[zevon]

I find this dichotomy a bit strange. A lot of people consume alcohol alone and in many cases this ends up badly for them (no need to speculate about foreboding - the body (and the bodies) of evidence is readily available). Cannabis can be very common in and around social settings, depending on where you are in the world. Other drugs are also pretty much everywhere, including social spaces. They are just more invisible due to their illegality.

[margalabargala]

> the body (and the bodies) of evidence is readily available

My understanding is that the evidence suggests that light social drinkers tend to be healthier and live longer than people who drink not at all.

[0cf8612b2e1e]

This line of thinking has been heavily questioned in recent years. People who never drink typically have a strong reason (recovering alcoholic) for which they have already suffered long term damage. Even people who “don’t drink” can be convinced to imbibe a bit on a special occasion (New Years, graduation, wedding, etc).

[Gigachad]

That’s just people who have friends and socialise are healthier. There are only negative health effects from alcohol itself.

If you went out to all those same events and just drank non alcoholic drinks you’d be healthier.

[fragmede]

That assumes you'd be the same amount of social at those events without alcohol. If a beer or two takes the edge off and you're able to relax and relate and socialize and you're happy, vs you're nervous and uptight and are alone in a crowd, you don't get the same benefit. It's not called a social lubricant for nothing.

[scotty79]

Causation goes the other way. Healthier people tend to drink more because they don't have enough signals from their bodies to respect them.

[margalabargala]

That would be a novel finding in the field! Tell me more.

[scotty79]

https://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/about-alcohol-use/moderate-alcoh...

It's not any new research. Just a simple conclusion from the entirety of research in this field. All research shows that there's no safe dose of alcohol. That starting to drink never improved anyone's health. So if there's correlation between health and moderate use any causation that might be there can't go from alcohol to improved health. So it most likely goes the other way around. Or both things are a result of other factor. For example affluence. It is known that more affluent people drink more and at the same time more affluent people have better health. "moderately" is just roughly the level where damage from alcohol balances out the health surplus of whatever caused them to drink more.

[zevon]

Which was not at all what I was taking about, or am I missing a point?