I went effectively teetotal around 2007 (I got spectaculary blackout drunk - woke up nearly a day later and couldn't remember getting home or much of the 8hrs prior to that - decided that was a silly way to live and quit).
Honestly not something I miss, I raise a glass of whiskey every xmas in remembrance of my grandfathers (Irish one side, Scottish the other).
Otherwise never, it's fun when the doc/nurse asks "How any units do you drink?" "About one per year" it's such a massive in-grained part of our culture (I'm British) still.
Though the youngsters coming up now drink way less than I did at 18 in 1998 - partly cost and partly a greater awareness of the damage (plus there is just so much more for the average teenager to do now).
The evidence on alcohol and pariculary mouth/oesphagal problems is pretty compelling but I'm not a doctor.
> Though the youngsters coming up now drink way less than I did at 18 in 1998
I've noticed this too (also British). I'm very close in age to you and remember the news stories regarding University drinking challenges and deaths in the late 90's.
I'm almost teetotal these days too, partly because I have young kids but also because I just don't seem to have the taste for it that I once had.
Also, I'm a little concerned about the potential longer term (yet to be discovered) health implications regarding the level of drinking our generation did at the time.
I remember watching Hamilton’s Pharmacopoeia, or maybe just an interview with Hamilton Morris, anyway he usually studies psychedelics and barbiturates and all the weird fringe drugs, and someone asks his opinion on alcohol and he says it’s a really crappy drug because you have to consume massive quantities of it for the desired effect, like most drugs that change your brain up are measured in milli/micrograms, but if you want to get trashed your poisoning yourself with, like, a liter of straight alcohol, it’s a lot of work for your body to deal with compared to smaller dose drugs.
Poisoning aside I guess you need to suggest a mechanism where DNA gets interfered with, is our body just as good at error-free mitosis when we’re sleeping off a rough night?
Its that there are so many thing we _know_ cause cancer in high rates that we still consume. So I wouldn't waste mental energy on something that maybe might cause it before cutting out everything we know causes it first.