If I were to subtitle this article it would be: If You Still Drink Regularly With All We Now Know, You’re An Idiot Or An Addict.
My opinions on alcohol don’t win me many friends as almost to a drinker, they get angry and defensive when the topic arises, as if they are defending the honour of a cherished lover from insult. My disdain for the stupidity of those who defend it as “fun and harmless” has grown immensely over the past couple of years as I watch people destroy and enslave themselves to a substance. The facts, data, and science behind the consequences and effects of their drug use is now clearer than ever. And yes, alcohol is a highly addictive drug, and drinkers are drug users, albeit, “socially acceptable” drug users, or so they think. To drink regularly in the face of what we now know can only be classified as total ignorance or addiction, that deep down many realize, but have difficulty admitting to.
I’ve written extensively on alcohol before, here; and many other posts here reference my contempt and scorn for alcohol and the people who knowingly use it and abuse it, in 100% of the cases, to their own detriment. I can say in all humility that I have been way ahead of the curve on this topic for decades and have read more research than 99.9% of the population. The average person succumbs because they are brainwashed by “big money alcohol company” advertising and their own weakness giving in to peer pressure. As the science continues to develop, much of what I’ve written has been shown to be correct as it filters down to the mainstream, drinking population. But the insidious nature of this drug is such that no science, no data, or no rational argument will ever convince a person who is emotionally and physically attached to their booze.
Have you ever talked to a friend about their drinking habits, only to watch them get defensive? And that ends up being their reaction every single time? It’s an implicit admission that deep down they know they have a problem. I once had a friend with a drinking problem; a drinking problem that they could not see. It was not alcoholism, but like almost every regular drinker, it was an alcohol use disorder and it was obvious. They couldn’t go out and have just one or two; they always over drank.
Many started drinking in their teen years and the chemical alterations that this caused in their brains have caused them problems to this day. Their brain is now programmed by the drug to crave more. They get excited about the drinking they’ll do at the party this weekend. They make a special trip to buy the booze they want the most. They think of what drinks they’ll order that night at the bar when they go out with friends. They plan to get drunk on certain nights, days in advance. It consumes them, and their thoughts. All these things will seem perfectly normal because their brain has normalized it after years of substance use and abuse.
The overwhelming majority of drinkers go out and enjoy 1 or 2 drinks with their friends and leave it there. About 15-20% cannot handle their alcohol and their nights often end in a sad, drunken stupor. They may even say “I’m just going to have a couple drinks” but then as the drug hits them they suddenly want more and more and their ability to control themselves is lost. This is the sad reality for many, many who don’t yet fit the clinical definition of alcoholic.
Alcohol is the elixir of the weak, the social crutch for the insecure, the drug that many want and need. It is a scourge on society and a lie that many fall for. They go out with friends and think their “drinking buddies” care about their well-being as they walk together down the road of addiction, all the while hating the ones who truly care and are not afraid to confront them over their destructive life choices. A true friend doesn’t order you another drink; they are the ones who tell you you have a problem.
People are naïve, and generally obtuse and self-destructive in considering what alcohol does to them. More and more research has come out over the past 10-15 years and the data is now overwhelmingly clear how bad drinking is for us as individuals, and as a society. Let’s first define the various levels of alcohol consumption according to the NIÃAA (National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism). There are so many problem drinkers out there who think they have it under control.
Safe drinking – 0 drinks for men, 0 drinks for women. There is now no safe level of alcohol consumption. Every drink comes with deleterious effects. (No one should ever exceed 2 drinks in one sitting, and 2 drinks total in a week should be the upper limit).
Moderate drinking – 2 drinks in a day for men, or a total of 7 per week. 1 drink per day for women, or a total of 4 per week. This level of drinking comes with various levels of harm.
Heavy drinking – 5 or more drinks in a day for men (once in a month), or 15 or more per week. 4 or more drinks in a day for women (once in a month), or 8 or more drinks per week. These limits are also the limits that define “binge drinking” and “alcohol misuse,” according to the NIAAA.
You will never convince a problem drinker that they drink too much. The number one sign of addiction is the inability of the user to see they have a problem at all; they’ve always got it “under control.”
