year, it's extremely dangerous and harmful. You're objectively wrong about it.

                                  • RedDawn [he/him]
                                    ·
                                    3 years ago

                                    "Lmao" isn't an argument and what I said is true. Studies consistently show alcohol to be either the most harmful, or one of the most harmful of all drugs.

                                    • Pezevenk [he/him]
                                      ·
                                      3 years ago

                                      Repeating the same wrong thing over and over doesn't make it right.

                                      • RedDawn [he/him]
                                        ·
                                        edit-2
                                        3 years ago

                                        Good thing I'm right then and you're just a dipshit too lazy to google "most harmful drugs" and see that alcohol consistently ranks at the top. Stop messaging me, drunk ass.

                                        • Pezevenk [he/him]
                                          ·
                                          3 years ago

                                          Oh OK, if you googled it, that's alright. I remember when I googled why my nose was running for a long time and Google told me I had a spinal fluid leak. Thanks Google for always being very balanced, reliable and not alarmist when it comes to medical facts.

                                          • RedDawn [he/him]
                                            ·
                                            edit-2
                                            3 years ago

                                            The source isn't "Google" it's every study ever fucking done on the topic, google is just how you can look at hundreds of them which all rank alcohol as among the most harmful drugs, many of them rank it as the single most harmful. You're wrong, you lost an argument on the internet, oh no!

                                            • Pezevenk [he/him]
                                              ·
                                              3 years ago

                                              There is no such study. You're describing a subjective judgement you saw on articles.

                                              • RedDawn [he/him]
                                                ·
                                                3 years ago

                                                Here's one. There are many. You're literally wrong dude just shut the fuck up and sleep it off.

                                                https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31081439/

                                                Here's another

                                                https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2020.592199/full

                                                • Pezevenk [he/him]
                                                  ·
                                                  3 years ago

                                                  I have Google you know. I've seen this shit. The difference is that I'm not a mindless drone and I actually read the studies and what they really say.

                                                  • RedDawn [he/him]
                                                    ·
                                                    3 years ago

                                                    "I actually do my own research sweaty and that's why I know vaccines cause autism actually, and alcohol isnt bad for you".

                                                    • Pezevenk [he/him]
                                                      ·
                                                      3 years ago

                                                      No, I don't do my own research, I read the research. You don't read the research, you read the headline.

                                                        • Pezevenk [he/him]
                                                          ·
                                                          3 years ago

                                                          Dude seriously, you hit me with nonsense that quantifies the harm caused by a drug by including crime that is supposed to be caused by the drug in a conversation about its health effects and I'm supposed to just accept that?

    • StalinistApologist [he/him]
      hexagon
      ·
      3 years ago

      And to write while shitfaced. Actually I was thinking of this bar near my elementary school and church (sigh) and the windows are blacked out and it is the most adult place in the world because even though I could go there now for 14 years I couldn't go and it just seems like I'm not 21 when I think about that place. It's the most adult place in the world

      • Pezevenk [he/him]
        ·
        3 years ago

        Now I want to go to your adult place for some reason.

        By the way, did you just become 21? I've been 21 for a few days now too and I don't recommend it but I hope it goes better for you.

        • StalinistApologist [he/him]
          hexagon
          ·
          3 years ago

          Oh no I was 21 for an entire year I'm just hanging out with my family and thinking about drinking while I'm drink. We are the universe drinking itself. Also why does white go first in chess and checkers? Is that racism?

          • Pezevenk [he/him]
            ·
            3 years ago

            Also why does white go first in chess and checkers? Is that racism?

            Yes.

            BTW you do sound like you are "drink" lol

            It's alright, I've drunk a little bit too. Fucking birthdays. Or delayed birthdays anyhow.

          • abc [he/him, comrade/them]
            ·
            3 years ago

            why does white go first in chess and checkers

            ehhh chess used to have 'who moved first' determined by lots or the results of the previous games since the board itself wasn't even checkered for quite some time iirc. tbh even when I play with my roommates or on any actual board with someone - I usually just use a coin-toss. Black used to go first in a bunch of historical games - like the Immortal game

  • TheyLive [he/him]
    ·
    3 years ago

    We're doing straight-edge socialism. Come to my anarcho-stalinist commune. No alcohol, no hierarchy.

