NFR Alcohol going out of style

Non-fishing related
I actually really like alcohol in moderate use. It makes stupid people so much more tolerable and interesting. But I honestly barely drink much anymore. I don't miss it and I feel generally great as I always have. I'm not off the booze completely but I'm definitely occupying the "very light social" drinker box on the doctor office check in paperwork.

I think it's natural to taper off alcohol as you age if you're genuinely a happy person. You are likely paired up so no need to drink at a bar seeking the lubricity some folks need to charm the ladies into making bad decisions. Your body makes you pay for it the following day even if you don't overdo it at age. Even if it's not a hangover there is a productivity and focus penalty. It's not kind to your physical being and makes muscles sore with inflammation.

I think it's healthy and wise to examine honestly ones relationship with alcohol regularly. Is it a companion or a thief in your life? For many alcohol steals authenticity, genuine connection, health, and time. That's not a relationship you should want any part of. If you need alcohol to be honest as many do, stop. If you need alcohol to be social, stop. If it is simply habit, stop. If you break promises to yourself about your intake, stop. If you always pair alcohol with an activity stop pairing it and remain actively engaged in the activity.

Replace the habit and pairing of alcohol with something pleasurable that is healthy. Yoga, gym, guitar, fishing etc are all healthy replacements and actually achieve the same and better effect. Your body adapts and becomes conditioned to what you subject it to and ask of it. Ask it to perform exceptionally at things you can look in the existential mirror of life and be proud of. Time is the most valuable asset I know. Don't waste it in the bottle or recovering from it. You will be older tomorrow than today. You will be more fit tomorrow if you choose to be. All of it is up to you. We end up in life where we plan to go. Many just don't realize habits become the plan. Live well and plan accordingly.
 
At least crack and meth are still popular...
 
Salmo_g said:
Alcohol affects people differently. It's been a long while, but I read that among people of European heritage that about 10% of us are disposed toward alcoholism, presumed because alcohol has been present in the culture since time immemorial. Contrasting that, roughly 90% of Native Americans are disposed toward alcoholism, again presumed because alcohol was not present in the culture until introduced by Europeans. Kind of like with the effects of diseases like smallpox and measles. I don't know what or if time, culture, and genetic components might affect how Asians and Africans are affected.

Moderation might simply be too God-awful boring for some people. I'm finding that moderation works well for me. I've been drunker than I should have been more times than I know, but I only got to that "commode hugging" stage of puking my guts out maybe a half dozen times or so in my life. That was not a stage I'd consider extreme enjoyment; quite the opposite. I had a work colleague who told me about her youthful past. As a teenager she would go to parties to drink and get black out drunk. Passed out drunk. I could not relate. Then she told me that she couldn't wait to do it all over again the next weekend. Her only alternative was choosing complete sobriety; otherwise acute alcohol poisoning would likely have been her destiny. Makes me thankful for my genetic predisposition and moderation.
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My addiction was not physical , whereas nicotine certainly was. Alcohol for me was psychological. Pure denial with the motto “ why the hell not!” I just did not think I needed to answer the question - nobody else did
 
Capt Insano Emeritis said:
More an environmental issue (water)than a less consumption issue . Next up almonds…?
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Also a supply and demand issue. Produce too many grapes (30% unsold) and current pricing does not cover costs to produce. A balancing act...
 
Capt Insano Emeritis said:
More an environmental issue (water)than a less consumption issue . Next up almonds…?
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There are lots of people walking around with a dependence on substance of some form and considered "normal" or "healthy". I'm British by lineage and come from an American drinking town. It took a minute to realize what was accepted was actually pretty involved alcoholism.

I've drank with teachers on lunch in England and not thought anything of it. I've drank heavily on the water fishing and never gave it a second thought. I didn't ever feel dependant but when 8 of ten angling journeys begin with grabbing a 6 pack so I don't go thirsty one needs to examine that.

Alcohol is a mistress who's spell is lifted quite quickly with time away. The more time the less the pull. The less the pull the faster time passes between drinks.

If people took an honest inventory of their habits they would likely exercise more restraint and alter habits. If you fish most days with a buzz the first couple trips without may have you asking questions about your passion for angling. Is it real? Is it just an excuse to float the river and have some drinks? People can only answer that one for themselves. Oh me, I rarely fish anymore, lol.
 