As Dr. Andrew Huberman, who runs the neurolab at Stanford says:
Top 7 Reasons Why You Should Stop Drinking If You Actually Care About Your Life
1) Alcohol Is Highly Addictive: Alcohol is the second most addictive drug after heroin and other opioids. This addiction can take many forms, from degenerative alcoholism to functional alcoholism; from a needed short term stress reliever to a drug necessary to enjoy social situations. Many suffer from alcohol use and misuse disorders that they think are normal, but are far from it. Addiction is weakness, not a disease, and the reliance on a substance always points to deeper problems. Another way to understand the potency and addictive nature of this drug is to be reminded that there are only two drugs whose withdrawal effects can kill you: alcohol and benzodiazepines. Perhaps one of the saddest developments over the past 20 years or so is the incidence of alcoholism and addiction that has exploded among women. Women are abusing alcohol at record rates and it’s no wonder they are suffering a mental health crisis that coincides with their increase in consumption. Young women are the most broken demographic group and alcohol is exacerbating these problems. They are lost and their lives lack purpose and meaning, so they turn to a “socially acceptable” drug to find acceptance.
2) Alcohol Is A Major Cause Of Death & Disease: According to the prestigious medical journal, The Lancet, alcohol is the seventh leading cause of death and disease globally. “When you omit deaths from tuberculosis, car accidents, and suicide, alcohol moves further up the list even though it plays a major part in the latter two.” The shocking conclusion of the study stated this:
“The level of alcohol consumption that minimized harm across health outcomes was zero (95% UI 0-0-0-8) standard drinks per week. Alcohol use is a leading risk factor for global disease burden and causes substantial health loss. We found that the risk of all-cause mortality, and of cancers specifically, rises with increasing levels of consumption, and the level of consumption that minimizes health loss is zero.“
I’ve covered the diseases that alcohol is linked to in the past, but this list serves as a good reminder of the ruination it causes. Another recent study confirmed that alcohol was the third leading cause of preventable death behind smoking and obesity. It is directly linked to cancer and many other diseases. And we know that 1 in 5 deaths of adults, that’s 20%, from age 20 to 49, is from excessive drinking. Alcohol will kill you early; this is now indisputable. “Alcohol has been a level-one carcinogen for as long as we’ve been listing carcinogens…It’s on par with things like smoking, UV light, hepatitis B and human papillomavirus or HPV.”
The Lancet reported that even 1 drink per day is associated with an increase in all cause mortality as moderate drinkers (1-2 per day) were diagnosed with 1 out of 7 cancers in 2020. In Canada, alcohol was linked to 7,000 new cancer cases in 2020 alone.
The 3 leading causes of preventable death are smoking, obesity, and alcohol consumption. But by certain metrics I would argue that drinking alcohol is probably the worst thing you can do for yourself in that the effect it has on mental health is far worse than the first two. I had someone once remark to me, that “I feel fine mentally after drinking so it doesn’t really effect me.” This person no longer knows what their optimal mental health even feels like anymore because the unending level of depressant that is in their system from drinking. Anything a regular drinker tells you about their consumption habits is most likely incorrect, for they try to hide it from watchful eyes as the spiral downwards begins.
3) Alcohol Weakens the Immune System, Gut Biome, and Skin: Alcohol is a diuretic and dehydrates your body, including the skin – and this happens every time you drink. When you drink, the dehydrating effect of alcohol means your skin loses fluid and nutrients that are vital for healthy-looking skin. This can make your skin look wrinkled, dull and grey, or bloated and puffy. It dries out and prematurely ages your skin. If you drink, your skin will never be as healthy looking as it should.
The gut is sometimes called the body’s “second brain” as it is responsible for so much of its proper functioning. Alcohol damages the stomach lining and gut; killing the good bacteria in our stomachs. Alcohol begins to break down the lining of the stomach and the gut which allows the ethanol (toxin) to enter the body and cause further damage and disease. If you have nagging stomach issues, alcohol is likely the culprit.
Our immune system is responsible for fighting off viruses, bacteria, and disease. Alcohol weakens our immune systems and opens the drinker up to many adverse health conditions. Alcohol consumption does not have to be chronic to have negative health consequences. In fact, research shows that acute binge drinking more negatively affects the immune system than perviously thought.