  • Dimmer06 [he/him,comrade/them]
    ·
    3 years ago

    Before it is filtered out by the liver, alcohol in the bloodstream can go through the brain and in high enough concentrations, can kill neurons. If it doesn't kill them it impacts how they function in the short term (being drunk) as well as risking possible long term complications. Parts of the brain shut down when they are subjected to too much alcohol, which commonly leads to blackouts but can also lead to alcohol poisoning that can shut down essential functions like breathing.

    This isn't stopping me though. Cheers

    • Jeff_Benzos [he/him]
      ·
      3 years ago

      You gotta be careful about studies showing that wine or chocolate or such in moderation improves health. It could be true, but it could also be true that someone who has the self control to have a moderate amount of an indulgence is more likely to moderate other unhealthy habits in their life

    • balloon [none/use name]
      ·
      3 years ago

      According to this study, there is no safe amount of alcohol :shrug-outta-hecks:

      https://www.insider.com/there-is-no-safe-amount-of-alcohol-2018-8 https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(18)31310-2/fulltext

      • Pezevenk [he/him]
        ·
        edit-2
        3 years ago

        I fucking hate these moronic articles.

        Out of 100,000 teetotalers, 914 would develop a disease or injury associated with alcohol consumption, like cancer. In comparison, four more people (918) would be ill or hurt if they had one alcoholic drink a day.

        Oh really? Out of a total of 100,000, 914 in one group developed something bad and 918 from the other? A difference of 4? Wow that clearly means it's never safe and you will absolutely die. Like wtf does "no safe amount of x" mean, seriously? There is so many click bait articles like that and they're just embarrassing. "No safe amount of rhubarb exists. A study examined people who ate rhubarb once and people who didn't. The people who didn't lived on average 2.1 minutes longer. Therefore if you eat rhubarb once you will die". Just clown shit, at this point I'm pretty sure these articles take more years out of people's lives than whatever "unsafe in any quantity" thing they talk about.

          • Pezevenk [he/him]
            ·
            3 years ago

            Look at what it says. 4 more people. Compared to 914. In a sample of 100,000 in each case. This could literally be completely accidental, and even if it isn't it's just silly.

      • NaturalsNotInIt [any]
        ·
        3 years ago

        Alcohol is more damaging to health than most illegal drugs, and I'd argue it's worse than tobacco when you adjust for typical consumption (pack a day smokers should be compared to people who drink 6-8+ drinks a night imo). The main reason we tolerate it is that it has such a long cultural history in the West.

  • DetroitLolcat [he/him]
    ·
    3 years ago

    Alcohol is just actually really bad for you. I drink it but moderation is good.

  • Pezevenk [he/him]
    ·
    edit-2
    3 years ago

    I drank so much last week that I would be brain dead now if that was the case. I might be though, idk.

    BTW no it doesn't do that typically but it might give you some kind of brain damage if you drink way too much or if you are alcoholic and do it regularly. Alcoholism is very dangerous in general.

    Also it always seemed weird to me how late Americans start drinking. I remember my dad let me take sips from his drink ever since I was a little kid, and I started drinking large quantities at about 15. 15 is about the time most people I know really started drinking, I remember we'd take a big shopping cart and put a bunch of booze in it and go to a small park, get shit faced and freestyle rap a couple times a year. It was fun but I wouldn't recommend it tbh. While I do drink lots every now and then, I try not to do it frequently at all because I've got bad experiences with alcoholics... My rule is never drink alone.

      • Pezevenk [he/him]
        ·
        3 years ago

        Yeah and honestly I'm glad I never ever feel like crave it. But even if I do feel like breaking the rule, all I have to do is remember my dad being a miserable red faced boomer drinking tsipouro before he even has lunch. And he is not even "alcoholic" in the sense that most people think. It's not nice and I don't wanna be that so even though I don't really feel like breaking my rule anyways, I have it there just in case.

    • RedDawn [he/him]
      ·
      edit-2
      3 years ago

      Even moderate drinking absolutely has a negative effect on cognition, as well as a negative effect on pretty much every other aspect of your health. "Kills brain cells" probably isn't medically accurate language but the idea is generally correct.

      • Pezevenk [he/him]
        ·
        3 years ago

        There is no evidence for that.