Dustin Chromers said:
There are lots of people walking around with a dependence on substance of some form and considered "normal" or "healthy". I'm British by lineage and come from an American drinking town. It took a minute to realize what was accepted was actually pretty involved alcoholism.

I've drank with teachers on lunch in England and not thought anything of it. I've drank heavily on the water fishing and never gave it a second thought. I didn't ever feel dependant but when 8 of ten angling journeys begin with grabbing a 6 pack so I don't go thirsty one needs to examine that.

Alcohol is a mistress who's spell is lifted quite quickly with time away. The more time the less the pull. The less the pull the faster time passes between drinks.

If people took an honest inventory of their habits they would likely exercise more restraint and alter habits. If you fish most days with a buzz the first couple trips without may have you asking questions about your passion for angling. Is it real? Is it just an excuse to float the river and have some drinks? People can only answer that one for themselves. Oh me, I rarely fish anymore, lol.
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My parents were heavy drinkers, as were all of their friends. All my teenage friends drank, as did their parents. And during my hitch in the Marine Corps heavy drinking was the norm and encouraged via cheap e-club booze.

Everybody I fished with swilled beer all day, though nobody boozed it up hunting until back in camp or back home. Alcohol (like cigarettes) was the norm. Everybody stunk to high heaven of cigarettes and reeked of alcohol.

Oddly enough my first date with my wife (of 56 years) occurred at a teenage kegger in the woods. She didn't drink back then, and she doesn't drink now. I never smoked cigarettes because I couldn't see the point of something that didn't get me high.
 
Interesting thread. The first thing it makes me think about is the supposed benefits of moderate drinking, especially wine, which I never found particularly convincing because the statistical data was hopelessly confounded by the fact that your average wine drinker had at least half-a-dozen characteristics that are reasonably well correlated with increased health and longevity. "If they can find a population that consumes an equivalent amount of fortified wine or malt-liquor, how likely are these results to hold?"

Having said that, my credo was "Even if it's not true, it's mighty convenient" and averaged one or two beers a day from roughly 20-50. Was that moderate? Not especially, particularly in hindsight, but for me it seemed to define the efficient frontier in a world where there's a tradeoff between health, longevity, and the salubrious effects of indulging in minor vices in a world where a heart attack, a tumor, or getting t-boned by a tanker truck can instantly neutralize any effect that decades of abstaining might have had on one's longevity.

When it comes to the larger significance of this trend, I have a couple of thoughts that put me slightly at odds with the general consensus here. One is that as a social trend amongst (primarily) the young it's almost certainly at least partly influenced by nothing more elevated or noble than simple conformity, and at some point, abstaining may well acquire the same generational tarnish that consuming alcohol has, and we'll start to see a reversion towards the very messy historical mean.

The second is that human civilization has co-evolved with alcohol, despite the fact that - like every other technology - it's had an inherent capacity for good and ill, creation-and-destruction the entire time. For better or worse it's been at the heart of an awful lot of collective social activity, from playing no-small-role in the inception of farming to all manner of festivals, rituals, and routines that were critical parts of the social machinery in the gearbox of the civilization that we all inhabit. It's clear to me that complete abstinence can unlock a level of performance and flourishing in individuals that would have been otherwise impossible for them to achieve, rescue others from the grips of a desolating vice, and I'm all too aware of the collective toll alcohol has taken on society, and yet...

When I contemplate the trajectory the younger generation is on, I can't help but note that they are far more lonely, isolated, anxious, risk-averse, and despairing than older generations that - by any objective metric - experienced vastly higher levels of poverty, disease, warfare, privation, and every manner of lethal risk imaginable. They are - to cite a few indicators - working far less as teenagers, seem astoundingly reluctant to embrace the risks, responsibility, and freedom that come with driving, are having far less sex, seem significantly more estranged from the opposite sex, and far less inclined to take the risks inherent in marrying and having children. Yes - this is all a very sloppy correlation that - like the data on wine and health - is hopelessly confounded by a million other variables, but I'm not entirely sure that a generation or two hence, 100% of the signal embedded in the data on the current decline in drinking will be regarded as a 100% positive indicator for the overall trajectory of society and the vitality of our civilization. There was much to admire about the Shakers, but what they demonstrated more clearly than anything else is that even abstinence, when carried to excess, can become its own terminal vice.
 
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