"The amount I drank was initially small due to lack of funds. Later I [could] afford more and changed to wine as my main alcohol intake. Over the last quarter of a century I have averaged about 1 glass of red wine a day and an occasional Scottish malt whisky. All this hazard that the study suggests is trivial compared with the enjoyment experienced. A much greater hazard I have to indulge in is crossing roads on foot."
The top-rated comment on "Study Causes Splash, but Here’s Why You Should Stay Calm on Alcohol’s Risks/Harms increase with each additional drink per day, yet they are much smaller than many other risks in our lives." (NYT).
September 8, 2018
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36 comments:
Wine and beer as medicines: dosage, dosage, dosage. It's always about the dosage.
Too bad the NYT is fake news. Probably paid for by Carlo Rossi.
I try to restrict my intake of the NYT, NBC, ABC, CNN, CBS and WaPo to improve my mental health and temperament.
Tank's motto: all things in moderation.
Just a reminder; George Burns lived to 100 while drinking alcohol and smoking cigars.
That comment weirdly echoes a story from the sports news. R.J. Adelman was a scout and skills coach who was killed crossing the street this year. From The Athletic (paywalled):
At the time of his death, R.J. was living in Houston and contemplating whether he wanted to continue in basketball or go back into law. He was crossing the street downtown around noon on Feb. 2 when a car driven by an 80-year-old woman struck him. He died at the hospital a few hours later.
R.J. had dealt with some alcohol issues, but David Adelman says police told the family there was no alcohol in his system at the time of the accident. The woman was not charged in what appears to be a freak accident.
Another article about this (linked to by Instapundit a few weeks ago) showed how the results of the study were either misunderstood or grossly distorted by journalists at major supposedly trusted newspapers. https://cei.org/blog/science-reporters-get-it-wrong-moderate-alcohol-consumption-isnt-dangerous
My Grandmother liked to have a drink whenever possible, but she assured us that she was not an alcoholic who was someone that could not stop. She could stop when he wanted to , but she had never wanted to.
My mother hated to give up martinis but she finally did at 95. She switched to sherry.
She died at 103.
In Britain where I believe they drink lots more than we, it's apparently common for people to do a "reset" - go 2 weeks w/o a single drink - to reset your tolerance level. I'd never heard about this until the last year and it's a great idea. The Brits do seem to drink an awful lot; probably because its such a cold, rainy, dark and miserable place.
so this guy is bragging that he's old and says he drinks every day; but then we find out that he averages ONE glass of wine a day? Great, if you can do it.
Do you all know of people that have ONE glass of wine in a day? Seriously, do you?
The trouble with one glass of wine is that it leads directly to Two glasses of wine, and those two have the same trouble. Alcohol consumption leads to alcohol tolerance, which leads to Increased consumption, which leads to increased tolerance.
The spiral takes longer for some than others, but it's the same spiral.
Sorry, i'll get down off of my tea box now.
One glass of wine per day? I'll drink to that.
Relative risk vs absolute risk, the great trap when discussing studies like this.
(And that’s not even addressing the whole “ correlation does not equal causalogy” discussion)
Cheers!
My motto = Salt Air, Red Wine, & Olive Oil (every day)
>Tank said...
>Tank's motto: all things in moderation.
Including moderation?
I'm a one drink a day person. Not hard.
“...yet they are much smaller than many other risks in our lives”
Cool. Can we use that standard for guns?
Yes, I know someone who has one glass of wine per day. Sometimes no drinks at all per day, and occasionally two in a single day. It's certainly true that many people find that one drink leads to four...
Everything is fake news.
Virgil Hilts got here first with the link to the article showing how The Lancet's editor deliberately mischaracterized the study to advance his Prohibition agenda.
To do that, he cut the left side of the chart off showing the mortality rates for people who did not drink. Deep in the back, the full chart was reproduced showing that one drink a day lowered the risk of heart attacks and early mortality.
Without that "0 drinks" column, it looks like drinking increased the risk.
Journalists who based their stories on the summary / call to action didn't catch the falsification.
Note: I drank more when I was younger, as much as a six pack a night. That's when I was single, had money, and was reeling from general isolation and self-loathing for emotional reasons. Several decades later, it's one or two beers a day, sometimes zero drinks. I'm also much, much happier.
YMMV.
Too much consumption of Budweiser can lead you to commit Harry Caray on TV! Don't be a Bud Man (or, for that matter, a Cub Fan).
Drinking isn't good for you. Its like being obese or smoking.
