Smart to frame it as synthetic alcohol instead of as a drug because the US has decided that substances that make you feel good are tools of the devil.
The one that really gets me
is pain killers. I had to recover from surgery in the hospital for a few days where I couldn't do anything but lay there and focus on the pain. The only thing they we're allowed to give me was Tramadol which I can only describe as "it doesn't make any of the pain go away, it increases your ability to put up with it." The doctors know it's shit, the nurses know it's shit, they were apologizing constantly about it. We had all the tools available to make me not suffer at all during the experience but think that "getting high" is so terribly evil it's worth suffering for.
The war on drugs has done incredible damage to chronically ill, and patients suffering severely. The amount of relief patients could get from debilitating pain was far better in the 1800s than it is today.
People often end up rehospitalized or denied care entirely because their pain or anxiety goes unmanaged or because they "might maybe be drug seekers".
Our current laws have fast tracked ordinary people to heroin or otherwise dealers. Difficult to imagine that wasn't part of the point of them...
I love my IPAs but I have to admit that the UK does social beer right. 3% or even 2.5% ales are the way to go if you want to socially drink. We have a concept of a "session" beer in the US, which is lower ABV but the selection of really good, really low gravity beers is the best in the UK as far as I can tell.
The brown ales can be very low gravity. Usually you get low gravity stuff from a cask. I've had lighter ales that are really low too, but I think they are hard to find.
Freewheel Brewing here in the SF Bay Area (Redwood City, to be specific, 1 block from my house to be much more specific to many fewer people) specializes in cask ales. Many of their beers are in the 4% range, and I love being able to get beer in an imperial pint.
I really like Full Sail Session IPA, every time I visit the US I get some. Germany is really lacking behind this hole development, the beer is just very poor these days here.
What are you talking about? Even most common supermarkets have a small variety of IPAs and other craft beers. And even without them there are small breweries everywhere in southern Germany which have great "classical" beers..
If you are the lucky one who lives in 10% of Germany that has good beer (i.e. some areas in Bavaria) then that's good, all the remaining country is filled with the corporate crap that owns 99% of beer companies. In USA, there're many places that serve their own beer. Virginia and looking for good food? Just search for any local craft brewery and you found it. Many bars and restaurants in Oregon and California have their own brewery in the backyard. I find these beers so much more interesting.
Yes, I buy Brew Dog and Crew Republic because they are good, but I just wish there was a local brewery around the corner. I live in a city of 700000, it _should_ be possible if not all the other people were blinded by the big guys' advertising.
Belgium produces many incredible beers that outshine American beers and should be easily found in Germany. I’m a massive fan of American beers but Belgium always gets my voice of support as well.
Londoner here. These beers exist and are part of the historic English beer tradition but are few and far between in city pubs these days. Pubs have started to stock Radlers like Schofferhoffer which is my go to, or a half pint (284ml/~10oz) of a strong beer like IPA.
This. You used to be able to get a few "session ales" in pubs which were under 4% and meant for long drinking sessions, now because of the rise of craft beer you're lucky if you get one. Meanwhile, there's always a ton of options over 5.5% which used to be unheard of.
I have been on the hunt for the past year in the mid-atlantic area of the US looking for <4% beers. The closest I've come is a German grapefruit beer (Schöfferhofer), but it doesn't really have that beer taste. Most US 'light' beers are around 4-4.2%.
Moosehead for example makes a Moosehead Light for the states at 4%, but they also offer Cracked Canoe which is only 3.2% but not sold in the states (available in the Canada, UK and Costa Rica of all places where I tried it).
I was first introduced to 3% beer in Norway. It was crazy expensive (due to taxes on alcohol) and really good. I was disappointed that I couldn't find anything similar in the US.
I'm in Sweden on vacation now (and still binging HN..) and they have 3,5% variants of most major brand of beers like Carlsberg, Heineken and others, It's great! It tastes like a real beer, but without the buzz I usually get after a six-pack.
3,5% is actually the maximum ABV you can get in supermarkets in Sweden by law. For anything higher ABV than that you need to go to the government-owned chain called Systembolaget or go to a bar or restaurant that has a license to serve alcohol.
Because of the restrictions though, craft breweries have been making some great <3,5% beers that they sell at supermarkets.
> 3,5% is actually the maximum ABV you can get in supermarkets in Sweden by law. For anything higher ABV than that you need to go to the government-owned chain called Systembolaget
Jesus that sounds terrible. I get the good intent I suppose but the hell..
It used to be the same in Colorado until recently. State law mandated only 3.2% alcohol by weight (~4.0% ABV) could be sold in grocery stores or consumed in state parks. It changed with a state-wide referendum.
There is a theory that this law is why craft beer boomed in Colorado. It is easier for small breweries to sell beer through a mom & pop liquor store than a national chain grocery store. Folks were more used to buying beer at liquor stores than other states.
There are US states with monopolies on liquor sales too. It’s not that bad. The plus side is they are usually very clean and don’t let people hang around all day. It’s strictly business and that’s a good thing.
Systembolaget is a pretty good shop. They offer a wide range of products and in the case of wines they tell you what kind of food the product goes well with
The history of it goes back to the same era when the US implemented prohibition. Sweden had a referendum about having prohibition as well, but the prohibitionists lost by a small margin, so instead of banning alcohol sales, they just kept the pre-existing WW1 rationing of alcohol in place even after the war ended. Eventually the rationing was removed but the government monopoly was kept in place.
That’s a shame to hear. While I understand why Norway taxes alcohol, placing such high taxes on a low-alcohol alternative encourages purchase of higher alcohol options in the same product category.
Ideally low alchol beer would have a mild tax discount to encourage sustainable consumption.
There is currently a big surge in low alcohol concentration brewing with a range of new options available. You should check out distributors for more. I find many options at Whole Foods so this stuff must be approaching the mainstream.
i went to a shop in Norway, and the assistant was very helpful, telling me all about the local beers on the shelves.
i got my picks and went to the checkout. he's waiting for me, and with a straight face says "I can't sell you beer, it's past 6PM".
I visited the Dominican Republic several years ago, and at the all inclusive free beer stand people were getting glasses of 50% El Presidente pilsner and 50% soda water. To me that was a little bit alien, because it implies they like the taste of beer.
Here in Australia there is a distinct section of the market for ‘Mid’ beers at about 3-3.5%, and decent beer places usually have one available. Often brown ales, though there are lagers, pales etc too.
Makes a nice change of pace. Plus you can usually have one (and just one) and still drive.
What's the purpose of live if you won't allow yourself to enjoy it a bit? So yeah, I'll do it, have fun and socialise with my friends. Of course within bounds, we're adults after all.
I bet/hope there are less harmful alternatives out there but unfortunately there's not a lot research afaik on different chemicals.
