Folks, can we kindly get back on topic – i.e., the healthful effects of alcohol consumption – and avoid direct commentary about one another, or how or what any of our fellow HOs say or not say, cite or not cite, to something.
Thank you.
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I hadn’t followed the current recommendation but 14 drinks a week for men is this unbelievable high
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Oh, are you tasting and spitting?
I am not even close to half the amount in a week.
And 7 drinks for women.
I actually don’t think it’s that high.
Consider that many people will often have a drink with dinner (glass of wine). Even if you don’t do it every day of the week, even 4 of 5 times a week, that’s gets you 1/3 of the way there for men, and nearly all the way there for women.
Then throw in the occasional “happy hour” where you can easily down 3-4 drinks, if not more. If you go to happy hour 2x a week, which is pretty typical, you’re easily at the 14 drink threshold for men, and you’re probably considered alcoholic if you’re female.
And don’t’ forget all those men (and women) who can down a case of beers just watching their favorite sporting event on a weekend day.
Getting people to drink only, say, 5 “drinks” per week (which is what Dr. Aashish Didwania in the NPR article recommends) would make some people feel like they’ve turned Mormon.
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Also consider the many times and places of yore where wine and beer were the only safe things to drink…
I guess you might be right but I wonder if you have seen any statistics around people drinking with their meal or going to happy hours etc
And what if your job is writing about wine? A lot to unpack here.
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On this subject, as for caffeine and eggs and butter and who knows what else, the 'scientific community has gone back and forth too many times for me to pay any attention to them at any time. One important thing, pointed out by you and hinted at by others, is that those who don’t ‘drink’ have no understanding of those who DO ‘drink.’ They speak of drinking ‘alcohol’ when in fact most of us do NOT drink alcohol. We drink wine and beer and spirits containing alcohol, but that is not the same thing. We drink socially and convivially and appreciatively far more often than those who drink to excess and oblivion.
I’m 84 and in very good health, joints occasionally excepted, and have the good fortune to look and act rather younger. When asked my secret I say Red wine, Red meat and Black tobacco, butv the trutyh is the love of a good woman. And the company of good friends. At dinner nightly I’ll have 2 glasses of wine and that’s it; if dining (almost always at home) with friends, maybe three, and afterward I’ll bring out specimens from my malt collection in small doses. Somehow we’re all able to navigate upright at the end and feel no worse for the wear in the morning. Those now preaching to us their new Gospel of No Amount of Alcohol Is Safe do not reckon with the likelihood that a life of no mire conviviality than can be obtained from a bottle of seltzer is a dry life in more ways than one.
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Yours is also a good argument for smoking and chewing tobacco.
I have a feeling that the mounting epidemiological evidence against alcohol (as opposed to the compounds that occur in , e.g., wines) isn’t going to flip.
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