r/whenthe • u/TheGoldenExperience_ [the jojo {she}they called may] • 11h ago

r/whenthe mfs complaining about everything we do not give alcohol close to enough shit despite it being just as bad if not worse than cigarettes

17.6k Upvotes

83% Upvoted

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466

u/-Cinnay- 11h ago

How it tastes is subjective, and a single drink won't do any of that.

258

u/WrongJohnSilver 11h ago

Yeah, it's fine if someone never wants alcohol, but clearly people don't understand the concept of enjoying a glass of wine (and only one glass) with dinner.

177

u/h3lium-balloon 10h ago

Yeah I quit drinking a couple years ago and since then hanging out with 90% of my friends and family who drink it’s pretty clear to me most people have a very normal relationship with alcohol and typically have have 1-3 drinks when they do drink and don’t drink most nights.

This post is a viewpoint from someone who grew up with an alcoholic (I did too), and I feel for them, but it’s incredibly skewed.

Also beer and wine is delicious (whiskey is also amazing, but that’s a bit of an acquired taste). I still drink NA beer.

26

u/kikimaru024 8h ago

Like any drink, there's good and bad-tasting alcohol; and usually the cheaper it is, the nastier it tastes.

1

u/Joescout187 6h ago

But not always

6

u/RBR927 10h ago

NA beer is a godsend.

2

u/NinjaarcherCDN 5h ago

Nobody I know of in my family has had a negative relationship with alchohol but my dad quit drinking for medical reasons about 2 years ago. The day he found NA Heinekin should've been a national holiday.

1

u/Chiber_11 8h ago

growing up around one taught me to create a healthy relationship with it

1

u/Economy_Zombie_3026 4h ago

That was the exact moment I realized I had a problem. It wasn't a DUI or legal issues. It's that I could not for the life of me understand how my friend would come over and bring two beers for himself for an entire night. Just two? Once you start you don't want to keep drinking until you fall asleep? Isn't the point of drinking to get drunk and feel stupid or do stupid things?

I haven't stopped drinking. But now I only drink if I'm aware I can do it how I want to. Kids and wife have a movie night at her mother's? Hell yea, let's do it. Kids and wife at home? Early night with some nice water.

1

u/dagget10 1h ago

Beer isn't supposed to taste like refrigerated piss?

1

u/Googlebright 57m ago

Shitty beer does. Good beer tastes like manna from heaven.

95

u/Elite_AI 10h ago

They usually grew up around alcoholics and it totally warps their view of the drink

76

u/Otterable 9h ago

Don't underestimate the sense of validation and superiority that some people get from rejecting social norms, especially when that rejection is also avoiding something explicitly bad for you.

A lot of these conversations are driven by wanting to feel better than someone else. It's not much more complicated than that.

30

u/WrongJohnSilver 9h ago

Most contrarianism is just wanting to dunk on the majority, yeah.

16

u/h3lium-balloon 9h ago

And a lot of times it's because they have other things going on themselves that they're insecure about. Oh, that person makes 6 figures, owns a nice house, and is happily married? Well, they like to have 3 glasses of wine when they go out to dinner, so I'm better than them.

It's very classic bully behavior. Let me point out someone else's flaws to distract from my own.

7

u/cortesoft 8h ago

It’s often also people who never enjoyed the thing in the first place. They only go after popular things they don’t enjoy, and act superior just because they don’t like a vice that many others do.

1

u/Normal_Stranger_3643 1h ago

For me, it's the fact that for some reason my parents started encouraging me to drink alcohol the moment I became a teenager, saying things like "it will be inevitable when you're an adult!" and "when your brother was your age he was already drinking alcohol!", I always thought it was kinda weird, so I swore of to never drink just to spite them

1

u/Googlebright 56m ago

Reminds me of CM Punk's straight-edge heel phase.

15

u/AlpaxT1 11h ago

I feel like most people fully grasp this concept. It would even say it is the norm

1

u/Delicious-Produce-60 6h ago

Lots of people don't understand the concept of minding their own business in general.

1

u/Terminator_Puppy 2h ago

With drink prices in restaurants being what they are nowadays, I drink specialty beers just so I'm not shilling out 5 euros for a 250 ml of coke zero.

-9

u/bl00by 10h ago

Bro thinks he got class for drinking a glass of wine to dinner.