Other substances are gaining popularity specifically because people are learning enough about them to have a conversation beyond grade school scare campaigns.
People are objectively noticing that they can get a social lubricant without a hangover, without liver damage, without esophageal damage, without lung damage (not an alcohol thing, just a reference to smokers of anything), and that alcohol is more toxic than more tightly regulated drugs.
I believe the person you were responding to was pointing that out, while I believe you wrote a false dilemma as nobody here is talking about abstaining from mind altering substances, they find it absurd to try to force making alcohol the substance of choice, given that harm reduction already exists for recreational use of other substances.
I've actually enjoyed and done much more sober than I ever did during my entire drinking years.
But to stay on point, the original article is "Alcolhol without the hangover" - keyword "hangover". A hangover is a symptom you have overdone it, not just a few drinks with friends while socializing. It's more like, "I can't remember what we did after 6 beers and then shots", sort of mentality, and not eating or drinking enough water. That is when you have poisoned yourself.
40% of convicted murderers used alcohol before or during the crime.
70% of all drunk-driving fatalities were with drivers with a blood-alcohol level of 0.15%+.
This is on par with the trend of biohacking ... from ozempic, ADHD meds, transgender hormone therapies, to cheating hangovers ... You can't cheat nature, for long at least.
Wasn't synthetic alcohol part of the Star Trek mythos? It's been a long time since I've watched TNG but I seem to remember it was part of their world, at one point I have a vague memory of someone handing Picard a bottle of 'real' alcohol and him being amazed- 'this is the real stuff??' he asks? Or something to that effect.
Maybe that's what Guinan was always serving at the Enterprise 'bar', synthetic alcohol. (Does Data ingest it? Can he?)
Synthehol. It’s never really fully explained how it affects you other than you can kind of readily shake it off.
There are plenty of instances in Star Trek of people drinking the real stuff though. Picard himself had a family winery. I’m guessing he was amazed at a bottle of Romulan Ale, which was illegal in the same way Cuban cigars were here.
In the show, Romulan Ale is also extremely strong; Worf nurses a hangover from it and says it "should be illegal" and LaForge replies "It is"; while in DS9 several of the human main cast infiltrated a Klingon event and had to take something to avoid dying from drinking so much Blood Wine.
(That said, I don't know if it's been canonically stated Blood Wine is ethanol based, so future writers might just decide that's because Blood Wine is based on methanol rather than ethanol, and the ABV is unsurprising…)
So synthesized ethanol will be the same in every respect as purified naturally sourced ethanol except perhaps down to the balance of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen isotopes.
I’m pretty sure “Synthol” in Star Trek is more of a synthetic alcohol alternative of unspecified chemical composition, rather than just synthetic alcohol.
You might be half-remembering the TNG episode "Relics" in which Scotty is rescued from a Dyson sphere after seventy-five years in a transporter buffer.
Scotty demands, and eventually obtains from Guinan, an actual bottle of Aldebaran whiskey. He has the holodeck recreate the bridge of the original Enterprise and drinks the whiskey there.
Picard shows up, Scotty offers Picard the bottle, then at the last moment warns him that it's real alcohol. Picard responds "I know, who do you think gave it to Guinan?"
Likewise! I'm trying not to drink much anymore. But I always want something cold and fizzy. So it's a switch between refrigerated carafes of water, seltzer, and zero-alcohol beers. Although I feel incentivized not to have even the zero-alcohol beers since it's still 60 calories. While the seltzers I find are 0.
Any beer recommendations? I haven't tried much outside of the locally-supplied zero-alcohol Heineken and Corona.
Where? In eastern US, Athletic Brewing makes really good hoppy ales. The ones from Brooklyn Brewery are good too, but a bit heavy for my taste.
In continental Europe, Germany has a large selection of lagers, good but not great. Clausthaler is an example. Also, I like the Czech beer Staropramen.
The Bitburger NA with the blue branding is good. Don't be fooled if you don't like the normal Bitburger, imho their NA is much better :P OTOH, if you happen to like Bitburger, they also have a newer "dry NA" variant with green branding, that tastes much more like their alcoholic beer.
No idea about international availability, but at least a slight chance.
For wheat beer, the bigger German what beer breweries offer a NA variant these days, and those are quite good. I'm thinking of Erdinger and Paulaner, which are probably your best bet internationally. Don't tell anyone I know, but my secret recommendation however is Öttinger NA wheat beer. Those are cheap and taste very good (fellow Germans: If you don't believe me, do a blind tasting). But don't ever the mistake of buying or even drinking their normal Pilsner/Export beer - those taste like pi... ;-)
If you're ever in Germany, is "Mönchshof Radler Alkoholfrei". Radler is "shandy", a mixture of beer and lemonade. I've yet to meet anyone who likes beer but not this.
So far, my favorite has been Guinness’ NA. It’s _almost_ imperceptible from the normal canned draught. My only real hangup with it is the extra plastic waste via the widget.
You shouldn't assume the effects you get match those of other people. People experience different effects because of differences in brain/body chemistry and genetics. People that get "asian flush" for instance process alcohol in a way that results in more toxic metabolites thus making alcohol literally more poisonous and less enjoyable for them.
Holds true for other substances as well. My brother absolutely loves weed and finds it relaxing but I cannot use even a small amount without crippling levels of anxiety. Meanwhile anything that works on GABA (alcohol included) completely removes anxiety for me in a way that's so enjoyable I have to be careful with the whole class of substances. Because of a genetic quirk modafinil has little to no effect if I take it but I use prescribed amphetamines 3-5 days a week. Human bodies are complicated!
Precisely. Most people "enjoy" alcohol because it is socially accepted drug, but for many people so many other substances would be a lot more enjoyable, without collateral damage of alcohol for society. Alcohol is a poor choice for recreational drug for many, for the exceptions those who likes depressants.
I was shocked, about 15 years ago when some Italian friends (who were very drug familiar) said how much they liked that they could buy Benadryl (diphenhydramine) w/o a prescription here in the USA.
I was like "????*" this is not a party drug.
(note: there are folks who use it in massive overdoses as an ACh deliriant [1] but that's not my cup of tea)
I read something a while back where the owner/CEO/VP/Head Brewer of Sam Adams, who was expected to go to certain beer/brewing events and basically have a beer with each vendor, would eat a packet of yeast beforehand.
He claimed it allowed him to make his rounds and sample everyone's beer without getting drunk/hungover.
I can't imagine a mechanism where that's plausible, but it wouldn't be the first time I felt that way and was shown something surprising. He probably just built up a tolerance.
That doesn’t really make sense. Yeasts consume sugars and emit alcohol and co2 ad byproducts. They can’t process alcohol and too much alcohol kills the yeasts.