I drink, but I don't do it to excess and I don't kid myself about the risk.
My wife doesn't drink and will probably out live me by 20 years.
BTW, your liver needs a break. Drinking every day is bad for you. Skip the booze 3-4 days a week.
Toxicity is determined by volume and concentration. The studies (e.g. "greenhouse" effect, hexavalent chromium) are carried out in the lab (i.e. isolation) then extrapolated to class action absurdities.
Blogger Michael K said...
My mother hated to give up martinis but she finally did at 95. She switched to sherry.
She died at 103.
She obviously chose her parents well.
I haven't had a drink since 1989 - I figure I got sober somewhere around 2001. If I drink, I'll get drunk. I don't want to get drunk because it is too hard for me to sober up and I don't think I can go through that again. Some people can drink, some shouldn't. I shouldn't. I have some friends who shouldn't either, but they haven't figured that out yet. They may never figure that out. If you can drink and enjoy it, have one for me. Especially if it is bourbon and coke, no ice. Or maybe a glass of Pinot Noir or Liebfraumilch. Or a good cold beer. A shot of tequila would be fine. A really good whiskey or maybe a smooth glass of scotch, neat. Or...well, you get the picture.
readering said...
I'm a one drink a day person. Not hard
good for you, i'm assuming it's a double; but if it's really one i'm kinda impressed. I don't know that i've ever actually met someone who Really was a one drink a day person; and there appear to be several of you here. Congrads!
for years, i was a 2 beers a night guy (both pints), except weekends; when i'd usually tie it on a little. Weekends, OF COURSE, included friday nights after work; and since i worked second shift: they included Sunday night watching the Simpsons and Married with Children down at the bar. Then Weekends expanded to thursdays..... It became hard to count to two beers
I last had a drink august 16, 2003
I suppose ONE is a pretty easy number to count to; but for me, the easiest number of drinks to count to is Zero (sorry, i got back up on my tea box)
I drank more when I was much younger and lived in NYC and no car. Cut back as got older and moved to LA and got a car.
It's easier to be a drunk if you don't get hung over. I get sick if I have 4 drinks and 2-drinks will be a hangover if it's not top shelf. It's easy for me not to be a drunk so I don't think it's a will power difference. Good for you folks who can stay dry because you have to.
One hates to be puritanical, but I find it really easy not to drink. Drinking really is more of a chore for me, done on social occasions. I wonder how so many people get so much pleasure from it, let alone, can't stop. (It is said that Jews tend not to be alcoholics, because we're frequently exposed to it at holidays eg Passover, so the forbidden fruit aspect is absent. I'm aware that y'all are feeling something in not feeling.)
I love to relate this anecdote.
I have a customer, and at the time of the story he was 74 years old. Retired from retail agriculture which he virtually invented after coming out of Iowa State AG Collage after WWll. He was farming after retirement and busy in various community projects and committees. He was also USAF Lt Col reserves. Anyway he said he was running late getting to a morning board meeting at the local Norwegian Museum. He explained he got behind because every morning he went out to get breakfast for his dad who lived out on the farm alone. A lady asked what he fixes for his dad, and my customer said the same thing he has been eating for breakfast his whole life 2 eggs fried, 2 strips of bacon and buttered toast. The lady looked at him with horror and said, "don't you know you're killing your dad?!" He was 99 at the time.
Choose wisely my friend, especially your parents.
JML; I have a friend that stopped drinking for 26 years, on counsel from his Priest. Then he got exposed to AA and the 12 steps. Did meetings for while, realized that while he in fact hadn't had a drink in 26 years, he was still very much an alcoholic. AA has turned his life around, according to him. Booze is NOT an alcoholics real problem.
Cops will tell you that a drunk person they pull over seldom has had more than "a couple of beers".
One of my mother's caregivers has given her the what-for about salt. 'All that salt is bad for you' is her view. Her response has been, 'yes, I'd better cut back, or maybe I will die young!'
There aren't a lot of '22s on the road these days, and my mother is one of them...
Milo Minderbinder said...
I try to restrict my intake of the NYT, NBC, ABC, CNN, CBS and WaPo to improve my mental health and temperament.
Compare the different news sites with different alcoholic drinks. Twitter is vodka. Blogs are wine. Wapo/ NYT are cooking sherry. CBS is like drinking after-shave for the alcohol. CNN is Knott's Berry Farm.
iowian2, I agree. But once the booze sets, it is hard to shake. AA isn’t just to get you to stop drinking, it is also there to get you to face your issues, accept them, deal with them. And live.
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