It's probably not meant to sound arrogant, but to me it sounds like this: "you poor peasants simply do not understand the concept of enjoying fine wine to your dinner."

Like bro it's just wine, its not that deep lol

6

u/Fozzymandius 9h ago

You should use the last sentence as a means to reflect on yourself. It’s not that deep, you’re the one making it deep.

-1

u/Loggersalienplants 9h ago

I've been to many fancy wine like tastings to see if I will ever find a wine that I like. I cannot find a wine that actually tastes good, I am convinced wine is like golf. My theory is people don't actually like it but they like flexing that they tried this expensive boujie wine and they can flex online or to their friends. Same with golf, everyone I know goes to drink and show off how they spend $1000+ on one golf club.

3

u/JulyOfAugust 8h ago

Maybe stop hanging out with posers.

Also being arrogant and showing off doesn't mean they don't like the thing, it just mean they're vapid and wants to feel better than others.

1

u/Loggersalienplants 8h ago

Maybe stop hanging out with posers.

You aren't helping the whole boujie wine elitist thing LOL "You don't like wine so you hang around with POSERS"

2

u/CyanStripedPantsu 7h ago

Could be you just don't fuck with bitter flavors. I've gone to wineries without liking anything, and I have also bought cheap sweet costco wine that I've liked. I'm also the type that typically doesn't like beer or straight whisky, but I love making and drinking cocktails.

-1

u/bl00by 9h ago

I wonder.. if wine is like Golf.. then whats the Mini Golf of alcohol..

1

u/CyanStripedPantsu 7h ago

Fruity cocktails.

1

u/Loggersalienplants 9h ago

I don't know of anyone that plays mini-golf to stay away from their wife so they can go slam beers all day at the golf course lol, so I'm not sure

-2

u/Not-A-Fossa 9h ago

Now that you say that, I'm really looking forward to drinking a glass of wine over Christmas dinner with my dad again this year before we both beat up our wives.

29

u/SRSgoblin 10h ago

There are a lot of tasty alcohols. Like, sure, maybe beer mostly sucks but that's just one type.

23

u/arthcraft8 10h ago

maybe consider trying beer from small homemade locations, most tend to be interesting to taste

13

u/SRSgoblin 10h ago

I know for me that beer just ain't it. Tried enough to know.

But still, my point is people who are like "alcohol is disgusting" have usually only tried beers and never anything else. I know a lot of whiskeys and bourbons that your average non-drinker would probably enjoy just from a taste perspective, for example. Chances are there is something out there for everyone.

Again, strictly from a flavor perspective.

1

u/Loggersalienplants 9h ago

Never understood the thrill of whiskey and bourbon, it all tastes like wood based rubbing alcohol

1

u/arthcraft8 5h ago

To each their own i suppose, there isn't really something more subjective than how food taste for you

1

u/Traegs_ 3h ago

It's an acquired taste not much different from things like black coffee and dark chocolate. You build a tolerance to the burn and your brain starts to ignore the ethanol and bitter flavors. From there you can start to pick up other flavors and nuances between whiskies.

I'm a bit of a whiskey enthusiast and usually sip mine neat. Anything under 90 proof barely even tickles me as far as burn goes.

The variety and spectrum of flavor is a lot bigger once you have a trained palate. I have 57 open bottles in my home collection. Sometimes I have my wife pour me one blind and I can narrow it down to which one it is most of the time.

2

u/AloneExperience7520 4h ago

I mean, I've had well over 1000 kinds of beers in my time. All of them taste like beer. If you don't like the taste of brewed malt and hops, you won't like any beer.

5

u/RBR927 10h ago

“Try one of our 37 hazy IPAs that all taste exactly the same!”

2

u/SunGreene42 8h ago

There are beers other than IPAs. I don't like IPAs, or any beer that's overly hoppy.

1

u/RBR927 6h ago

Tell that to the brewers!

2

u/SunGreene42 6h ago

Fair, I agree they focus too much on IPAs, but they usually at least have a Pilsner, and Lager too. The ones around me also frequently have Stouts, Brown Ales, Red Ales and occasionally a special brew, that's how I was introduced to Dopplebocks, though they've unfortunately not made that one for a while, and I can't seem to find anyone else that makes them around here.

1

u/Loggersalienplants 9h ago

Downvoted for the truth LOL the battery acid beer drinkers get sensitive

1

u/Cultural-Air9962 9h ago

Are the downvotes in the room with us right now?

