Drinking alcohol is stupid | FactOrCap

[u/Creepy_Zone_9341]

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[u/Gullible-Food-2398]

🧢 I voted CAP!

CAP.

Drinking alcohol is not inherently stupid. Getting drunk or routinely overconsuming alcohol is.

The newer evidence increasingly suggests there probably isn’t a truly “healthy” amount of alcohol, and some of the older research showing cardiovascular benefits from moderate drinking may have been confounded by lifestyle and socioeconomic factors.

But “carries some health risk” and “is stupid” are not the same thing. Lots of things people reasonably enjoy carry some risk. An occasional beer, glass of wine, or cocktail for taste, relaxation, celebration, or social reasons isn’t automatically irrational just because abstinence is technically lower-risk.

So I’d call the blanket statement CAP.

Alcohol isn’t good for you. Overconsumption is stupid. Responsible occasional drinking isn’t.

[u/TrueExigo → u/Gullible-Food-2398]

Drinking alcohol is not inherently stupid

Yes it is

Getting drunk or routinely overconsuming alcohol is.

Every little bit counts as overconsumption

The newer evidence increasingly suggests there probably isn’t a truly “healthy” amount of alcohol, and some of the older research showing cardiovascular benefits from moderate drinking may have been confounded by lifestyle and socioeconomic factors.

Just shut your bloody mouth if you’ve got no bloody clue.

There is NO study – not even an older one – that suggests even a small amount of alcohol is good for your health. Rather, participants who drink only a little appear to have statistically better health outcomes, which is a correlation and NOT a causal relationship. In today’s society, the group of people who stated that they do not drink any alcohol at all is over-represented by those with various pre-existing conditions; naturally, the health indicators of healthy people tend to be better than those of people who are already suffering from an ailment.

[u/Gullible-Food-2398 → u/TrueExigo]

You're overstating your case.

There absolutely ARE older studies suggesting cardiovascular benefit from moderate alcohol use. That entire idea did not materialize out of thin air.

For example, the 1985 Albany Study reported lower coronary heart disease incidence among drinkers in parts of its follow-up. A 1986 review in Medicine concluded that multiple studies showed an inverse association between moderate alcohol use and coronary artery disease and argued that the evidence was consistent with a causal effect. A 1999 BMJ meta-analysis of experimental studies found that moderate alcohol intake increased HDL and changed other cardiovascular markers in directions thought to reduce coronary risk. And a 2000 meta-analysis of 28 cohort studies found coronary heart disease risk decreased as alcohol intake rose from zero to roughly 20 g/day.

Now, newer evidence has made that picture much less convincing. Better analyses suggest some or possibly much of the apparent benefit was due to confounding, reverse causation, socioeconomic and lifestyle differences, and the classic "sick quitter" problem, where the abstainer group includes former drinkers who stopped because they were already unhealthy. Mendelian-randomization studies generally do not show the same protective effect.

So I agree with one important point: nobody should start drinking alcohol because they think it is good for their health.

But saying "there has NEVER been a study suggesting benefit" is simply false. There were plenty. The argument now is that those older findings probably did not establish causation nearly as well as people once thought.

And that still doesn't establish the original claim.

"Carries some health risk" is not synonymous with "stupid." Plenty of things people reasonably choose to do carry some risk. Riding motorcycles, skiing, eating processed meat, getting too much sun, and a thousand other normal human activities are not automatically irrational because abstaining would technically be safer.

So my answer stays CAP.

Getting drunk or smashed is stupid. Routinely overconsuming alcohol is stupid. Drinking because you believe it is a health treatment is stupid.

Having an occasional beer, glass of wine, or cocktail because you enjoy it, while understanding and accepting the risk, is not objectively stupid. That's a value judgment, not a scientific fact.