Geez, lighten up. Yes, some people definitely develop alcohol addiction but about 80% do not and are free to enjoy good quality drinks that not only give you a buzz, but also potentially taste great like good wine or whisky or mezcal.

I think there is almost a neo-Prohibitionist attitude coming from some, of late. Though this is largely anecdotal, I think it got ratcheted up by the movement to see marijuana legalized, where weed has often been compared to alcohol.

Aside from this, I agree that the vast majority can enjoy these substances without destroying themselves, leading very productive lives with some of the evident downsides that even casual consumption can bring.

I always wonder how much publication bias exists in these fields: “Drug X isn’t that bad for you” seems like it might be a lot harder to publish than series of papers ratcheting up the severity of some bad effects.

The entire point of this thread is that even small doses of alcohol -- doses well within what we consider to be moderate drinking -- have fairly extreme negative effects on memory. This is a problem even for the 80% of drinkers who do not develop alcohol addiction.

As we start to actually study the effects of alcohol, it really looks like it is a hard drug with no net positive effects at anything over a minuscule dose.

I mean, it’s gotten me laid a bunch, and also has had me make new friends. Also a promotion (probably)

Taking that further, it has also probably had a considerable effect on population numbers. Alcohol probably adds to the birth rate.

I'm not sure how well that hypothesis would hold up in a quick comparison of alcohol consumption per capita vs birth rate.

Space aliens looking at those numbers might even mistake alcohol for a mild contraceptive.

A prevailing theory is that humans started engaging in agriculture, which was less efficient than hunting and gathering in the start, because of the desire to consume alcohol. It is difficult to argue that agriculture has not had a dramatic effect on population numbers.

Possibly at the high end of consumption, also possibly, your parents had a glass of wine or a dash of alcohol just before your conception.

"net positive effect" is subjective. Drinking is fun and eases social interactions; I personally value that more than whatever downsides there might be to memory formation.

You'll find that alcohol is a lot like cigarettes. Cigarettes used to be everywhere, even doctors would prescribe cigarettes to their patients. Then people started slowly waking up to the idea that nicotine is a highly addictive and toxic substance. People started looking at cigarettes differently, they stopped putting cigs in movies, and people stopped glamorizing cigarettes in the media. Now we have big warnings on all cigarettes saying how bad they are for you. In some circles it is even uncool to smoke cigs.

Addictive, certainly. Toxic at normal doses? Evidence says no.

Carbon monoxide, tar, and tiny soot particles are very bad for you. Nicotine? Not so much.

Addiction is annoying as hell and I don’t recommend it. But let’s be accurate.

Which evidence? Before modern pesticides came along nicotine was used to fumigate greenhouses. Suggests to me that it must be fairly toxic.

There's increasing evidence showing that there is no safe level of alcohol consumption and that the supposed benefits are outweighed by the harms:

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-45283401

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Development_of_a_rat...

I think outlawing it now would be about as successful as the first Prohibition in the USA (i.e. not at all) but I do think it should be regulated more closely (e.g. very strong restrictions on alcohol advertising and perhaps plain packaging and black box warnings similar to cigarette packaging) and that the dangers of alcohol should be taught more widely.

This evidence is extremely weak. I urge you to read the actual paper itself. Basically you can nullify all that evidence if you don’t drink and drive.

Poster is not wrong though, we've banned drugs for much less.

In the Clean episode of "How we got to now" with Steven Johnson, Steven states that the beer-brewing process kills disease. Although no-one realises this in the middle of the 19th century, it means if you live in an unclean environment, beer is a very sensible drink.

>> https://subsaga.com/bbc/documentaries/science/how-we-got-to-...

Beer in the medieval period through 19th century was hardly alcoholic, so this is a foolish argument.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_beer

>At mealtimes in the Middle Ages, everyone could drink small beer, including children, while eating a meal at the table. Table beer was around this time typically less than 1% ABV.

Boiling, however, is also a key part of the brewing process and it does a smashing job killing germs....

1% isn't that low though. I'm sure you could drink a lot of that, so people did get drunk.

"It was common for workers (including sailors) who engaged in heavy physical labor to drink more than 10 imperial pints (5.7 litres) of small beer during a workday to quench their thirst. Small beer was also drunk for its nutrition content; it might even have bits of wheat or bread suspended in it. Erasmus Darwin, in his A Plan for the Conduct of Female Education, in Boarding Schools of 1797, thought that "For the drink of the more robust children water is preferable, and for the weaker ones, small beer ...".[5] Larger educational establishments like Eton, Winchester, and Oxbridge colleges ran their own breweries.[6]"

So even if you drank 10 pints of 1% beer, that's equivalent to 2 pints of 5% beer. Spread over a day, I don't think 2 pints is getting anyone drunk at all, except maybe for children who somehow got their hands on 10 whole pints of 1% beer.