If anything, eating yeasts should make things worse, as yeasts might have a chance to digest some sugars and produce more alcohol (unlikely to happen, if you ask me)
I think you're right. I've always wondered why they don't water down GHB to be the equivalent of a low ABV drink. The only scary thing about GHB is its relative potency to volume. It's honestly a wonderful drug.
It is a pretty nice alternative to alcohol, and since their name is GABA Labs, and GHB can be synthesized from GABA, I assume they will be selling some analog or even rebranding and packaging GHB properly for consumption.
The more interesting thing here to me is the nasal spray that can supposedly help alcoholics want to drink less. That could help a lot of people stay sober-ish if it’s effective, albeit there is a psychological component to just wanting to enter oblivion that it might not be effective for.
Out of curiosity I tried the hangover cure on Nootropics Depot and found it to not really help at all. Not drinking helps the most so I stick with that normally these days.
This is not ambiguous: There is no safe amount that does not affect health.[1]
"We cannot talk about a so-called safe level of alcohol use. It doesn’t matter how much you drink – the risk to the drinker’s health starts from the first drop of any alcoholic beverage. The only thing that we can say for sure is that the more you drink, the more harmful it is – or, in other words, the less you drink, the safer it is,"
It is possible that a totally sober and mentally healthy person can determine that the benefits of alcohol counterbalance the health risks. I've heard a dozen meandering explanations here and they all boil down to "I like it and it seems to be helping my life more than hurting it." That seems reasonable.
However not everyone has the same risk profile, or even the same moral grounding, so demonstrating to others that there are few relative risks to alcohol consumption or not (based on your personal threat model) biases the threat models of others.
It helps nothing to continue to reject some of the strongest correlations we have and risks imbuing incorrect epistemic biases to others via demonstration. Accept the fact that you are taking a risk instead of trying to brush off the scientific consensus and be vocal about the risks given the fact that this literature is not accessible to most people.
No these aren’t the same risk calculations and in fact use different measurement language - this is important because it’s an actual argument that is fallacious and regularly used.
This is the same poorly argued version of: “Milk is a gateway drug” when we’re evaluating a claim like “x% of y users used z drug before starting y, therefore z induces y” but actually irrelevant when asking for causal precursors.
That is a completely separate type of claim and argument.
“Risk to health” increases with abstention of water, the direct opposite of the mechanism for alcohol.
I feel like these kinds of statements are not very helpful. Knowing that even a single drop of alcohol is harmful without calibrating that risk does not give me enough information to alter my behavior. Fermented foods are inherently a bit alcoholic; does eating them mean I'm doomed? If not, then at what point does imbibing alcohol turn into a real health hazard? What are the risks compared to, say, eating prosciutto or grilled meats?
This is based off a meta analysis and the problem with those is you can filter the data to prove almost anything you want.
Many other studies have found a j-curve effect. So there is ambiguity, and there likely will be until someone does a long-term randomized controlled trial which is incredibly difficult.
Why I always took 300-500mg of acetyl L Carnetine capsule before commencing an evening imbibing. It handily blocks Acetaldehyde formation quite handily. Doesn't protect your cardiac rhythms in the least however, and this is a another attendant risk of accrued long-term damage as with Acetaldehyde.
The (main) problem with alcohol-free 'beer'/'wine'/etc. isn't the lack of drunkenness feeling?
Especially beer has improved a lot but it's not there yet, I don't see how developing synthetic 'alcohol' will help when we still can't remove, or make the drink without causing, real alcohol?
As for hormone shots to treat an already acquired hangover... It seems niche/less than ideal - I don't think many people would want that as a regular expected thing, 'I am going to drink heavily and then take a hormone shot in the morning' sort of thing? And isn't it a solved ('banana bag') problem? Or is it the idea that you could buy injectable hormones for home use whereas you can't (and probably shouldn't want to) self-cannulate at home, and that's the only way(?) banana bags can work (because it takes more than reasonably fits in a syringe? Needs to be administered at a more gradual flow?)?
Personally I hope we find a way to remove alcohol without impacting taste at all, and then you can buy either version of the same drinks. I'd probably still get both, I do acknowledge the alcohol plays some role in me enjoying the drinks, but I can imagine having say an alcoholic pint or two, then alcohol-free. Or an alcoholic gin & tonic followed by AF wine. But until it's as good...
> The (main) problem with alcohol-free 'beer'/'wine'/etc. isn't the lack of drunkenness feeling?
That depends on your goals. I like to catch a buzz once in a while but the majority of the time I'm drinking is because I really love the flavor of my favorite cocktails and the quality would be very poor as mocktails.
Using a Mai Tai as an example, of I could get a couple 0ABV rums, I could sub clarified orange juice for the orange liqueur and probably have something pretty good with no booze in it. I'd be quite happy with that.
Exactly, re-reading I think my phrasing (or rather use of question mark) was ambiguous but that's exactly what I mean, the problem isn't the lack of 'buzz', it's the taste not being as good.
I'm not a chemist, so this may be false, but I've heard it's almost impossible to make NA drinks that are very similar to the real thing. The reason I heard is that whilst ethanol has no flavor itself it does enable/carry (whatever that means) interactions between other chemicals meaning there are flavors present that will never be there without ethanol. Would love to know if that's actually true...
I'm not a chemist either but I know that ethanol is a solvent, and has the ability to dissolve and carry volatile organic compounds. That is why cosmetic perfumes, and food additives like vanilla extract are alcohol-based.
Very naively and also as not-a-chemist though I would think that just because that's how A drinks do it doesn't mean we can't achieve a NA drink with the same taste by a different mechanism?
I can't really think of a great example, but crisp (US: chip) flavours sometimes seem recognisable despite the actual ingredients being a concoction of a few not-what-the-flavour-is things.
I love the idea of the nasal naltrexone. Naltrexone has been known for years to reduce the number of drinks consumed (by blocking opioid receptors).
I wish we could figure out a better system for accessing medications like this — like perhaps allowing pharmacists to prescribe low risk medicines in more states.
Oh great, I'm sure this will end as well as the pain pills from Purdue..
There is a sizable minority of people who don't have a "governor" when it comes to drinking, we call them alcoholics.
Then there is a big group of people who have some moderation, but part of that "moderation" are the hangovers and by the late 20's they start to hurt much more than consecutive nights of boozing can offer.
Let's hope this is yet another pseudo-science piece to fluff some careers and little more, otherwise I'm guessing it could in the early 80's again when coke "was fun and gave you energy to do more even at work".. ( not the company line, but the general feeling in the streets )
David Nutt is an esteemed scientist. He previously chaired the UK’s Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. He is “ David Nutt is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, Royal College of Psychiatrists and the Academy of Medical Sciences.”