I recall a conversation I had with another friend. They had just returned from an overseas trip and were in the middle of a course of antibiotics to help with an illness that they had caught. They went away to a nice country for a week, saw the sites and enjoyed themselves. But every night they went out to a bar and drank excessively till two or three in the morning. It was both sad and hilarious to hear them defend their abuse of alcohol and not think it had any effect on their health.
4) Alcohol Is Destructive Of Mental Health: Alcohol is a depressant and causes mental health issues for many drinkers. Just 25 minutes after a drink, a person reaches peak euphoria, after which the depressant feelings start to impact the user which begins the “night out’s” cycle of drink after drink to retain the original level of euphoria and ward off the onsetting depressive feelings of the come down. The depressive effects last for almost 7 full days afterward before it leaves the system; hardly a rational trade off, but no one who drinks excessively can be said to be rational.
Alcohol is a self-soothing mechanism (anxiety, fear, self-loathing, etc) and the drinker is unaware that it actually magnifies these feelings in the long term, and generally makes them worse. Many drink to help with these issues, when in fact, alcohol makes them worse.
5) Alcohol Is A Thief of Joy: This to my mind is one of the more shocking effects alcohol has on the brain. It chemically alters the brain and desensitizes our dopamine receptors and adrenal glands to real stimuli and pleasures. The alcohol-altered brain can never truly feel or never truly experience the fullness of natural pleasures and joys in life, when they are NOT drinking, for their perceptions have been altered and dulled. They cannot experience the fullness of joyful events when they are NOT drinking because of how their drinking has changed their brain chemistry.
Again, Dr. Huberman sums it up this way:
It chemically alters the brain and desensitizes our dopamine receptors to real stimuli and pleasures. Think of it this way: you go out on a Friday night to party and get drunk. Your Saturday is spent dealing with your hangover. On Sunday you decide to go for a hike in the mountains. The scenery is beautiful, the experience is nice, but you are unable to experience the hike as you should because you have impaired your brain’s ability to experience the fullness of that joy when you’re NOT drinking. What a tragedy. To put this another way, you are unable to experience positive emotions to their fullest because of your alcohol consumption:
6) Alcohol Promotes Social Weakness: Alcohol creates weakness in those that use it as a social lubricant to feel more confident. It provides the illusion of confidence and makes the person reliant on the drug to feel comfort in interacting with others, rather than motivating them to become naturally better in these social circumstances and working on becoming a more socially adept person in reality. It can only provide a drug-induced, fake confidence; never the real thing. It will ensure you stay socially weak if you rely on it.
7) Alcohol Ruins Sleep: Alcohol affects your brain in such a way that both your sleep quality and sleep quantity suffer. It causes you to wake up in the night far more frequently even if you’re not concious of it, and you do not get the required amount of REM and Deep sleep your brain needs to repair your body and brain during the night as is the norm. People confuse the sedative nature of alcohol with quality of sleep; the sedation it causes is not healthy for brain and body reparations that are needed. Here is a short clip of Dr. Huberman talking to sleep expert Matt Walker on what alcohol does to our sleep:
The alcohol industry, like most, is very corrupt. Companies like Heineken and Carlsberg paid off government officials at the NIH to promote the benefits of moderate drinking when they knew there weren’t any. The study said that moderate alcohol use reduced the risk of cardio vascular disease, when we now know the exact opposite is true. A recent peer-reviewed study showed that alcohol consumption causes life-long arterial stiffening which is a cause and precursor of cardio vascular disease and stroke. Drinkers have been brainwashed and have believed a lie for decades, and bars are filled with those naive to the damage they are doing as booze producers fool people into believing their product is essential for a good time, while it kills them slowly.