        The pooled dose-response relationship showed a maximum standardised mean difference (SMD) indicating slightly better cognition among women with moderate alcohol consumption compared to current non-drinkers (SMD 0.18, 95%CI 0.02 to 0.34, at 14.4 grams/day; 5 studies, very low certainty evidence), and a trivial difference for men (SMD 0.05, 95% CI 0.00 to 0.10, at 19.4 grams/day; 6 studies, very low certainty evidence).

        Actually there is some slight evidence to the contrary.

        In this cohort study of 19 887 participants from the Health and Retirement Study, with a mean follow-up of 9.1 years, when compared with never drinking, low to moderate drinking was associated with significantly better trajectories of higher cognition scores for mental status, word recall, and vocabulary and with lower rates of decline in each of these cognition domains.

        • RedDawn [he/him]
          ·
          edit-2
          3 years ago

          One study being totally inconclusive is not the same as "there's no evidence." Here's evidence from the first page of Google results lol.

          https://www.bmj.com/content/357/bmj.j2353

          Conclusions: Alcohol consumption, even at moderate levels, is associated with adverse brain outcomes including hippocampal atrophy. These results support the recent reduction in alcohol guidance in the UK and question the current limits recommended in the US.

          There are so many very obvious issues with the routinely published studies that show "light drinking actually is good for your______" and get immediately printed across all the media outlets and a segment on local news.

          The one you cited for example seems to suggest that light drinking protects cognitive abilities from the effects of aging, but only in white people? Does that make any sense or is it likely that there's a confounding variable (like white people who drink one glass of wine each night are better off financially and spent their whole lives in comfort).

          One of the major issues is that a lot of such studies compare "current non drinkers" to current light drinkers, neglecting to account for the fact that many current non drinkers are either former alcoholics who already did damage to their bodies or don't drink because of other health conditions.

          • Pezevenk [he/him]
            ·
            3 years ago

            One study being totally inconclusive is not the same as “there’s no evidence

            It clearly means there are conflicting studies. Like I can find tons of studies saying the exact opposite of what that one you posted showed. The one I already posted after that one for instance. Even the definition of moderate quantities in that research is kind of weird. Like if you drink 14-21 drinks per week, that's kind of a lot in my book.

            • RedDawn [he/him]
              ·
              3 years ago

              Alcohol is straight up one of the least healthy things you can put in your body and it's weird that people are determined to think that "just a little bit of this highly toxic and addictive drug is actually good for you!" But I guess not that weird when you consider that it's a multi billion dollar industry which largely depends on people not taking the health effects seriously. It's also a carcinogen that increases your risk of all types of cancer in even moderate amounts, yet many people seem to not realize that either.

              • Pezevenk [he/him]
                ·
                3 years ago

                Yeah so weird that people don't lose their shit over weird clickbait articles explaining to you how you will literally die if you do x on one day and then shout about how you will literally die if you don't do x the next day for completely innocuous and normal things.

                • RedDawn [he/him]
                  ·
                  3 years ago

                  Alcohol isnt innocuous, the health effects are well studied. This is almost as ridiculous as trying to argue that smoking a little bit is good for you, which to be fair is something people did try to argue until fairly recently, because there's a lot of money to be made by deceiving people about that as well.

                  • Pezevenk [he/him]
                    ·
                    edit-2
                    3 years ago

                    Alcohol isnt innocuous, the health effects are well studied.

                    Yes, and never had it been shown that low or moderate consumption carries any sort of serious risk anywhere near conclusively.

                    because there’s a lot of money to be made by deceiving people about that as well.

                    Uhhhh I'm very sorry to inform you that there is tons of money to be made by doing the opposite too. Making people panic about everything is how a lot of media as well as the health and fitness industry survive on.

                    • RedDawn [he/him]
                      ·
                      3 years ago

                      You're just factually wrong, moderate drinking severely raises your risk of cancer among many other adverse health effects, this isn't some open question, it's a settled matter. Alcohol has been well known as a carcinogen for literally decades.

                      • Pezevenk [he/him]
                        ·
                        edit-2
                        3 years ago

                        You’re just factually wrong, moderate drinking severely raises your risk of cancer among many other adverse health effects, this isn’t some open question, it’s a settled matter.

