[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.