Or better yet, legalize a wide range of drugs, slap some warning stickers on them. Like the Nutriscore you see in many countries, where an A rating won’t be too bad for you(green tea) and an F rating will lead to certain death(Fentanyl)
Pacing my drinks (sip every ten minutes; bigger drink of water between sips) and Pedialyte or Gatorade Zero after drinking if I've had a lot is the only system that works for me.
I'm 36 and haven't had a serious hangover[0] in a very long time.
As an added bonus, since I drink way slower when doing this, I can enjoy my drinks more and pay less for fewer drinks.
Additionally, because I drink fewer drinks when I go out, I'm much more selective about what I drink, which means I'll opt for higher quality stuff or a good NA if no good options are available.
YMMV of course.
[0] I define "serious hangover" as "unable to get out of bed; serious nausea; serious brain fog." The worst hangover I've had since doing this is mild brain fog that recovers after a few hours.
That's GABA Labs.[1] They've been working on this for years. They have a product, called "Sentia". It's plant-based and "natural", which avoids some regulatory problems. Their better product is an entirely synthetic molecule.
It's self-limiting. It's said to produce a pleasant buzz, but more of it won't produce drunkenness.
It’s less expensive than a good quality whiskey. Honestly I might try some. 50cl == 500ml, so a liter for £54 doesn’t strike me as even “very expensive”, unless I’ve made some major metric maths error.
I have discovered that for me personally, taking magnesium before, during or shortly after having drinks greatly reduces hangovers. I typically get really strong headaches the day after from 2-3 drinks. If I take a 100mg magnesium supplement it is massively reduced. Alcohol depletes magnesium from your body so I guess it counters that.
In my university days I advocated for a tactical sandwich. Something easy to eat, probably salty like a blt and with a glass of water - had at the time you feel you transition from drunk to hungover (that's what makes it tactical). I'd make it before going out, and set an alarm for 3-5 in the morning. The alarm wakes you up, you inhale the food and drink and fall asleep immediately. Made (in my detailed scientific studies) a big difference.
Drinking less would have been the much more sensible option.
Magnesium saves me too. I've had persistent leg cramps since my teens. If I look at my right calf the wrong way, it seizes up, especially after a night of drinking. All of that went away when I started taking 200mg supplements daily. Big, big difference.
Do you find a certain type works better? Last time I looked into it there were various types like malate and glycinate and I got a bit of analysis paralysis. I also get the leg cramps at night!
Citrate and oxide are laxatives. amazon basic is decent. Threonate is thought to be able to be best absorbed and available to brain. Also very expensive. For bulk, I buy at nootropics depot for Threonate or just Amazon basics.
NAC (N-acetyl-cysteine) is a precursor to glutathione, which is used up by your liver to break down the primary toxic metabolite of alcohol: acetylaldehyde. NAC is known as an OTC hangover "preventative," but don't take it chronically because it is a mucolytic and messes with other processes.
Aside: as a non-alcoholic fermentation, kombucha contains a lot of acetylaldehyde, so avoid it during a hangover.
This is interesting. I take a high absorption magnesium pill daily. I'm not sure what the full reasons are but it seems to improve my sleep apnea and mood (though the mood may be from sleeping better).
But alcohol always seems to counteract that effect.
One glass with each drink (get the water without ice, it’s easier to chug down) and then two or three full glasses before I go to bed. Haven’t had a hangover in 15 years.
I've had a subscription to David Nutt's Sentia Spirits [0] for a few months, which uses an extract from GABA Labs. I enjoy the mild effect and I do think they're onto something, but I have to mix it as it tastes a bit soapy (that's the red, I've yet to try sentia black).
I like the idea that the subscription to Sentia funds the development of Alcarelle (the product mentioned in the article), but the overwhelming reason I subscribe to it is just to support Professor David Nutt[0]. He is a true scientist with true integrity and will be remembered as being on the right side of history. The way he was treated by the UK government at the hands of big booze is an absolute tragedy.
I also bought a few bottles of the red about 18/19 months back. I found that it tasted quite nice when it was mixed with orange juice if I remember right. It did have a very mild relaxing effect but it needed to be stronger, in the end I couldn't justify the price for what it was. I do hope they crack the code though and get something a bit closer to alcohol. And I agree about Nutt, absolute travesty that the government/UK media basically forced him out after his report.
I like how the FAQ has many, many different wordings of “What is in this?” and “How does this work?” with absolutely no information in response to them. It is good to not to have to worry about what is in a thing I’m ingesting or how or if it works at all.
Yeah, four or five clicks and my BS meter is off the charts. Not even so much as a hint as to a keyword to Google for more research. :/
But also, I'm rather intrigued and am doing some more looking now...
EDIT: I can't even tell what the difference between Sentia Red and Black are. I can't tell if one of them actually contains Alcarelle (Which is hard to research since that's GABA Labs' former name). Folks, this is not how you do it.
It is engineered to appeal to those enlightened enough to move past the petty question of “What am I putting into my body?” to the really important questions like “Was it made in A Lab of some sort?”
The article mentions Alcarelle trial dates are in a couple of years, it isn't on the market yet. The formulation in Sentia is just herbs, black and red are just flavours.
Afaict other than water water, vitamins, preservatives, organic acids and glycerine the only common ingredient between the two is magnolia officinalis. Wikipedia mentions two psychoactive compounds in it with a matching mechanism:
AFAICT “Alcarelle” isn’t in the current product. It’s still in development. The current product is claimed to use plant extracts to try to do something similar.
I've been three+ years sober, really can recommend. Life is much different now, things that used to be fun aren't anymore - but I'm making strong connections nevertheless.
For my own personal experience, the worst part about drinking regularly - and I mean nightly if we're being at all honest - seems to be the people you meet. Having cut down drastically and switched from Volume Drinking kind of venues to Boutique Cocktail Venues I find I'm spending my time around a smaller, higher quality group of people while at the same time drinking less and enjoying my few drinks much more.
[EDIT]
I suppose in hanging out with drunks every evening, it normalized the idea of being drunk every night. What I was doing seemed normal because everyone I hung out with was doing the same thing. Thats a good way to start a bad habit.
Alcohol and caffeine are the only two drugs I can think of (okay, in some circles maybe cannabis too) where the response to "I cut this thing out of my life" is often "why?" or "you know you could still do a little?"
One exercise to illustrate the ridiculousness and disrespect of phrases like that is to replace "alcohol" with "crack".
"I don't do crack anymore" would basically never be responded to with "you know, you could still have a little crack every so often!", so what's the difference? Some folks don't do alcohol anymore. And whether that's for health reasons, for "I'm tired of dancing on the bartops" reasons, or just for "I got bored of the scene" reasons, that's their business.
Yep, carry a vice for long enough and it becomes a virtue. It takes a great mind to see this for the folly it is. So can't fault a normal person for not being able to.