                        Settled you say? Yeah I saw some research some other person posted which was supposed to show that there is no "safe amount of alcohol", which was proved by the fact that out of a group which did drink a bit of alcohol with 100,000 members 918 people experienced at some point in their lives some kind of health issue associated with alcohol as opposed to 914 people who didn't drink in the other group of the same size. SEVERE INCREASE IN RISK!!! NO SAFE AMOUNT OF ALCOHOL!!! NO THIS IS TOTALLY CONCLUSIVE!!!

                        But yeah the clickbait articles know very well how scary it looks if you find some rare complication the risk of which was found to be increased by 80% or whatever, ignoring that partially this means something akin to 1 additional case in a million.

                        Everything is a "carcinogen". Well, not literally, but it's ridiculous how commonplace "carcinogens" are. The sun is a major carcinogen. But then again some sunscreens are carcinogens too. So you could try staying inside, but then you run into vitamin D deficiency, plus everything in your home is probably a carcinogen too. There are 3 possible responses to this information: 1) make a lot cabin in the woods and carefully time your sun exposure, 2) sit at the corner and cry, or 3) stop panicking about everything but maybe don't sit at the sizzling sun unprotected for too long. Or don't be white, that also kind of reduces your risk.

                        • RedDawn [he/him]
                          ·
                          3 years ago

                          Yes, it's settled science.

                          No, not everything is a carcinogen. Alcohol is recognized as a group 1 carcinogen up there with abstestos lol. Putting it into your body increases your risk of cancer significantly. It's not some debatable edge case.

                          I smoke cigarettes but you don't see me out here making absurd arguments and twisting myself into a pretzel trying to rationalize it with weird arguments about how not smoking is the same as sitting in the corner crying. I just accept that I'm increasing my risk of cancer just like all the drinking I've done increases my risk of cancer.

                          • Pezevenk [he/him]
                            ·
                            edit-2
                            3 years ago

                            Group 1 carcinogen means there is sufficient evidence it can cause cancer, which, yeah, it's true. It's not a category that quantifies how carcinogenic something is, it has to do with certainty. To be precise, acetaldehyde is the substance that is classified as a group 1 carcinogen. Acetaldehyde is also found in fruit btw. If the "no safe level" nonsense is to be believed, then you should probably stop eating fruit too. So yeah, apples are also "right up there with asbestos".

                            Nitrates are also considered afaik a group 1 carcinogen or at least a probable carcinogen and you can find them in celery or lettuce. It's fucking ridiculous how many things contain carcinogens. There is no reason to panic about everything, just be careful with the more dangerous stuff. It is safe, like exercise is safe or passing the street is safe.

                            • RedDawn [he/him]
                              ·
                              edit-2
                              3 years ago

                              Acetaldehyde is one carcinogen, ethanol (literally just alcohol) itself is another group one carcinogen, so no, you weren't being "precise", you just didn't read far enough down the list.

                              Let me know when celery and lettuce start killing millions of people every single year and you may have a point with all these absurd false analogies you keep making.

                              It is safe, like exercising is safe or passing the street is safe

                              No, alcohol is a dangerous and addictive drug, this is not a proper comparison. A more apt comparison would be smoking cigarettes or using opiates.

                              • Pezevenk [he/him]
                                ·
                                3 years ago

                                Ethanol becomes acetaldehyde in the liver. Acetaldehyde is the most dangerous chemical related to drinking, it's also what causes alcohol poisoning. Also ripe fruit does also contain small quantities of ethanol, which are probably larger than you imagine.

                                Let me know when celery and lettuce start killing millions of people every single year and you may have a point with all these absurd false analogies you keep making

                                You're making the absurd false analogy between light drinking and asbestos or any other group 1 carcinogen, don't blame me. Yeah it's obviously stupid to compare eating a ripe apple to radon poisoning, I know that, that's my point.

                                No, alcohol is a dangerous and addictive drug, this is not a proper comparison. A more apt comparison would be smoking cigarettes or using opiates.

                                With cigarettes maybe, not with opiates, that would also be a stupid comparison. The conversation around addiction is kind of stupid because very few things are particularly inherently addictive unless you are already abusing them. No one gets withdrawal symptoms because they used to drink a few beers a week and then they stopped. Some opiates are different, they require much less use for someone to start craving them, hence why it is kind of a stupid comparison.

