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Re:Cancer Doctors Cite Risks of Drinking Alcohol by Shorel on Thursday November 09, 2017 @11:38PM (#15667980)
> Alcohol is shilled so hard in America. It's disgusting. I honestly don't know why it isn't more strictly regulated.

Total drunk behaviour or total abstention are both extreme and symptoms of other, deeper issues. Alcohol can amplify existing issues, but there's also plenty of people who drink moderately, in family settings, without getting wasted or violent.

Re:Cancer Doctors Cite Risks of Drinking Alcohol by dsnuh on Thursday November 09, 2017 @11:59PM (#15668048)
There are also tons of people that CAN'T just drink moderately. Functioning alcoholics are all alround you. I am glad that's not you, but just because it's not you doesn't mean there isn't the reality that alcohol destroys more lives than any other drug in America. Just because it isn't you, doesn't mean it's not your neighbor, or your coworker, or your cashier at the supermarket, or your nice uncle that gets a little creepy when he drinks...
Re:Cancer Doctors Cite Risks of Drinking Alcohol by parasight on Friday November 10, 2017 @01:00AM (#15668255)
Not taking a certain drug (poison) is considered extreme? Well, being extreme then is very good for my physical and mental health.
Re:Cancer Doctors Cite Risks of Drinking Alcohol by ivm on Thursday November 09, 2017 @11:45PM (#15668001)
So you are saying that I have issues because I don't like to use a popular drug?
Re:Cancer Doctors Cite Risks of Drinking Alcohol by Shorel on Friday November 10, 2017 @02:55PM (#15672443)
Of course not. If you don't like it, you don't like it. I dislike 99.9% of all drinks myself, including the distilled ones if they are not mixed with something.

But if you like it, and you taste a drop and can't control yourself, then yes, that would mean you have issues. And most importantly, that would mean the society around you, and their lack of a good support net, healthy extended family and so on, also has issues.

Why? Because I think when people live in a good non-toxic community most of the issues with abuse stop happening, and living in a toxic community is a factor for abuse, and it is a bigger factor than the access to the drugs themselves.

Re:Cancer Doctors Cite Risks of Drinking Alcohol by dsnuh on Friday November 10, 2017 @03:46PM (#15672853)
I feel like it is a lot more nuanced than "taste a drop and you can't control yourself", and that's not the argument I am making anyway.

Like most things, it's a spectrum. Some people are exactly as you described. I have them in my family. Others, like me only have a problem once we tip over the point of "Yeah, I'm good. One more is fine."

Alcohol is a strange drug. I think one of things that makes it so popular in the USA is that it is a "masculine" drug. I mean it's "liquid courage", right? The image of the frat boy that can beer pong all night and then take advantage of drunk sorority girl is so common as to be a trope. Media of all sorts is rife with examples of violence and damage caused by alcohol. Barfights. Barflys. Cougars. Roofied. Broken families. One night stands. Blackouts.

Alcohol, in my view, is a drug that tends to bring out the worst sorts of base desires and behaviors once a dosage level is crossed (different for everyone of course). I see no medicinal use for it, now that we have modern anesthesia. It has a high rate of abuse and addiction. Alcoholism is a real disease, and it is progressive. I still would be interested to hear any arguments against classifying alcohol as a Schedule I substance according to the language in the FDA statute.