# Drinking culture
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drinking-culture/715597
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [March 21, 2015, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drinking-culture/715597 "2015-03-21T13:25:42Z")
**Posts on this page:** 9
**Page:** 5
### Author:  [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)
#### Post date: [March 25, 2015, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drinking-culture/715597/81 "2015-03-25T16:53:51Z")
Not understanding your confusion.
Some here are arguing against Prohibition while\* no one here is arguing for it\*. Specifically I am stating that I do not think Prohibition is a good idea and do not think so even for heroin, even moreso for adult heroin use (again as that use has less impact on others than the person making the “educated” choice). I honestly cannot understand why you find that objectionable. Mind you childhood use (which is a major problem in my communities West of Chicago) is a completely different matter. But the subject is allowing adults to make decisions that harm them, up to some limit of imposing harms on others. Heroin fits the criteria of not harming others more than does alcohol overuse.
The relevance of that should be far from confusing.
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### Author:  [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)
#### Post date: [March 25, 2015, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drinking-culture/715597/82 "2015-03-25T17:12:04Z")
We’re good. I misunderstood something, thanks for clearing it up.
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### Author:  [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)
#### Post date: [March 25, 2015, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drinking-culture/715597/83 "2015-03-25T19:20:26Z")
Okay the mortality data. Gets interesting. The best I could find was this [2011 BMJ meta=analysis](http://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.d671)
> [@](#):
>
> In this review of 84 studies of alcohol consumption and cardiovascular disease, alcohol consumption at 2.5–14.9 g/day (about ≤1 drink a day) was consistently associated with a 14–25% reduction in the risk of all outcomes assessed compared with abstaining from alcohol. Such a reduction in risk is potentially of clinical importance, but consumption of larger amounts of alcohol was associated with higher risks for stroke incidence and mortality.
>
> To our knowledge, this systematic review and meta-analysis is the most comprehensive to date …
>
> … Our analysis of multiple cardiovascular outcomes also shows the complexities inherent in the study of alcohol consumption. Modest alcohol intake was associated with lower stroke incidence and mortality, but the risk increased substantially with heavier drinking (that is, a J shaped relation). Furthermore, the association of alcohol consumption is complex and differs by stroke subtype, with a slightly lower risk of ischaemic stroke but higher risk of haemorrhagic stroke. These differential associations probably reflect the known antithrombotic effects of alcohol.107 Alcohol consumption, particularly at high doses, also seems to have an adverse association with blood pressure that may account, in part, for the higher risk of haemorrhagic stroke associated with heavier drinking.108 Additionally, our analysis does not consider other known detrimental effects of high alcohol consumption.3 Therefore, our findings lend further support for limits on alcohol consumption.106 109 …
But complicated stuff. Potential confounders abound. Are abstainers less social (with social connections of well established potective impact)? So on. Sorry but that’s the best I can come up with without doing more than I have the time to do.
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### Author:  [@Atomic\_Mama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atomic_Mama)
#### Post date: [March 25, 2015, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drinking-culture/715597/84 "2015-03-25T21:59:02Z")
> [@kayaker](#):
>
> 😉
Yup! Thanks for the quote; I just played this on my radio show yesterday 🆒
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### Author:  [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)
#### Post date: [March 25, 2015, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drinking-culture/715597/85 "2015-03-25T21:59:24Z")
Also[this one](http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=769554):
> [@](#):
>
> In this updated meta-analysis of 34 prospective studies, findings were pooled from more than 1 million subjects and almost 100 000 deaths from any cause. We observed a J-shaped relationship between total mortality and alcohol intake, showing that a low level of alcohol consumption is significantly associated with reduced total mortality, while high-level consumption is associated with increased mortality. Our meta-analysis, including 10 articles published after 2000 that could not be considered in former meta-analyses,9- 11 also took advantage of a novel approach recently developed by a team of researchers, including one of us (V.B.).11 Special attention was paid to differences between sexes and to the role of confounding.