I don't know about "per-capita harm" but based on some loose research and opinions of doctors, alcohol is overwhelmingly more harmful overall (to self and to society) than anything else. The next drug on the list is heroin but it's not even close, followed closely by crack, and then crystal meth is an extremely distant fourth place followed by cocaine. https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/206300#2
Yes, it's ridiculous to suggest abstaining from a thing that all known living entities on Earth require for sustenance. I'll give you a hint: that thing is not ethanol. And besides, nobody's saying, by saying "I don't do alcohol anymore", that YOU can't down all the Everclear you want, so I have no idea where this overly-defensive comment came from.
The difference is that it's legal and widely enjoyed by others. Cigarettes are too but there's been a widespread shift in public opinion meaning this doesn't occur.
You'll sometimes see the same stuff said if someone announces they are vegetarian or made another dietary change.
I did the trifecta in the past year of cutting alcohol (still on an indefinite break from that), caffeine (my 7 months sans-caffeine has now ended due to lack of many positive changes; may as well allow myself a Coke every so often if I want), and meat (3mos and counting), so yeah, I definitely get it. I've had inquisitive eyebrow-raises at all three, though fewer of them the more things I changed (folks just started assuming I was in a Trying New Things time, thankfully)
One thing I forgot, is the psychology behind it - it seems in my experience at least, people want people to enjoy things they enjoy. You get this with meat eaters telling vegetarians "just try a steak once to see how it is, it can't hurt", people asking their friends to drink or try drugs (or MMOs), or in my case seafood - hate the stuff, I think my genes are messed up meaning it basically tastes like garbage to me. But people that have known me for a while still ask me to "just try it".
Anyway what I'm getting at, is they will be a lot more open to suggesting these things when the thing is legal, both due to pure numbers of fellow enjoyers you encounter but also social factors of being open about it. Up until they get used to your change, then they might stop.
Saying "I cut this thing out of my life" is one thing, it's another to say "I cut this thing out of my life, and so should you". The former is a statement about one's own preferences; the latter introduces a conversation about how much of the thing should be in the lives of the people in the discussion.
That's two people expressing opinions about how often the other ought have that thing in their life. The person who initiated that should know that.
It's fine to be completely sober, and also fine to tell people you are. If you jump into a conversation about people drinking without hangovers to talk about how you have been sober and recommend others also become sober, then you have to expect someone to reply that moderation is better. Maybe not for the poster (whatever works for them, and if miduil had issues in the past congrats on overcoming them) but for average reader.
Exactly! I think most people who drink need to cut back, also go do things with your friends that aren't just getting drinks.
Its more fun to go for a hike or pickup a hobby/sport than to always drink. But that doesn't mean you can't have a ice cold beer on a beach with your friends. Moderation is the spice of life.
I think most people who say "I've been X years sober" are usually recovering alcoholics (or almost alcoholics). In most cases (except the cases described above), alcoholism is something people are predisposed to. Some people get a high from the process of getting drunk (and stop feeling that high once they are no longer getting more drunk) these people are the ones who usually become alcoholics if they don't just decide to stay sober permanently.
As someone (e.g. me, and presumably you) who does not feel that high, it can be difficult to comprehend how some people feel like they end up on one of the two extremes.
Then there are some people who have done something inappropriate, dangerous, illegal or otherwise unacceptable when drunk and decided to sober up permanently because they can't control themselves when they do get drunk (but otherwise do not have a drinking problem).
I agree that totally rejecting alcohol is probably not useful life advice for most people, but hopefully the above explains why it is useful for some people.
I am sober for about 15 years already. Woke up one morning after a party and the thought came - why the fuck am I doing it? Alcohol was fun at first, later it became utterly boring. No more fun and occasional hangover. Also I've never developed taste for any spirits / wines. So I just stopped. well I may have drank half a glass 1 or 2 times a year during some those 15 years but do not really make anything put of it. I've not taken an oath ;)
"alcoholic" is a loaded overused and archaic term. Just like any other health condition, alcohol use disorder, or AUD has a scale. The DSM has a handy guide that's super easy to diagnose where you are on the spectrum: https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/sites/default/files/DSMfact.pdf
There are people who haven't done anything inappropriate, dangerous, or illegal, yet have ended up in a severe health crisis because they were thinking "hey... I didn't quite reach the threshold of "alcoholic" so I can just continue the lifestyle".
I wouldn't say I was an alcoholic or a drug addict either. Just made the conscious decision that no-alcohol has more benefits/is simpler for me than trying to balance things out.
All the power to ya. I think the only weird thing is that I'm seeing a much larger body of completely sober people telling others to go completely sober.
Just do what works for you it's not a life ending vice to enjoy getting drunk once in a while.
Yeah you can certainly get in a state where your brain gets chemically unbalanced and addicted to the dopamine hit of a drink. I could never have one drink, once I'd had one my brain would want more and more and all logic would go out the window, it would be a death spiral until I blackout. Even though I'm a smart guy and know that will happen.
I recently started on Naltrexone which is a opioid blocker which stops the brain from getting this pleasure reward, and it's a game changer. Now I feel no euphoria when I drink at all, and I can stop whenever I want. Would seriously recommend everyone struggling to look into it.
I have naltrexone and while it’s no miracle drug it does help. I find it makes me feel weird and sick for 2-3 days after I take it, but it does help a lot with cravings. If you’re doing the Sinclair method you have to be really diligent to take it at least 45 minutes before your first drink or it won’t be as effective.
If you take it daily you also are supposed to wear a bracelet since it effectively makes you immune to regular painkillers so if you were to get into a car accident or something they need to know not to give you morphine since it won’t have its intended effect
Overall I would say it’s a decent solution if you have a problem like OP has, but unless you take it every day it won’t solve crippling alcoholism for you. The scientific literature really only backs taking it every day and say the efficacy of the Sinclair method long term is not statistically significant. But it does help me, since being able to not drink for me is pretty easy, but once I flip the drink switch on it’s hard to stop - basically exact situation as parent poster
Yeah I do the Sinclair method. I wasn't a daily drinker, it was once or twice a week socially, but it was unstoppable binge drinking.
It certainly works in my case. Now when I have another drink, I choose to do it, and it feels like I'm wading against water forcing myself to get it. Before, my brain would go on autopilot and order them automatically.
Some people can. Many people cant. Many people also lie to themselves and others about how much they drink. Regardless, drinking is bad for you in a whole slew of ways.
But sure. Some people can have a drink or two once in a while. Just like some people can smoke a cig or two once in a while. Just like some people can insert other thing that is unhealthy for you and addictive.
Alcohol is a social lubricant in small quantities. I think the overcorrected to sobriety people forget that.