                                • RedDawn [he/him]
                                  ·
                                  3 years ago

                                  No, alcohol to opiates is an apt comparison. Alcohol is extremely addictive and anybody who uses it at all runs the risk of developing addiction to it. Many people start with a few beers a week and end up addicted and drinking themselves literally to death. You're simply massively understating how dangerous alcohol is as a drug.

                                  • Pezevenk [he/him]
                                    ·
                                    3 years ago

                                    Lol yeah OK I'd say you don't know anyone who drinks alcohol but that would be kind of weird and I don't know how it is even possible. What you are describing isn't how most addictions work BTW with the exception of a few things. Almost invariably alcoholics become addicted because they start drinking a bunch over a period of time to cope with something. It starts as psychological, not physiological. The vast majority of people drinks at least a little bit every now and then. In most countries alcoholism is very rare, except for a few ones where you can pinpoint very specific reasons why it became so common in the first place. Even more interestingly, the countries with the highest rates of alcoholism aren't even necessarily the ones with the most alcohol consumption per capita. Alcohol addiction isn't something that just randomly appears in people who drink a little bit. Alcohol addiction begins when people start drinking larger and larger quantities in order to cope with something (or possibly for some other reason, but that is the most common), until they drink so much and so frequently that dependence sets in. The alternative is peer pressure from a partner or family etc. It literally almost never just randomly happens to some random light drinker.

                                    • RedDawn [he/him]
                                      ·
                                      edit-2
                                      3 years ago

                                      You're 100% wrong. Alcohol is a physiologically addictive drug that works on the reward centers of the brain which causes craving. Alcoholism is absolutely not rare, 5% of the entire world's adult population is afflicted with it. I have significant first hand experience with alcohol addiction. Do yourself a favor and literally just search up "most harmful drugs" and report back what you find about where alcohol consistently ranks in every single study. At this point you're just spewing ignorance.

                                      • Pezevenk [he/him]
                                        ·
                                        3 years ago

                                        There is no study that is titled "top 10 most harmful drugs", that is not how studies work, you're just thinking of online articles.

                                        You clearly have no clue how alcohol works lol. Even many alcoholics are not physiologically addicted. I know because I literally have people like that in my family. They will stop for long periods of time drinking anything whatsoever and they will be far better than they usually are, no withdrawal, nothing whatsoever. Then they'll go back to drinking all day long just because they think it will make them stop being miserable, even though it makes them more so. It's not nearly as easy as you seem to think for physiological alcohol addiction to set in, usually it comes after the psychological addiction, not the other way around. And yes, it does happen, and yes, I also know what that is like.

                                        • RedDawn [he/him]
                                          ·
                                          3 years ago

                                          There literally are scientific studies which quantify and rank the harm caused by drugs, you are once again 100% completely wrong.

                                          • Pezevenk [he/him]
                                            ·
                                            3 years ago

                                            Look, you clearly want to be a moron, so I'll just say this and leave it at that: there is a billion different ways in which you can quantify how harmful something is. Any kind of quantification will only tell you how something ranked in terms of that specific and very much subjective quantification. This is not science, it is mostly interesting to online health advisors which consistently break people's brains.

                                            • RedDawn [he/him]
                                              ·
                                              3 years ago

                                              Nope, you're still wrong, alcohol is objectively an extremely harmful and dangerous drug and no amount of your idiotic mental gymnastics changes it. You may as well be a climate denier or anti vaxxer with amount of disregard you have for simple facts.

  • FidelCashflow [he/him]
    ·
    3 years ago

    People can have a little drink as a treat.

    I have seen severe alcoholics drown in their own blood though. So you know, a sometimes thing.

  • gvngndz [none/use name,comrade/them]
    ·
    3 years ago

    As far as I understand, It doesn't literally kill brain cells but it can lead to brain damage and it can interfere with the formation of new brain cells. Extreme Alcoholism often also leads to Wernicke–Korsakoff syndrome, which is a syndrome (or two syndromes that tend to come as one) that can lead to major learning and memory problems, sometimes it can also have other brief but dangerous effects such as paralysis of the nerves that move your eyes.

  • acealeam [he/him]
    ·
    3 years ago

    it's not something I've thought about but i suppose it is weird we drink the stuff that kills 99% of germs lol