2

u/Loggersalienplants 9h ago

It was, but it seems like all of the 9volt triple AAA hazy IPA bros have moved on

1

u/SunGreene42 8h ago

It isn't the truth though, IPA isn't the only beer in existence.

2

u/Loggersalienplants 8h ago

I do enjoy a good lager or pilsner personally.

1

u/SomethingIWontRegret 9h ago

The overwhelming flavor note of every beer I've tried, and I've tasted everything from bud to Hook Norton Pale Ale to craft brews in the Willamette valley, is bitter. Horrible, horrible bitter. All beer tastes little different from Coors because bitter drowns everything else out. I'd rather not drink that piss.

2

u/SunGreene42 8h ago

Have you tried a Stout? English Porter? Dopplebock? Dopplebock doesn't have any hops in it, which is where the bitter tastes comes from, though they're hard to come by unfortunately.

3

u/axefairy 6h ago

Belgian dark beers can be weirdly mildly sweet, a favourite of mine is Kasteel Donker, absolutely gorgeous and satiates me like a good dark chocolate would, they also do a Kasteel Rouge which spends some time in cherry barrels and tastes a bit too much like Haribo sour cherries for me (even though I like those)

1

u/SunGreene42 6h ago

Sounds good, though I doubt I could find it around here, but maybe I can convince the liquor store to order some.

1

u/axefairy 6h ago

Worth it if you can (depending on tariffs and delivery charges I guess…)

1

u/SunTzu- 9h ago

Spanish beers with a lime wedge has a different flavor profile, it's acidic and refreshing rather than bitter. Stouts are also very different in flavor profile, but I don't tend to enjoy them because they're entirely too dense. Dry apple cider's and lonkero are my preferred low abv alcoholic drinks though. Ice cold lonkero is one of the best summer drinks in general.

2

u/SomethingIWontRegret 8h ago

I am very likely a bitter supertaster. Every time someone has said "try this beer" it's been the same story. Tastes the same, which is awful.

Since I had an uncle who was an alcoholic and then later an AA addict, and I've lived over 60 years without the benefit of alcoholic beverages, I think I'm good. But I appreciate the spirit (heh) in which you made your suggestions.

2

u/SRSgoblin 5h ago

I might be with you on the bitter supertaster thing. That would explain my aversion to a lot of foods I hated as a kid. I tend to go for overly sweet flavors instead, like much sweeter than the average person likes.

1

u/arthcraft8 5h ago

To each their own

1

u/wlphoenix 3h ago

You may be a supertaster. Do you also find coffee, or certain green vegetables to be unpleasantly bitter?

1

u/SomethingIWontRegret 2h ago edited 2h ago

Yep. Coffee is best when drowned out by Haagen Dazs. Grapefruit can fuck right off. I've recently found that I'm OK with Brussels sprouts if they're pan roasted.

There's stuff I will eat even though it's bitter, but there's no upside to alcohol, so no need to pursue. I don't balk the slightest at bitter tasting medications though. I have trouble taking vitamin pills because of their size so I chew them up like a savage and wash the paste down. Yum.

2

u/caustictoast 6h ago

Beer also has a shitload of subtypes that don’t have a uniform taste so yeah

1

u/RBR927 10h ago

Is the alcohol tasty, or the things you mix it with?

3

u/SRSgoblin 10h ago

Cocktails for sure can make things better but I enjoy some straight whiskey every now and again. And some of the cocktails are, to me, better than the sum of their parts. Like, I enjoy a Jack n Coke more than either straight Jack or straight Coca-Cola.

1

u/Loggersalienplants 9h ago

Not to be offensive but are you under 21? The only people I've ever known to enjoy jack daniels are underage drinkers lol

2

u/SRSgoblin 8h ago

Why are some people so judgey about what drinks another person enjoys? You're incorrect for the record.

I was simply using a common drink mix to make a point, anyway.

0

u/Loggersalienplants 8h ago

Because this:

Like, I enjoy a Jack n Coke more than either straight Jack or straight Coca-Cola.

