Have you ever heard or seen something that initially seemed to be totally fine, until you saw just how truly dangerous it actually is?
What is a much bigger threat than initially presented?
Have you ever heard or seen something that initially seemed to be totally fine, until you saw just how truly dangerous it actually is?
What is a much bigger threat than initially presented?
Some of the best times of my life in my 20s were enabled through alcohol. I traveled the world using my own money, met countless interesting people in pubs and at festivals.
As I sit, fully sober at my workstation in the office some 20 years later, I can think back to those times and can only smile when someone claims it has zero net benefits.
yeah. people drink it because its a damn good social lubricant.
keyword is “net” – you made friends, but the health risks involved may considerably offset that benefit.
i’m sober and have made countless friends sans alcohol, many of them drink themselves; and if alcohol was a contingent on them being my friend, I’m not sure I’d want to be friends with them.
Hard disagree, but that might have a lot to do with me being Scottish.
“Only the people who prayed lived” is an easy statement to make as the dead ones can’t speak for themselves.
“Alcohol is why I have friends” is understandably believed because you’ll never know the life you’d have had had you not drank it.
I get it’s the pillar of many cultures and a welcome one at that, but the fact it’s a proven carcinogen should not be dismissed, forgotten, or trivialized.
Nobody’s denying alcohol has risks — it’s a carcinogen, that’s just a fact. But risk isn’t all-or-nothing. A weekend drink in a social setting is not the same thing as chronic heavy use, and public health research makes that distinction.
The “you’ll never know the life you’d have had without it” line is basically unfalsifiable — you could say that about anything from coffee to football to religion. Humans bond over shared rituals, and in many cultures moderate drinking is one of them. That social connection has measurable wellbeing benefits too.
It being unfalsifiable is the point because it meant to be a pendulum to your unfalsifiable original point that you’re thankful for alcohol because you see it as the reason you have the outcome in life that you did.
Many people have traveled and made friends, they did not need a carcinogen to do it, which nullifies it from being a positive exclusive to alcohol.