>
> …The dose-response curves are similar for both sexes when alcohol intake is light, but they differ with heavier intake; in fact, the inverse association in women apparently disappears at doses lower than in men, in agreement with previous findings.10 Women are more exposed than men to death for any cause at moderate to high levels of alcohol consumption, probably owing to increasing risk of cancer
It must be noted that the reduction below abstinance levels was in men up to 4 drinks a day - beyonf what is usually called “moderate.”
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### Author:  [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)
#### Post date: [March 25, 2015, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drinking-culture/715597/86 "2015-03-25T22:02:58Z")
All I can add is that an obsession with the numbers does not tell the whole tale. You can statisticulate until hell thaws, but it doesn’t address individual variance, or choices.
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### Author:  [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)
#### Post date: [March 26, 2015, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drinking-culture/715597/87 "2015-03-26T00:45:56Z")
Y’know you’re right. What does it matter that fewer people die in car accidents if seat belts are used? That doesn’t address individual variation or choice. Lots of people don’t use seat belts and are fine. I’ve heard some people were saved by not wearing seat belts! Much better to go by what you hear and well “believe” than silly things like actual facts and figures and statisticulations.
In any case this latest flurry of figures was in response to a request from **pool**. And the last one does seem to confirm what (s)he had heard, depending on the value for “heavy drinker”: males having 2 to 4 drinks a day and females 1 to 2, which by most definitions is within the heavy range despite those authors calling that “low”, had lower mortality rates than abstainers. Above that the drinkers’ mortality rate was greater and ket increasing with greater intake but still.
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### Author:  [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)
#### Post date: [March 26, 2015, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drinking-culture/715597/88 "2015-03-26T01:44:29Z")
Interesting statistics. Still going for what makes me happy though. Apologies for any inconvenience I cause the rest of y’all. Cheers! 😉
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### Author:  [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)
#### Post date: [March 26, 2015, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drinking-culture/715597/89 "2015-03-26T02:44:26Z")
> [@DSeid](#):
>
> Can’t find that but I can find that [a Gallup poll](http://www.gallup.com/poll/174074/beer-americans-adult-beverage-choice-year.aspx) of those 18 and over finds somewhat similar numbers (albeit you need to calculate some to dig 'em out, as they report some as percent of those who say they ever drink). “Most drink” so long as you count drinking once every 3 months or less as drinking (some rounding errors and they do not report any number for more than once in 3 months but less than once a week):
>
> 36% of the total are complete abstainers
> 6% of the total drink less than once every 3 months
> 16% last drank 3 months ago (so 58% once every 3 months to never)
> 32% 1 to 7 drinks a week
> 6% 8 to 19 drinks a week
> 3% 20 or more (how much more not specified) per week
>
> So less than half of Americans report one or more drinks a week.
>
> Other data, I’d have to dig for the cite, confirm that early 20s tends to be a peak.
>
> Apparently [lower SES is associated with less moderate drinking](http://www.medicaldaily.com/alcohol-use-linked-both-lower-socioeconomic-status-and-genetic-vulnerability-326052). They tend to both drink less and drink more than higher SES groups, but less often in moderation.
>
> Just a statement of fact, not judgment.: heavy drinking, especially beyond the early 20s, is not normative behavior in America.
Does anyone else here find themselves drinking less as they grow older? I had my time in my college days and other periods as a young buck. But I just don’t feel the need as much these days. I’ll go weeks without a drink now, but then meet up with friends and drink a lot over a weekend. I don’t mean like in my college days, but the curve definitely spikes. Then nothing for days and weeks again. I do always celebrate the end of each month with a couple or three large Singha beers.
Part of that is I see so many farangs (Westerners) over here who are here basically to drink, sometimes every waking hour. My age or at least pushing middle age and they’re still acting like overgrown frat boys. A sad sight.
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