I like a glass of wine with dinner for example I don't need to get plastered after for that to be enjoyable. If that shaves a year off my life I'm fine with that.
There are a lot of people who don't have the self-control to only "have a drink once in a while", and often their lives are adversely affected by their addition to alcohol. Don't suggest alcohol to people who have fought to stay sober and have to persistently work to resist the temptation.
For me: being around drunk people for hours on end gets very tedious and you're no longer desensitised to your eardrums being pounded into the centre of your brain by the "less talking, more drinking" music volume.
God the absurdly loud music sucks. I don’t care what I’m inebriated by or how inebriated I am, it’s obnoxious. Bonus obnoxious-points to the restaurants who blast music. There’s two I can think of in Boston and while the food was great I’ll never go back because I could barely talk to my partner. Like, what’s the purpose of music that loud in that setting?
This is made worse by the modern sparse/industrial designs in a lot of newer restaurants. Exposed blank walls and wide open areas for echoes to proliferate. No carpet. No wall hangings. Concrete everywhere.
I think the purpose is to make you drink more when you're there because you can't talk and then to get you to vamoose and free the table for another diner rather than having a pleasant-to-you but unprofitable-to-them postprandial chat.
* building an arcade cabinet in my basement (I'm a software developer, very little experience with wood working and other hardware stuff)
* waking up in the morning and being excited for the day
I don't know about building an arcade cabinet, but all of these other things are both more fun and more efficient with alcohol. All of the Japanese I have learnt has been due to alcohol. You also are more daring when drunk, so you'll push yourself harder when learning skateboarding.
Sounds like the things that are "not fun" were pointless activities in the first place and you're blaming alcohol for having chosen yourself to waste your time.i
Learning skateboarding is more efficient when you’re drunk? What absolute nonsense. This comment just reeks of trying to justify your own personal need for drinking. “Everything is easier when I’m drunk” is classic cope from someone who needs alcohol to get through life.
It reminds me of when all my friend and I used to smoke weed daily. “Everything is better when high, you may as well just always be high”. The reality is that when you break your addiction things become more enjoyable while sober. I used to not even watch a movie unless I was high because it didn’t interest me enough. Low and behold, when I was no longer addicted to weed movies became more interesting again.
Never had a problem with alcohol, but post-30 I've decided to remove it entirely from my life. Even a little makes me feel off the next day, exacerbates IBS symptoms, and in general just hasn't been fun for a while.
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[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 255 ms ] threadThe one that really gets me is pain killers. I had to recover from surgery in the hospital for a few days where I couldn't do anything but lay there and focus on the pain. The only thing they we're allowed to give me was Tramadol which I can only describe as "it doesn't make any of the pain go away, it increases your ability to put up with it." The doctors know it's shit, the nurses know it's shit, they were apologizing constantly about it. We had all the tools available to make me not suffer at all during the experience but think that "getting high" is so terribly evil it's worth suffering for.
People often end up rehospitalized or denied care entirely because their pain or anxiety goes unmanaged or because they "might maybe be drug seekers".
Our current laws have fast tracked ordinary people to heroin or otherwise dealers. Difficult to imagine that wasn't part of the point of them...
I am not familiar with those, can someone give some examples of these types of beers?
https://learn.kegerator.com/london-brown-ale/
Feels like these days the selection of cask ale is more limited but you have more variations on an IPA than you can shake a stick at.
Their London Calling is 3.5%.
http://freewheelbrewing.com/?p=312
Yes, I buy Brew Dog and Crew Republic because they are good, but I just wish there was a local brewery around the corner. I live in a city of 700000, it _should_ be possible if not all the other people were blinded by the big guys' advertising.
If you’re looking for the decent American lager style, I can see that being a bit more tricky.
Moosehead for example makes a Moosehead Light for the states at 4%, but they also offer Cracked Canoe which is only 3.2% but not sold in the states (available in the Canada, UK and Costa Rica of all places where I tried it).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shandy
Because of the restrictions though, craft breweries have been making some great <3,5% beers that they sell at supermarkets.
Jesus that sounds terrible. I get the good intent I suppose but the hell..
There is a theory that this law is why craft beer boomed in Colorado. It is easier for small breweries to sell beer through a mom & pop liquor store than a national chain grocery store. Folks were more used to buying beer at liquor stores than other states.
Hope you enjoy your visit!
Ideally low alchol beer would have a mild tax discount to encourage sustainable consumption.
But taxes are so high, that even low-alcohol drinks are still expensive.
A 3% beer is taxed ~US$1.25 for a half liter.
https://www.skatteetaten.no/en/business-and-organisation/vat...
Makes a nice change of pace. Plus you can usually have one (and just one) and still drive.
I bet/hope there are less harmful alternatives out there but unfortunately there's not a lot research afaik on different chemicals.
People are objectively noticing that they can get a social lubricant without a hangover, without liver damage, without esophageal damage, without lung damage (not an alcohol thing, just a reference to smokers of anything), and that alcohol is more toxic than more tightly regulated drugs.
I believe the person you were responding to was pointing that out, while I believe you wrote a false dilemma as nobody here is talking about abstaining from mind altering substances, they find it absurd to try to force making alcohol the substance of choice, given that harm reduction already exists for recreational use of other substances.
Psilocybin (mushrooms)
examples of substances that fit the criteria above and where many people would like more research to exist on longer term recreational use.
But to stay on point, the original article is "Alcolhol without the hangover" - keyword "hangover". A hangover is a symptom you have overdone it, not just a few drinks with friends while socializing. It's more like, "I can't remember what we did after 6 beers and then shots", sort of mentality, and not eating or drinking enough water. That is when you have poisoned yourself.
40% of convicted murderers used alcohol before or during the crime.
70% of all drunk-driving fatalities were with drivers with a blood-alcohol level of 0.15%+.
[1] https://www.news-medical.net/health/Why-do-Humans-have-an-Ap...
Such animals don’t have an alcohol industry and a logistics network though.
Maybe that's what Guinan was always serving at the Enterprise 'bar', synthetic alcohol. (Does Data ingest it? Can he?)
There are plenty of instances in Star Trek of people drinking the real stuff though. Picard himself had a family winery. I’m guessing he was amazed at a bottle of Romulan Ale, which was illegal in the same way Cuban cigars were here.
(That said, I don't know if it's been canonically stated Blood Wine is ethanol based, so future writers might just decide that's because Blood Wine is based on methanol rather than ethanol, and the ABV is unsurprising…)
But yes startrek was/awesome regardless.
Scotty demands, and eventually obtains from Guinan, an actual bottle of Aldebaran whiskey. He has the holodeck recreate the bridge of the original Enterprise and drinks the whiskey there.
Picard shows up, Scotty offers Picard the bottle, then at the last moment warns him that it's real alcohol. Picard responds "I know, who do you think gave it to Guinan?"