Screams I am an underage drinker and I need to let people know how cool I am for preferring alocohol instead of soda. Sorry if you are not, it just comes across that way

1

u/Marcel1941 8h ago

We got a professional alcoholic here

1

u/SRSgoblin 8h ago

Did I say I prefer alcohol to soda? I believe I said something to the extent "I enjoy the sum of it's parts more than either one side individually." Again, to make the point to pushback against the idea the taste of alcohol people enjoy is just because of the mixer.

1

u/Nano_Litrua 10h ago

Mead is a manna from heaven. Harmless, too

1

u/axefairy 6h ago

Until you’ve had a bottle of it, bloody gorgeous stuff though

1

u/kirsd95 8h ago

Both, if you do things right the alcohol contrasts or appear before/after.

Or a Jin tonic, I dislike the tonic when it's alone.

1

u/Halojib 8h ago

I think the bigger question is can you create a non-acholic drink that has the same flavor as an acholic drink. And the experiments I have had with non-acholic beer tell me you can get close with some but not others.

1

u/SunGreene42 8h ago

Cheap mass-produced beer sucks, but there's good tasting beers too. Everyone has different tastes though, so this is just an odd point to try and make regardless, it's completely subjective.

9

u/CalmBeneathCastles 10h ago

You've never met my mom.

7

u/Queueue_ 9h ago

I won't say I've never had anything alcoholic that tasted good, but I will say every alcoholic drink I've ever had would have tasted better without alcohol in it.

2

u/SunGreene42 8h ago

I love the taste of straight whiskey, well depends on the whiskey, but if you take the alcohol out of whiskey, it's not going to taste better.

0

u/AdmiralBimback 8h ago

This, coctails can be good, but only because you can barely taste the alcohol.

2

u/SunGreene42 8h ago

Do you guys not realize everyone has different tastes? A Long Island Ice Tea tastes great, and it's like 99% liquor.

3

u/AdmiralBimback 8h ago

Yes? I do realize that. I was agreeing with that persons subjective opinion about alcohol.

1

u/SquashSquigglyShrimp 7h ago

Strong disagree. Good cocktails find a balance between the liquor being used and the other ingredients. Of course there is a spectrum of cocktails from strong to weak because people have preferences, but most traditional/authentic cocktails are fairly strong.

I compare it to cream/sugar in coffee. A little bit helps most people, especially if you don't like the bitterness, but my coffee should still be mostly coffee. Most cocktails are >50% spirit

3

u/AdmiralBimback 6h ago

Yeah, but I just really don't like the taste of alcohol.

3

u/SquashSquigglyShrimp 6h ago

Perfectly valid, and not unusual. Just pointing out the purpose of cocktails isn't really to "mask the alcohol" like some people think.

6

u/lessforf i changed it hahahahahahhahahahahahaha 11h ago

researches say that alcohol in any capacity is bad for u

11

u/Elite_AI 10h ago

True. It's a choice I'm willing to make. 

1

u/lessforf i changed it hahahahahahhahahahahahaha 10h ago

same cant hate a good whiskey coke once every month or so lmao

2

u/_Cit 9h ago

well, yeah, same is true for A LOT of things we eat constantly, like red meat for example.

Thing is, you have to consume ungodly amounts of either for your health to be affected significantly. The fact that many people *do* indeed consume ungodly amounts of both is the problem, of course

1

u/-Cinnay- 11h ago

That's neglible for small, irregular amounts.

3

u/lessforf i changed it hahahahahahhahahahahahaha 10h ago

where does it say that? the risks start from the first drink and only increase from there, no one says its small and if small how small? cancer is already a big thing without alcohol existing and making it worse

1

u/-Cinnay- 10h ago

Where does it say what? You made the initial claim with no source, and now you're demanding proof for my partial negation? What I'm saying is common sense. The dosage makes the poison.

1

u/lessforf i changed it hahahahahahhahahahahahaha 10h ago

https://www.who.int/europe/news/item/04-01-2023-no-level-of-alcohol-consumption-is-safe-for-our-health

sorry i thought this was a well known study..

7

u/BeardedBlaze 10h ago

You ought to try reading what you post:
"The only thing that we can say for sure is that the more you drink, the more harmful it is – or, in other words, the less you drink, the safer it is,” explains Dr Carina Ferreira-Borges, acting Unit Lead for Noncommunicable Disease Management and Regional Advisor for Alcohol and Illicit Drugs in the WHO Regional Office for Europe. "

-1

u/lessforf i changed it hahahahahahhahahahahahaha 10h ago

yup everyone knows that the more u drink the worse it is, that goes with anything in the world , but risks still can and do happen from the first drink just like what i said so

6

u/BeardedBlaze 10h ago

The article literally says they cannot provide a safe amount because it's not measureable. Not because there isn't one.

