Medications can help the 1 in 12 people who suffer from alcohol use disorder. But most will never be treated.
There is something that kills more Americans every year than drug overdoses, than guns, than car accidents. It’s legal, doesn’t require a background check to buy, is widely advertised, and if you’re 21, you can probably buy it at your corner store. It’s called alcohol.
While cold beers, glasses of wine, and hard liquor cocktails are often treated as end-of-the-workday or weekend indulgences, alcohol is technically a psychoactive, addictive drug, one linked to over 50 fatal conditions, including heart disease; breast, pancreatic, and stomach cancers; liver disease; hypertension; and stroke. It contributes to the death of 140,000 people in the US annually, making it one of the leading causes of preventable death in the country.
More and more research supports the conclusion that even light drinking — that is, less than 15 drinks a week for men or eight drinks a week for women — can contribute to an increased risk for heart disease and cancers. More recent medical recommendations in countries like Canada have increasingly tightened, moving toward the idea that there is no truly safe level of alcohol consumption.
Because binge drinking isn’t just accepted, it’s encouraged? From fraternities and sororities, to football tailgating, to Super-Bowl parties, to Mardi Gras and Saint Patrick’s Day, the public perception is if you aren’t getting shitfaced, you’re doing it wrong.
But there is some good news, I guess:
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/beer-drinking-america-falls-lowest-level-generation-rcna131478
“For the first time since 1999, he said, beer shipments were on track to fall below 200 million barrels.”
Article talks about the variety of sugary alcohol drinks pulling from beer, but I expect legal weed is taking a share as well.
Weed. Weed weed. Weed weed weed weed.
That’s my take, anyway.
MILLIONS die from weed overuse. That’s what the D.A.R.E. officer told me.
Smoking it still is terrible for your lungs though.
Yes of course. A lot of things in life involve a balancing act of weighing pros and cons, and then trial and error.
I was one of the unlucky few who experienced suicidal thoughts when they put me on sertraline, but it’s a substance that helps more people than it harms, so it’s not the first thing I’d mention if someone were depressed.
I see weed as similar. Personally, I’m not the biggest fan of how it makes me feel, and there are some risks and side effects (relatively minor compared to alcohol, of course), but it helps far more people than it harms. It’s really improved the quality of life for my husband with his PTSD, for example, and its side effects are actually far less unpleasant than the four meds he was on prior to the provider prescribing cannabis.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m in no way advocating banning weed. All drugs should be legal anyways. What someone wants to do with their body is none of my business, as long as it doesn’t harm me or others.
I should have clarified that alternative use of marijuana is a better substitute than smoking weed or drinking alcohol. I just don’t like that a lot of people assume smoking it daily is somehow healthy for you… it’s like smoking tobacco, it’s bad period. It’s a vice so by all means do it how you want but there seems to be this underlying myth that people think it’s not harmful at all.
I just don’t like that a lot of people assume smoking it daily is somehow healthy for you
Literally no one thinks inhaling smoke is healthy. This isn’t a thing people believe. It’s just such a red herring when introduced in a conversation about the ravages of hard drugs like alcohol.
It’s like pointing out that both carrots and snickers contain sugar.
You apparently haven’t been following along with the conversation…a LOT of people think it’s completely fine. The trees subreddit was filled with people like this. They’re logic was that they’re not smoking tobacco and it’s fine because no one has linked smoking marijuana with lung cancer.
The difference is that, there are ways of consuming cannabis that don’t involve smoking. Edibles are a thing, and so are vaporizers (tiny convenction ovens that vaporize the cannabinioids but don’t produce any nasty combustion products).
With alcohol, there is no “safer” way of consuming it. The psychoactive compound itself is physically far more damaging than THC is.
Yes. Edibles all the way.
Terrible is a bit relative. Cannabis smokers have a smaller chance of developing lung cancer and a higher lung capacity than non smokers. But yes it has downsides.
Dry vaping seems to not bring many health issues with it - at least none that I know of.
Also tinctures or inferior edibles are an option
Why inferior? Time to take effect, hard to dosage correctly and THC is metabolized differently when solved in fat.
As alcohol solution you can dosage per drop and it hits practically immediately - pretty much as fast as alcohol orally doesIsn’t vaping it not burning the plant but just vaporizing the oils? I have no clue on that, if so I’d say it’s probably way safer than burning the plant.
Yep, exactly
The DARE officer also impregnated a teenager in my school.
I died after doing only one line of weed. Educate yourself. I’m literally shaking.
I’m literally shaking
It must be the weed!
Everyone that’s ever smoked weed will die someday. Weed has a 100% mortality rate. Earth has had more human deaths than than any planet in history. It’s also the only planet with weed.
Lol fr though. I always find it suspicious when people insist on talking about all the bad side effects of weed. Imagine every time someone mentions that aspirin can help with pain, there are immediately 5 people telling you about how it can cause bleeding ulcers.
Actually, it would make more sense with acetaminophen/paracetamol. Wanna talk about awful effects on the body, RIP liver.
You don’t say much my friend, but when you do it’s to the point, and I salute you for it.