Any beer recommendations? I haven't tried much outside of the locally-supplied zero-alcohol Heineken and Corona.
Where? In eastern US, Athletic Brewing makes really good hoppy ales. The ones from Brooklyn Brewery are good too, but a bit heavy for my taste.
In continental Europe, Germany has a large selection of lagers, good but not great. Clausthaler is an example. Also, I like the Czech beer Staropramen.
For wheat beer, the bigger German what beer breweries offer a NA variant these days, and those are quite good. I'm thinking of Erdinger and Paulaner, which are probably your best bet internationally. Don't tell anyone I know, but my secret recommendation however is Öttinger NA wheat beer. Those are cheap and taste very good (fellow Germans: If you don't believe me, do a blind tasting). But don't ever the mistake of buying or even drinking their normal Pilsner/Export beer - those taste like pi... ;-)
If you're ever in Germany, is "Mönchshof Radler Alkoholfrei". Radler is "shandy", a mixture of beer and lemonade. I've yet to meet anyone who likes beer but not this.
However most alcohol free beers don’t taste nice. Takes a bit of shopping around to find a brand that doesn’t taste like Ovomaltine.
I been having no-alcohol beer with some sugar in it (93 cals a bottle). It's way way more tasty.
Holds true for other substances as well. My brother absolutely loves weed and finds it relaxing but I cannot use even a small amount without crippling levels of anxiety. Meanwhile anything that works on GABA (alcohol included) completely removes anxiety for me in a way that's so enjoyable I have to be careful with the whole class of substances. Because of a genetic quirk modafinil has little to no effect if I take it but I use prescribed amphetamines 3-5 days a week. Human bodies are complicated!
I was shocked, about 15 years ago when some Italian friends (who were very drug familiar) said how much they liked that they could buy Benadryl (diphenhydramine) w/o a prescription here in the USA.
I was like "????*" this is not a party drug.
(note: there are folks who use it in massive overdoses as an ACh deliriant [1] but that's not my cup of tea)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deliriant
He claimed it allowed him to make his rounds and sample everyone's beer without getting drunk/hungover.
https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2014/07/10/327854051/al...
https://www.mashed.com/439154/can-eating-yeast-really-preven....
If anything, eating yeasts should make things worse, as yeasts might have a chance to digest some sugars and produce more alcohol (unlikely to happen, if you ask me)
I tried it once but didn't feel anything -- it would be nice to give it another go.
I agree it is a nice drug but one friend of mine did have his family stage an intervention because of his abuse of it.
Out of curiosity I tried the hangover cure on Nootropics Depot and found it to not really help at all. Not drinking helps the most so I stick with that normally these days.
[1] https://www.cancer.org/cancer/risk-prevention/understanding-...
This is not ambiguous: There is no safe amount that does not affect health.[1]
"We cannot talk about a so-called safe level of alcohol use. It doesn’t matter how much you drink – the risk to the drinker’s health starts from the first drop of any alcoholic beverage. The only thing that we can say for sure is that the more you drink, the more harmful it is – or, in other words, the less you drink, the safer it is,"
It is possible that a totally sober and mentally healthy person can determine that the benefits of alcohol counterbalance the health risks. I've heard a dozen meandering explanations here and they all boil down to "I like it and it seems to be helping my life more than hurting it." That seems reasonable.
However not everyone has the same risk profile, or even the same moral grounding, so demonstrating to others that there are few relative risks to alcohol consumption or not (based on your personal threat model) biases the threat models of others.
It helps nothing to continue to reject some of the strongest correlations we have and risks imbuing incorrect epistemic biases to others via demonstration. Accept the fact that you are taking a risk instead of trying to brush off the scientific consensus and be vocal about the risks given the fact that this literature is not accessible to most people.
[1]https://www.who.int/europe/news/item/04-01-2023-no-level-of-...
This is the same poorly argued version of: “Milk is a gateway drug” when we’re evaluating a claim like “x% of y users used z drug before starting y, therefore z induces y” but actually irrelevant when asking for causal precursors.
That is a completely separate type of claim and argument.
“Risk to health” increases with abstention of water, the direct opposite of the mechanism for alcohol.
It’s pretty accurate at this point
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actuarial_science
Many other studies have found a j-curve effect. So there is ambiguity, and there likely will be until someone does a long-term randomized controlled trial which is incredibly difficult.
https://www.wikihow.com/Minimize-Cancer-Causing-Acetaldehyde...
Especially beer has improved a lot but it's not there yet, I don't see how developing synthetic 'alcohol' will help when we still can't remove, or make the drink without causing, real alcohol?
As for hormone shots to treat an already acquired hangover... It seems niche/less than ideal - I don't think many people would want that as a regular expected thing, 'I am going to drink heavily and then take a hormone shot in the morning' sort of thing? And isn't it a solved ('banana bag') problem? Or is it the idea that you could buy injectable hormones for home use whereas you can't (and probably shouldn't want to) self-cannulate at home, and that's the only way(?) banana bags can work (because it takes more than reasonably fits in a syringe? Needs to be administered at a more gradual flow?)?
Personally I hope we find a way to remove alcohol without impacting taste at all, and then you can buy either version of the same drinks. I'd probably still get both, I do acknowledge the alcohol plays some role in me enjoying the drinks, but I can imagine having say an alcoholic pint or two, then alcohol-free. Or an alcoholic gin & tonic followed by AF wine. But until it's as good...
That depends on your goals. I like to catch a buzz once in a while but the majority of the time I'm drinking is because I really love the flavor of my favorite cocktails and the quality would be very poor as mocktails.
Using a Mai Tai as an example, of I could get a couple 0ABV rums, I could sub clarified orange juice for the orange liqueur and probably have something pretty good with no booze in it. I'd be quite happy with that.
I can't really think of a great example, but crisp (US: chip) flavours sometimes seem recognisable despite the actual ingredients being a concoction of a few not-what-the-flavour-is things.
I wish we could figure out a better system for accessing medications like this — like perhaps allowing pharmacists to prescribe low risk medicines in more states.
There is a sizable minority of people who don't have a "governor" when it comes to drinking, we call them alcoholics.
Then there is a big group of people who have some moderation, but part of that "moderation" are the hangovers and by the late 20's they start to hurt much more than consecutive nights of boozing can offer.
Let's hope this is yet another pseudo-science piece to fluff some careers and little more, otherwise I'm guessing it could in the early 80's again when coke "was fun and gave you energy to do more even at work".. ( not the company line, but the general feeling in the streets )
Source: Wikipedia
I'm 36 and haven't had a serious hangover[0] in a very long time.
As an added bonus, since I drink way slower when doing this, I can enjoy my drinks more and pay less for fewer drinks.
