[zamalek]

Quitting is the best decision I have ever made (the worst decision I have ever made is starting). I started off by vaping - although based on recent research I wonder if that was at all safer than smoking - and working my way down to 0% nicotine fluid over a few years. That wasn't too hard (probably 4-5 days of mild cravings at most once I switched to 0%), the oral fixation provided by vaping was seemingly enough to fool my brain. Things went really poorly when I tried to quit the 0% fluid, nicotine patches used per-instructions were the savior. I would have cravings for a few hours after each dosage decrease, but did have a test of willpower when after quitting the patches (possibly 2 weeks). I kept some patches around, just in case (you don't want to revert all the way to a cigarette if your cravings get the better of you), but never used them. After about 2 years I stopped getting cravings in all situations (social and drinking being the worst). The advertised benefits of quitting are quite real - once you start reaping the rewards the cravings are easy to deal with ("this goes away if I smoke").

I also quit drinking at the start of this year, on a whim. The effects aren't as pronounced as quitting smoking, but I have much deeper emotional reserves when things get difficult. I have also done more research, and it's scary what even a single drink a week (which counts as "chronic usage" if you are doing you own research) will do to your body.

[selimthegrim]

Can you cite anything about a single drink a week?

[zamalek]

https://www.who.int/europe/news/item/04-01-2023-no-level-of-...

Medical terminology gets confusing. "Chronic" to a layperson generally means "bad," but medically it merely means "ongoing." The idea that the protective effects of alcohol outweighing the risks are also under increased scrutiny and doubt: the risk of cancer is just too high. There are many ways to deal with a cardiovascular problem, but liver cancer?

At the end of the day you're making desperate deals with yourself - because drinking is definitely enjoyable. Let's assume that the revised Canadian recommendation of 1-2 at most a week was made due to being in the ballpark of the risk of walking out of your front door. Because humans are bad at conceptualizing probabilities, we fail to/don't want to realize that we are now carrying both risks as independent probabilities: P(Living∪Drinking)

Binge drinking (BAC > 0.08, 4-5 drinks) is playing Russian roulette each time. This is what I was doing: 1 6pack a month to get a nice mild buzz. Bad idea.

[stev-0]

Almost everyone I know binge drinks from time to time..

You are right that it’s better not to but calling it Russian roulette is a pretty big overstatement.

[zamalek]

The only thing that "everyone you know is doing X" indicates is that "everyone you know does X." It is in no way correlated to how bad of an idea it is.

[stev-0]

I never said it was a great idea. I said that equating it with a one in six change of instant death is a bit dramatic.

[zamalek]

It's a literary device: a simile. I'm not dumb enough to suggest that it's actually like Russian roulette, I myself would have been long dead. The similarity is with playing games with your life, which is objectively true.