Social drinking also a well-worn path to alcohol use disorder

I knew all these years of drinking on my own were going to pay up

This may just be me, but the lack of a decent longitudinal study on these narratives is pretty weak science. For the last 40? 50? years there have been alcohol stories fairly consistently in the media, and we still struggle with substantiating claims- about the only thing we can say for certain is that the people who write these types of articles don't like alcohol OR in the opposing view point, they love alcohol.

With all that said I think we have enough info to say alcohol aint good for you physiologically.... but we don't have enough info to say the social benefits might actually outweigh the negatives.

> People tend to assume that “the mere presence of other individuals exerts a beneficial effect” that tempers the desire to overindulge when drinking, Fairbairn said.

Who thinks that? I have never personally known anyone who drinks much alone, but plenty who drink too much in groups.

Alcohol has exeptionally bad ergonomics when it comes to intoxicants. Its strong effects on behavior and experience are wildly unpredictable, it has severe undesirable effects, it's stongly toxic, it causes morbid dependence and has particularly bad physiological and psychological after effects.

We can do better than alcohol.

It is a weird line in the sand that many people draw. If I had two drinks alone every night I would see that as more troubling than having three drinks with friends every night.

I drink socially. Maybe once a month. And usually it is just one beer. And have never craved it. I think if I drank more often, my desire for it would not change. My brain is not wired to crave it I guess. If yours is, then it doesn't matter if you are drinking, socially or not, you have put yourself on a slippery slope.

If true, this throws into relief the dialogue of "What is your alcohol consumption like?", "Just socially".

A lot of people lack the framework of knowing what a substitute social lubricant can be

I think revealing those frameworks helps a lot

I date a lot of adult Gen Z as well as spiritual people: alcohol use is down, way down, for multiple reasons. I had to relearn what outtings and date ideas could be.

Fortunately, a lot of people in both of those demographics are down to have sex without needing excuses for themselves or socially. So there wasnt much relearning to do. Just not relying on pregaming with alcohol, bars or drinking at clubs as a crutch before being more social or assertive.

A large part might be due to genetics. I recall when westerners exploited native Americans with distilled liquor. Westerners had many generations of alcohol use, the natives = zero. Europeans have become resistant to alcohol. It might be faster metabolism/excretion? - a physiological adaptation? or is it social experience to walk/talk in a straight line? In small Northern Ontario mining towns the native population is like my mother - drink/fall over. We would hire(in my claim staking days up North) local labor for supervised line cutting/sampling, but we paid the local band through their rep - who then paid the workers late on Friday, we started work again on Monday. On helicopter-in jobs, we paid at job's end and usually worked the long Northern days about 18-20 daylight hours(long days up in NO in May-August) with foods/cigarettes flown in every ~2 weeks (and some local deer shooting as a supplement - we had cooks who ran the camp)/ When the job was done = large payday = all went home. By the end of August there were some freezing nights. Some crews had heated double walled tents and stayed longer, but by the end of September the cold weather most of this was curtailed.

I was born in the UK, my Dad never drank a drop - my Irish mother would drink until she fell over. Dad had lock up the liquor - or else = all gone = fall over. My brother and I do not drink a drop?? I am not drawn to liquor, and tobacco smoking or cannabis = I never touch at all.

God wants us to be happy, this prof I’m not sure.

"Alcohol use disorder" recalls George Carlin on the evolution of language:

"In this classic George Carlin routine, the legendary comedian breaks down how language has been systematically softened over time. From "shell shock" to "battle fatigue" and eventually to "post-traumatic stress disorder," Carlin illustrates how our words have become more complex and less impactful. He argues that Americans have difficulty facing harsh realities and have developed a tendency to euphemize, making the truth sound less direct. Through his sharp wit and astute observations, Carlin explores how language evolves to disguise the true nature of our experiences, particularly in times of war."

https://youtu.be/Me-sGTBhGFc?si=i-VjINRlDhP4xxgN

This strikes me as a "safe" psychology study, one virtually certain to produce a publishable outcome.

Surprisingly, the linked technical article, which was paid for with tax dollars, is paywalled -- isn't that practice supposed to end?

Without being able to read the article, I'll go out on a limb and guess that the article's data were collected by interviewing people, asking about their drinking habits. This is a very unreliable method compared to measuring people's blood alcohol levels -- granted that the latter design would be prohibitively expensive.

Anecdotal studies are notoriously unreliable. A young researcher once performed an interview-based study that showed married people live longer than single people. On reviewing the paper, an older, more experienced scientist suggested that public records would cost less and produce better results. The young scientist tried again, using actuarial data, and the original conclusion was falsified: married people don't live longer, it just seems longer.