Additionally, because I drink fewer drinks when I go out, I'm much more selective about what I drink, which means I'll opt for higher quality stuff or a good NA if no good options are available.
YMMV of course.
[0] I define "serious hangover" as "unable to get out of bed; serious nausea; serious brain fog." The worst hangover I've had since doing this is mild brain fog that recovers after a few hours.
Just drink alot of water during your drinking session or before bed.
It's self-limiting. It's said to produce a pleasant buzz, but more of it won't produce drunkenness.
You can buy Sentia. It's insanely expensive.[2]
[1] https://gabalabs.com/
[2] https://sentiaspirits.com/collections/non-alcoholic-spirits
Drinking less would have been the much more sensible option.
Aside: as a non-alcoholic fermentation, kombucha contains a lot of acetylaldehyde, so avoid it during a hangover.
Does that make kombucha bad for you?
But alcohol always seems to counteract that effect.
I like the idea that the subscription to Sentia funds the development of Alcarelle (the product mentioned in the article), but the overwhelming reason I subscribe to it is just to support Professor David Nutt[0]. He is a true scientist with true integrity and will be remembered as being on the right side of history. The way he was treated by the UK government at the hands of big booze is an absolute tragedy.
[0]: https://sentiaspirits.com/ [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Nutt
But also, I'm rather intrigued and am doing some more looking now...
EDIT: I can't even tell what the difference between Sentia Red and Black are. I can't tell if one of them actually contains Alcarelle (Which is hard to research since that's GABA Labs' former name). Folks, this is not how you do it.
I was also annoyed by the FAQ.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnolia_officinalis
[EDIT] I suppose in hanging out with drunks every evening, it normalized the idea of being drunk every night. What I was doing seemed normal because everyone I hung out with was doing the same thing. Thats a good way to start a bad habit.
One exercise to illustrate the ridiculousness and disrespect of phrases like that is to replace "alcohol" with "crack".
"I don't do crack anymore" would basically never be responded to with "you know, you could still have a little crack every so often!", so what's the difference? Some folks don't do alcohol anymore. And whether that's for health reasons, for "I'm tired of dancing on the bartops" reasons, or just for "I got bored of the scene" reasons, that's their business.
The difference is the huge influence alcohol has had on all human cultures throughout history. Yes, it's poison, but it's our poison.
FTFY :P
That article is vague and I don’t think the overall methodology is that good, however it does say:
“ The most harmful drugs to the individual are heroin, crack and crystal meth “
if the same number of people who regularly consume alcohol chose to use crack instead.. well I bet the situation would be a whole lot worse.
Or replace it with "oxygen" and see how ridiculous it is to suggest absteining from it. See how bad analogies cut both ways?
A, ad-hominem pop psychology, the hallmark of every good argument.
You'll sometimes see the same stuff said if someone announces they are vegetarian or made another dietary change.
Anyway what I'm getting at, is they will be a lot more open to suggesting these things when the thing is legal, both due to pure numbers of fellow enjoyers you encounter but also social factors of being open about it. Up until they get used to your change, then they might stop.
Saying "I cut this thing out of my life" is one thing, it's another to say "I cut this thing out of my life, and so should you". The former is a statement about one's own preferences; the latter introduces a conversation about how much of the thing should be in the lives of the people in the discussion.
That's two people expressing opinions about how often the other ought have that thing in their life. The person who initiated that should know that.
You can drink or don't drink I don't care. I'm saying that you don't need to feel bad about what you do as long as you like it.
Its more fun to go for a hike or pickup a hobby/sport than to always drink. But that doesn't mean you can't have a ice cold beer on a beach with your friends. Moderation is the spice of life.
As someone (e.g. me, and presumably you) who does not feel that high, it can be difficult to comprehend how some people feel like they end up on one of the two extremes.
Then there are some people who have done something inappropriate, dangerous, illegal or otherwise unacceptable when drunk and decided to sober up permanently because they can't control themselves when they do get drunk (but otherwise do not have a drinking problem).
I agree that totally rejecting alcohol is probably not useful life advice for most people, but hopefully the above explains why it is useful for some people.
There are people who haven't done anything inappropriate, dangerous, or illegal, yet have ended up in a severe health crisis because they were thinking "hey... I didn't quite reach the threshold of "alcoholic" so I can just continue the lifestyle".
Just do what works for you it's not a life ending vice to enjoy getting drunk once in a while.
I recently started on Naltrexone which is a opioid blocker which stops the brain from getting this pleasure reward, and it's a game changer. Now I feel no euphoria when I drink at all, and I can stop whenever I want. Would seriously recommend everyone struggling to look into it.
If you take it daily you also are supposed to wear a bracelet since it effectively makes you immune to regular painkillers so if you were to get into a car accident or something they need to know not to give you morphine since it won’t have its intended effect
Overall I would say it’s a decent solution if you have a problem like OP has, but unless you take it every day it won’t solve crippling alcoholism for you. The scientific literature really only backs taking it every day and say the efficacy of the Sinclair method long term is not statistically significant. But it does help me, since being able to not drink for me is pretty easy, but once I flip the drink switch on it’s hard to stop - basically exact situation as parent poster
It certainly works in my case. Now when I have another drink, I choose to do it, and it feels like I'm wading against water forcing myself to get it. Before, my brain would go on autopilot and order them automatically.
But sure. Some people can have a drink or two once in a while. Just like some people can smoke a cig or two once in a while. Just like some people can insert other thing that is unhealthy for you and addictive.
I like a glass of wine with dinner for example I don't need to get plastered after for that to be enjoyable. If that shaves a year off my life I'm fine with that.
* hanging out at a bar and talking to intoxicated people
* house parties
In exchange, new things are fun:
* skateboarding
* learning Japanese
* building an arcade cabinet in my basement (I'm a software developer, very little experience with wood working and other hardware stuff)
* waking up in the morning and being excited for the day
You should update your blog with the arcade cab project!
* learning Japanese
* building an arcade cabinet in my basement (I'm a software developer, very little experience with wood working and other hardware stuff)
* waking up in the morning and being excited for the day
I don't know about building an arcade cabinet, but all of these other things are both more fun and more efficient with alcohol. All of the Japanese I have learnt has been due to alcohol. You also are more daring when drunk, so you'll push yourself harder when learning skateboarding.
Sounds like the things that are "not fun" were pointless activities in the first place and you're blaming alcohol for having chosen yourself to waste your time.i
It reminds me of when all my friend and I used to smoke weed daily. “Everything is better when high, you may as well just always be high”. The reality is that when you break your addiction things become more enjoyable while sober. I used to not even watch a movie unless I was high because it didn’t interest me enough. Low and behold, when I was no longer addicted to weed movies became more interesting again.
Plus no one needs those calories.