This was effective in stopping me from drinking til age 20. Too drunk to google it right now, can someone enlighten me about this phrase?

In that vein, I propose another slogan: "Capitalism kills brain cells."

  • Pezevenk [he/him]
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    edit-2
    4 years ago

    Alcohol isnt innocuous, the health effects are well studied.

    Yes, and never had it been shown that low or moderate consumption carries any sort of serious risk anywhere near conclusively.

    because there’s a lot of money to be made by deceiving people about that as well.

    Uhhhh I'm very sorry to inform you that there is tons of money to be made by doing the opposite too. Making people panic about everything is how a lot of media as well as the health and fitness industry survive on.

    • RedDawn [he/him]
      ·
      4 years ago

      You're just factually wrong, moderate drinking severely raises your risk of cancer among many other adverse health effects, this isn't some open question, it's a settled matter. Alcohol has been well known as a carcinogen for literally decades.

      • Pezevenk [he/him]
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        edit-2
        4 years ago

        You’re just factually wrong, moderate drinking severely raises your risk of cancer among many other adverse health effects, this isn’t some open question, it’s a settled matter.

        Settled you say? Yeah I saw some research some other person posted which was supposed to show that there is no "safe amount of alcohol", which was proved by the fact that out of a group which did drink a bit of alcohol with 100,000 members 918 people experienced at some point in their lives some kind of health issue associated with alcohol as opposed to 914 people who didn't drink in the other group of the same size. SEVERE INCREASE IN RISK!!! NO SAFE AMOUNT OF ALCOHOL!!! NO THIS IS TOTALLY CONCLUSIVE!!!

        But yeah the clickbait articles know very well how scary it looks if you find some rare complication the risk of which was found to be increased by 80% or whatever, ignoring that partially this means something akin to 1 additional case in a million.

        Everything is a "carcinogen". Well, not literally, but it's ridiculous how commonplace "carcinogens" are. The sun is a major carcinogen. But then again some sunscreens are carcinogens too. So you could try staying inside, but then you run into vitamin D deficiency, plus everything in your home is probably a carcinogen too. There are 3 possible responses to this information: 1) make a lot cabin in the woods and carefully time your sun exposure, 2) sit at the corner and cry, or 3) stop panicking about everything but maybe don't sit at the sizzling sun unprotected for too long. Or don't be white, that also kind of reduces your risk.

        • RedDawn [he/him]
          ·
          4 years ago

          Yes, it's settled science.

          No, not everything is a carcinogen. Alcohol is recognized as a group 1 carcinogen up there with abstestos lol. Putting it into your body increases your risk of cancer significantly. It's not some debatable edge case.

          I smoke cigarettes but you don't see me out here making absurd arguments and twisting myself into a pretzel trying to rationalize it with weird arguments about how not smoking is the same as sitting in the corner crying. I just accept that I'm increasing my risk of cancer just like all the drinking I've done increases my risk of cancer.

          • Pezevenk [he/him]
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            edit-2
            4 years ago

            Group 1 carcinogen means there is sufficient evidence it can cause cancer, which, yeah, it's true. It's not a category that quantifies how carcinogenic something is, it has to do with certainty. To be precise, acetaldehyde is the substance that is classified as a group 1 carcinogen. Acetaldehyde is also found in fruit btw. If the "no safe level" nonsense is to be believed, then you should probably stop eating fruit too. So yeah, apples are also "right up there with asbestos".

            Nitrates are also considered afaik a group 1 carcinogen or at least a probable carcinogen and you can find them in celery or lettuce. It's fucking ridiculous how many things contain carcinogens. There is no reason to panic about everything, just be careful with the more dangerous stuff. It is safe, like exercise is safe or passing the street is safe.

            • RedDawn [he/him]
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              edit-2
              4 years ago

              Acetaldehyde is one carcinogen, ethanol (literally just alcohol) itself is another group one carcinogen, so no, you weren't being "precise", you just didn't read far enough down the list.

              Let me know when celery and lettuce start killing millions of people every single year and you may have a point with all these absurd false analogies you keep making.

              It is safe, like exercising is safe or passing the street is safe

              No, alcohol is a dangerous and addictive drug, this is not a proper comparison. A more apt comparison would be smoking cigarettes or using opiates.

              • Pezevenk [he/him]
                ·
                4 years ago

                Ethanol becomes acetaldehyde in the liver. Acetaldehyde is the most dangerous chemical related to drinking, it's also what causes alcohol poisoning. Also ripe fruit does also contain small quantities of ethanol, which are probably larger than you imagine.

                Let me know when celery and lettuce start killing millions of people every single year and you may have a point with all these absurd false analogies you keep making

                You're making the absurd false analogy between light drinking and asbestos or any other group 1 carcinogen, don't blame me. Yeah it's obviously stupid to compare eating a ripe apple to radon poisoning, I know that, that's my point.

                No, alcohol is a dangerous and addictive drug, this is not a proper comparison. A more apt comparison would be smoking cigarettes or using opiates.

                With cigarettes maybe, not with opiates, that would also be a stupid comparison. The conversation around addiction is kind of stupid because very few things are particularly inherently addictive unless you are already abusing them. No one gets withdrawal symptoms because they used to drink a few beers a week and then they stopped. Some opiates are different, they require much less use for someone to start craving them, hence why it is kind of a stupid comparison.

                • RedDawn [he/him]
                  ·
                  4 years ago

                  No, alcohol to opiates is an apt comparison. Alcohol is extremely addictive and anybody who uses it at all runs the risk of developing addiction to it. Many people start with a few beers a week and end up addicted and drinking themselves literally to death. You're simply massively understating how dangerous alcohol is as a drug.

                  • Pezevenk [he/him]
                    ·
                    4 years ago

                    Lol yeah OK I'd say you don't know anyone who drinks alcohol but that would be kind of weird and I don't know how it is even possible. What you are describing isn't how most addictions work BTW with the exception of a few things. Almost invariably alcoholics become addicted because they start drinking a bunch over a period of time to cope with something. It starts as psychological, not physiological. The vast majority of people drinks at least a little bit every now and then. In most countries alcoholism is very rare, except for a few ones where you can pinpoint very specific reasons why it became so common in the first place. Even more interestingly, the countries with the highest rates of alcoholism aren't even necessarily the ones with the most alcohol consumption per capita. Alcohol addiction isn't something that just randomly appears in people who drink a little bit. Alcohol addiction begins when people start drinking larger and larger quantities in order to cope with something (or possibly for some other reason, but that is the most common), until they drink so much and so frequently that dependence sets in. The alternative is peer pressure from a partner or family etc. It literally almost never just randomly happens to some random light drinker.