[luminouslow]

Live a long boring life and create lots of value for shareholders

[chongli]

Who says a life without (or even just with less) alcohol is boring? There’s millions of things to do besides drink. There’s thousands of hobbies and sports to enjoy. There’s vast areas of natural and cultural beauty to explore. There are countless cities and cultures to visit, cuisines to taste, music to enjoy.

Seriously, people who think that drinking is the only thing to do are the boring ones.

[lexandstuff]

Trouble is, alcohol goes really well with a lot of those things.

[imp0cat]

People obviously do not think that drinking is the only thing to do.

But in your example, when exploring a far-away land, a few beers with the locals in some pub can greatly enhance the experience.

[Mashimo]

> There’s millions of things to do besides drink.

Drugs \o/

[Tenoke]

To be fair most people can't visit countless cities weekly, can't visit or don't care for the nature you like, and the increased injury risk of many sports (compared to just cycling for cardio and doing resistance training) is probably as bad as the risks from moderate drinking.

[conductr]

As a non-drinker, it’s bizarre that there is this rather prominent belief from others that life would be insufferable without alcohol.

[mvdtnz]

My experience is that non-drinkers are incredibly boring people.

[cderpz]

Back when I was still smoking I also had the feeling that life without smoking wouldn't be worth living.

I succeeded in quitting and of course it wasn't true. Literally every aspect of my life improved. An addicted mind is an unreliable narrator.

[9530jh9054ven]

Imagine if your life was just going utterly wrong. You're working hard as you can but you can barely make food or rent, and you're so tired every day that all you can do is just lie there like a dull sack remembering constantly and inescapably mulling at just how wrong everything is in your life. There's no end in sight, no light at the end of the tunnel, your existence is just this until you are broken and thrown out.

Now imagine there's a magic potion that make it feel like it all goes away even if for just a little while.

Does that help explain it?

[eliasmacpherson]

wait til you find out some people prefer their faculties dulled by a hangover than being fully present and in the moment for their dreary morning-midday routines.

[mrighele]

As a casual drinker, it's bizarre that there is this rather prominent belief from others that you cannot enjoy your life more if you drink from time to time

[justanotherjoe]

Just because you don't find your life enhanced by something doesn't mean that something is useless... And of course we can live without it. I posit we can live quite a fulfilling life as a hunter gatherer in the kalahari.

Anyway, you can be quite a successful billionaire and have no one likes you. Being right and rigid is boring, sometimes being unhinged is interesting.

[mnw21cam]

I agree. I totally fail to see the attraction of alcoholic drinks. They're grown-up drinks, which means that they taste vile and make you feel sick.

[bowsamic]

Alcohol is a very important part of many European countries cultures

[Terr_]

Translation: "Don't be a cog in the giant capitalist machine, be an adventurous free-thinking rebel, by..."

*checks notes*

"By regularly buying goods from alcohol companies, and especially by making those purchases (and chronic low-level self-poisoning) a core part of your self-identity like a good little consumer!"

Oh wait, was I not supposed to draw attention to that second part?

[subjectsigma]

There’s nothing inherently consumerist or capitalist about drinking alcohol. Making beer for your own consumption is safe, easy, and cheap, which is probably why it’s been drunk since before recorded history. Hard alcohol can be more difficult but entirely possible to do yourself

[cycomanic]

Funny and there I thought the alcohol industry is a multi-billion dollar business creating lots of value for their shareholders (arguably externalizing the cost for general society).

It's also quite telling that you consider not drinking a boring life, in my experience (obviously this is anecdotal) people who are not drinking are more active and are typically more open to try new things.

[mawadev]

I understand this point of view and I used to share it, but I see it from the other side now:

I used alcohol to cope with stress at work/life and when I stopped, the switch flipped and I saw how much I numbed myself to the pain that was necessary to change any of it. I basically grew a pair over 90 days. Now, none of people's manipulation or crocodile tears affect me.

If you are stress- and anxiety-free, you don't have this problem and can afford it, but I highly recommend to people to quit drinking and doing drugs who recognize themselves in what I described.

[isoprophlex]

How much did you drink? I went from 2/day during my phd - clearly to cope with the stress - to 1/day to 3/week...

I however really love the taste of good specialty beers and the meme of drinking a beer while cooking&eating food. Not sure if I want to cut down any further, I enjoy drinking too much. But investing any technique to increase anxiety resistance sounds worthwhile to me, otoh...

[Narrow2890]

The shareholders of Anheuser-Busch InBev thank you for your service.

[esskay]

If you're relying on drinking to live a fulfilling life something is very, very wrong. Your life shouldn't be dictated by drinking or not drinking.

[romanovcode]

Indeed, don't drink beer and wine. Don't eat meat, just eat bugs instead! Don't eat white rice, oh wait, don't eat brown rice instead! Don't eat gluten! Don't eat dairy because it was not suppose to be this way after infancy.

Jesus, where is the line. I'm tired of other people to tell me what to eat and drink on a weekly basis.

[Ma8ee]

Are you seriously complaining that some academics are advising you about the health consequences of some habits, while you constantly are bombarded by commercials and other media trying to influence what you eat and drink?

[xyproto]

Yeah, what's next, to tell people to stop smoking, remove asbestos from houses and not let kids play with mercury any more? /s

[jmopp]

All bodies are different: some people react well to a vegan diet, others get so broken by the FODMAPs in plant-based proteins that they can only eat meat and greens. When you interpret dietary advice not as "this is what you should eat and drink" but instead as "this worked for me; it might work for you too" it brings a whole lot more inner peace. The basic tried-and-tested ground rules are pretty simple: cover your nutritional needs, enjoy vices sparingly. How that looks specifically is entirely dependent on your own body and mind. Maybe the minor physical-health hit from social alcohol consumption is offset by the mental-health gains from socialising with friends.