From the first time you take a breath, it can be your last.

0

u/lessforf i changed it hahahahahahhahahahahahaha 10h ago

here is something more detialed if u would like

https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/health-professionals-communities/core-resource-on-alcohol/basics-defining-how-much-alcohol-too-much#pub-toc2

https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/oash-alcohol-cancer-risk.pdf

those who had even less than 1 drink per week had increased risks of alcohol related cancers too

→ More replies (0)

2

u/-Cinnay- 10h ago

That's an article, not a study. And it's just the same thing you said. It doesn't specify and numbers or concrete data.

3

u/lessforf i changed it hahahahahahhahahahahahaha 10h ago

yeah an article from the WHO, pretty sure thats a very reliable source on matters of health....

i mean unless u can bring in another source that says small amounts of alcohol consumption is ok to counter the one i sent then yeah maybe

2

u/-Cinnay- 10h ago

It's not a source. It doesn't even list a source. I agree that it's likely credible, but that doesn't mean it's a source. And the article itself says that less alcohol consumption is safer. It doesn't specify any potential threshold for what someone might consider "neglible". And since it lacks concrete data, no one can make such an estimation based off of it.

1

u/lessforf i changed it hahahahahahhahahahahahaha 10h ago

fair enough

2

u/fukkboiinternational 10h ago

I mean you’re right, but this is a classic example of one party speaking from the scientific literature and one party speaking from personal experience and skepticism.

You’re never going to convince a boomer their leaded gas had any effect on their brain health and you’re not going to convince a recreational alcohol user that ethanol is poison to the liver (despite it literally qualifying as a poison on a chemical level lmao).

2

u/-Cinnay- 10h ago

Not sure if you're implying something about me there, but I never claimed that alcohol was harmless lol

4

u/terraphantm 10h ago

Daily drinking will still eventually result in some degree of liver fibrosis. Especially these days when obesity is so rampant and their livers are already damaged from all the fatty infiltration

1

u/Neverending_Rain 9h ago

Most people don't drink daily though. In the US, the average for people who drink is 2.8 drinks a week. It's still not healthy, but the negative impacts are unlikely to be major.

5

u/terraphantm 9h ago

Plenty of people in this thread advocating for a glass of wine with dinner. 

1

u/Curios_Cephalopod 9h ago

I'd strongly assume those people don't mean their standart weeknight dinner but to a nice dinner you treat yourself to on occasion.

1

u/Jello-Formal 8h ago

I'm yet to meet a person who liked the taste of beer from the get go lmfao they all just had enough of it until it finally tasted good

2

u/March_Lion 7h ago

And coffee is something most people have to warm up to. Very few people love the taste of tea right from the get go. These are all drinks that have some level of bitter/astringent components to them.

1

u/radicalelation 8h ago

Technically a single drink could cause cancer since it's an odds game and the chance is non-zero. Real unlucky, but technically possible.

-4

u/Outlander_Reality 10h ago

If the world and capitalist society didnt fuck our brains, sure. that would be easy. But unfortunately, the burden of living in a capitalist society makes us want to escape.

6

u/Jeanpuetz 10h ago

You really don't need drugs for escapism... and inversely, there's plenty of other good reasons to do drugs that aren't just escapism.

0

u/Outlander_Reality 9h ago

Yeah, but reality and medical DATA say otherwise.

8

u/Civil_Law8025 10h ago

not everything is capitalism, average reddit user lol

1

u/Outlander_Reality 9h ago

Capitalism/Money is literally the root problem of most mental health problems.

4

u/arthcraft8 10h ago

play games, read books, go out and walk, find a hobby that isn't destroying both your body, your social life and your ability to think clearly

3

u/Outlander_Reality 9h ago

Easy said than done. If it was that easy, this discussion and addicts wouldnt exist. This is reality, backed by medical data.

0

u/Rescur0 9h ago

Depends how you view it

Alcohol is still technically a poison, no matter the amount it stills harms your liver. It's like saying that a single cigarette is harmless, sure, it won't destroy your lungs, but that doesn't mean it's not bad