Not everything is negative, however, as there are some encouraging signs on the horizon in all the data. 38% of Americans say they do not drink at all, the highest number of abstainers in a generation. While we may lament the dark path of weekly reckless drunkenness some of our friends have chosen, there are good indications that the younger generation is yearning for a better life and leaving their poor choices behind. A recent study revealed that Gen-Z are leaving alcohol in big numbers with 65% (two thirds!) reporting not having a drink in the previous 6 months and 35% that do not drink at all. The share of adults ages 18 to 34 who say they ever drink dropped from 72% in 2001-03 to 62% in 2021-23. Only about 25% of Gen-Z are regular drinkers, with 15% of those being classified as heavy drinkers. Young people, especially Gen Z, are leading this sober trend. They care more about feeling good, being healthy and productive rather than drinking alcohol. They worry about how alcohol affects their bodies and more than any other generation are concerned about the long-term consequences of poor choices when it comes to their mental and physical well-being.
In Canada, about 15.6% of the population over 12 years old engaged in heavy drinking in at least one month in the past year (5 drinks for men, 4 for women). That is quite low, thankfully, and those who think regular drunken nights in a bar is a worthwhile pursuit is a small minority of the population. The overwhelming number of Canadians are only occasional or moderate drinkers as many understand the dangers and risks. The number of heavy drinkers, those who abuse or misuse alcohol, has declined steadily since first measured in 2015. It’s hard to imagine why anyone would still knowingly put themselves in this category. It’s evidence to the overwhelming power of this drug on some people still, and is viewed as a type of self-harm, akin to cutting or eating disorders.
In 2024, more people are choosing not to drink alcohol, and sobriety is becoming a big thing. Gen-Z is becoming known as the “sober curious” generation. The trend has shifted dramatically and it is now only a minority of people who are reliant on the drug aspect of alcohol in order for them to cope with life or enjoy things that non-drinkers are able to without the social crutch. Gen-Z is moving towards more sober gatherings and leaving alcohol because of the mental and physical toll it takes and they are becoming more aware of its negative impact on their well-being. We should be encouraged by this, but there is a long way to go.
To truly understand who you are as a person you need to remove alcohol from your life, for it masks and hides who you are. Some people don’t like themselves and use alcohol to numb their feelings of despair and self-loathing. To know yourself, and to truly love yourself, removing the blinders and fog of alcohol is a must.
Watch who you befriend. Too many people surround themselves with losers whose only comfort in their free time is drinking. If 4 of your friends are drinkers, you will be the 5th. Show me your friends, and I can show you your future habits. Choose your circle of influence wisely if you want to live a good life free from the consequences of poor choices.
People need to leave their booze behind permanently. Embrace the goodness and beauty in life, and leave the drunkenness, the hangovers, the poor life choices, and the mental and physical damage behind. We are given one chance in this life to be present, to feel, to live; for good or for ill. No longer should we laugh at and praise those who need to cauterize their souls or medicate their brains to all that is good about life. Drinkers should be mocked and shamed for these are powerful tools for behavioural change in society. We were able to successfully shame a generation of smokers and a movement needs to begin to shame those who drink. While there may be some encouraging signs on the horizon, I am not very hopeful that meaningful change can happen as alcohol consumption has become a lifestyle for many; a drug they love and can’t live without. Drinking is not freedom; it is bondage. Sometimes the slave, loves their master. If we truly loved the people around us caught up in this abusive self-harm, we would do all that we could to warn them. That is the tough love we owe them.
We have one life and it should be our desire that we, and those around us, flourish to the greatest extent possible. Living an aimless and meaningless life drunk in a bar every weekend will only help to exacerbate ones sense of loss of purpose as they wander aimlessly through life. You do not have to “give up” alcohol, for it is not a loss. Rather, you are gaining health, mental well-being, sharpness of mind, greater energy levels, being present and sharp in social situations, time, money, and a host of other benefits! You are not sacrificing anything in the end, but gaining so so much that will lead to a better life.
If you’ve made it this far and think nothing of your current drinking habits then only two conclusions can be reached: 1) you don’t care about your life or health, or 2) you have a drinking problem you refuse to address.
Listen to Harvard doctor and researcher Dr. Sarah Wakeman: “Every single drink you have increases your cancer risks.” There is no safe limit.
There’s an old Irish saying that goes “A man takes a drink, the drink takes a drink, the drink takes the man.” Too many have let the drink take them. They never saw it coming. Don’t let it take you too.
A better life awaits…