It doesn’t make sense. Alcohol effects are relaxation, euphoria and inhibition. Weed only causes me panic, thirst and hungry. I hate any sort of hallucination. You can’t compare the drugs.
Many people have a different experience. Drugs ultimately relate to the individual, which is one thing that can make them so insidious. For me personally, weed is a million times better than alcohol. The high and head change are better. I don’t get hung over. I don’t hate myself after an evening of edibles.
I agree about hangovers. But just one time on 15 years of drinker I was so ashamed. I accept if you try to replace alcohol with something like xanax or another depressive but weed? Its not the same experience AT ALL…
I’m not trying to replicate the same experience. If I’m high on weed, I have no interest in drinking. I simply prefer the weed experience, but everyone is different.
I just want to get relaxed in my case. A good glass of whiskey (or any drink ) is enough.
That’s so unfortunate for you, dude. You get like the exact opposite effect I (and likely most other people) get, minus the hunger and thirst. But I mean, drinking a lot makes you literally throw up (worse than bein hungry imo) and doesn’t make your thirsty since you’re literally drinking (so you then have to pee a ton)
With weed i can’t get out of a recurring thinking. And then I realize that i am thinking the same thing again and again. And then I got panicked because of that. And I dont like to see my friend with a dinosaur head…
Yep. Cultural.
It’s a joke in movies.
It’s played in commercials.
People comfortably share stories about their “binging”.
is socially accepted way to poison yourself
who use
It has a huge lobbying group and too many corps make too much money. I always had hope something would happen kinda like they did with tobacco.
Ahem. “Sugar forward” if you please. It’s fancy.
Booze advertising should be banned. We banned tobacco advertising. It actually helped reduce smoking.
I still don’t understand why alcohol is immune to FDA regs requiring nutritional info on the products.
Oh wait no I don’t, excessive lobbying alongside a misclassification and lack of common sense+critical thinking. All the American classics.
Because it falls under a completely different agency….
The bureau of ALCOHOL, tobacco, and firearms.
It was separate starting with the bureau of Prohibition which was created in 1919, before the FDA was created in 1927. Before then it was just the bureau of chemistry.
You are correct!..
The fact that it falls under a different agency is the issue I’m getting at. We ingest alcohol and it has a direct negative affect on our health, I wish it was regulated alongside the other borderline toxic shit we ingest like corn syrup and food colorings.
Would be nice to know how many calories or carbs are in the drinks from a casual consumer standpoint anyway.
I agree it should fall under the FDA today, but with everything else going on, restructuring both the FDA and ATF is pretty low on the list of things to do.
If only there was a major surge in health issues and deaths involving consumption of alcohol and firearms use/abuse to spark some motion in Congress to address the issues.
Alcohol is a $200 billion a year industry in the US alone, they’ll throw more than enough money into lobbying to make sure there is as little restriction on alcohol as possible no matter how many people get sick or die
Why is it so undertreated?
Money.
How is this seriously still a question?
The US healthcare system being an expensive mess, mental healthcare being stigmatized, and a number of other issues prevent people from seeking care. There are also many who don’t realize they need it.
mental healthcare is not being stigmatized
mental healthcare is not being stigmatized
Stupidly wrong take
See a therapist.
What a dumb, idiotic and uninformed thing to say. Mental health stigmas have become so prevalent they’re fucking tropes at this point.
Not at all. mental health is now the least stigmatized its been in all of human history. You are misinformed.
Because alcohol makes people a lot of money.
Alcoholism is the disease that tells you you don’t have a disease.
Boys, it’s time to start a war on booze! First target: Scotland
because it keeps people off the marijuanas!!!
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If YOU don’t want to have alcohol related health complications, you can choose not to drink it.
There, problem solved
Thanks we’re cured
Problem is though is that alcohol effects everyone. Drink driving, the idiot alcoholic induced rage/violence/fights, riots at sports events, taking up space at hospitals because someone wanted to drink too much.
Pretty much all of those are crimes too.
And we already tried banning alcohol. It uh, didn’t work and just led to the mob.
You can’t really ban something that you can create in your own house with some yeast and grape juice.
If YOU don’t want to have obesity related health complications, you can choose not to eat bad food.
There, problem solved
If YOU don’t want to have police related health complications, you can choose not to do crimes.
There, problem solved
If YOU don’t want to have covid related health complications, you can choose not to go out in public.
There, problem solved
If YOU don’t want to have suicide related health complications, you can choose not to kys.
There, problem solved
Damn it’s wild how so many of America’s problems can be cured by your suggestions, call Biden quick, we clearly need you in charge of policy.
If YOU don’t want to die in a rock climbing accident, you can choose not to rock climb.
I don’t know what point you were trying to make here, but I agree with your claims.
The point is that your argument is hollow, overly simplistic, and leads to nothing.
People have the freedom to choose, but it’s still important to educate and regulate the things we do so that we can reduce the risks.
The real answer is that this attitude is exactly why we don’t treat alcohol use disorder like the treatable medical condition that it is.
