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Can alcohol turn otherwise nice people into supercharged assh0les? (pg. 7)
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| AlphaStarred |
As far as I know, the only way you can call someone an alcoholic is when they drink all day, (or an excessive amount) every day. In Russia, it was common to drink some vodka with your daily meals, but not to an excessive amount.
It's an addiction, much like gambling. I know someone who had a serious gambling problem, losing virtually all his savings on it. I knew someone else very personally that not only lost ownership of her profitable nail salon due to gambling, but swindled people for a lot of money to feed her addiction, eventually ending up in jail. |
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| Alex |
That's not how most health services define alcoholism. Not all alcoholics are actually drunk idiots. By that I mean they don't all turn into the s we were talking about in this thread.
http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-...on/con-20020866
For some alcoholics it isn't about getting tanked every day, it's about not being able to go an extended period of time without the booze.
Obviously a lot of alcoholics do get drunk and stupid all the time, but for some it really is about getting that tiny little buzz to get them through their day/problems or, like I said, not being able to go without it at all for any significant amount of time.
From the reading I've done it's not always the alcoholism that causes direct problems, but in some cases alcoholics often are functional, and require other substances like cocaine to negate the nasty lingering effects of drinking in order to remain "functional".
Edit: Alpha, I think your definition is actually what is now being classified as "binge drinking", which is a component to some alcoholism but not always. |
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| AlphaStarred |
| quote: | Originally posted by Alex
For some alcoholics it isn't about getting tanked every day, it's about not being able to go an extended period of time without the booze. |
Right, like any addiction.
| quote: | | Edit: Alpha, I think your definition is actually what is now being classified as "binge drinking", which is a component to some alcoholism but not always. |
I wasn't implying that alcoholics necessarily have to binge drink all day, but they'll generally drink every day, if they can, and not just a shot or two of vodka during meals (as per my reference to Russian customs). I guess I shouldn't have written "all day," but yeah - they'll drink a pretty copious amount every day, more so than the average drinker.
I know someone who used to drink only at nighttime, but he'd consume a 750 ml/1 liter bottle of whiskey every night. That's a problem. |
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| DJ RANN |
| quote: | Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
It doesn't spell it out. |
I don't really care if you feel 14 units isn't a lot, the NHS is the UK government authority on Health Issues and they state "More than 9 million people in England regularly drink more than the recommended daily limits or are alcohol dependent".
It's certainly no less subjective than what you tried to use
| quote: | | 1.6 million people in the UK "may have some level of dependence on alcohol" |
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Bear in mind, it's not really incredulous to surmise that regularly drinking more than than is publicly known as dangerous to your health is in fact a problem.
And by the way, you should really read that Guardian article you carpet bombed from; they say their %'s are based the old allowances of 21 units for men, which is now down to 14, so their benchmark is effectively underweighted by 30% in comparison to the benchmark of the NHS stats.
Pedantic but if you're going to open that door....
| quote: | Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
The only one of those statistics that relates to your claim is the 9%/4% one, and both those numbers are less than 10%. They average out at almost exactly the same as the stats I cited.
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Actually they don't - If I'd said just men, you'd be arguing about a difference of 1% so it would would have just been a while lot easier if you'd stated that but again, you want to get all pedantic about it so here's the math:
men (9%) + women (4%) equals: 6.5% average.
So your 1.6 million, or to use the same terms as the NHS figures, is 2.5%.
6.5% is a lot closer to 10% than 2.5% is.
Sorry but that doesn't | quote: | | average out at almost exactly the same as the stats I cited |
If you want to get precise, and make sure people "don't abuse stats" you should really make sure you know them in the first place.
| quote: | Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
The 9 million people one is people who "drink more than the recommended daily limits or are alcohol dependent". Given that government guidelines in the UK are 14 units of alcohol per week (less than 7 pints of lager) it doesn't take much to exceed the government's recommended limits. I seriously doubt anyone who drinks 8 pints a week would be classified as having a "problem", even if they are technically drinking an unhealthy amount.
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I don't really care if you feel 14 units isn't a lot, the NHS is the UK government authority on Health Issues and they state "More than 9 million people in England regularly drink more than the recommended daily limits or are alcohol dependent".
It's certainly no less subjective or ambiguous than
| quote: | | 1.6 million people in the UK "may have some level of dependence on alcohol" |
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Read it however you like but you better argue the subjectivity with them and not me as their baseline is that you have a problem if you regularly drink more than than is health for you.
They actually state there is "no safe amount of alcohol to drink" as it's universally classed as a chronic systemic poison but there's certainly a spectrum between 15 units a week and morbidly alcoholic. However we have no way of knowing what that is so I'll just go with the NHS stat that 9 million people have a problem in that they regularly drink more than they should and you can try to get subjective with it all you want.
Finally, the UK is in the top 25 of alcohol consumption out of 196 countries and only just outside of the top 10 for binge drinking, so I don't think you can really say the UK doesn't have a issue with drink.
This all started because I said about 1 in 10 have a drink problem, and I can back it up.
Pedantic, but I think you get it now. |
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| DJ RANN |
| quote: | Originally posted by AlphaStarred
As far as I know, the only way you can call someone an alcoholic is when they drink all day, (or an excessive amount) every day. In Russia, it was common to drink some vodka with your daily meals, but not to an excessive amount.
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Quoting Russia as a benchmark for drinking is like quoting the USA as the benchmark for body fat; they literally are the world leaders in Alcohol consumption, alcoholism and binge drinking.
I think my local UPS driver was a functioning alcoholic. In 5 years, I never saw him take off his wrap around sunglasses and while he got everything done, he would sweat like a pig, say slightly off timed things and wear tons of cologne.
Another friend of mine just got divorced from her Hubby due to an extremely serious drinking problem; I even drank with him many occasions and he seemed to be a moderate drinker. What I didn't know was that before we'd arrive, he'd usually done a bottle of vodka or wine.
His wife knew about it but thought it was less, until she went to the garage that she'd cleaned a week before and found a dozen empty vodka bottles down there. Turned out he was doing stuff like going to the gym with a "water" bottle filled with vodka.
The last straw came when her Mum came to town for the weekend and they were driving along, clear street at normal speed and just full on tanked the new porsche in to a lamppost. He had to get her to jump in the driver's seat in front of her mum because (unknown to them until that very moment) he had a DUI trial pending.
They divorced quickly and from what I know his problem is worse than ever and he's just disappeared. He was the CEO of a big tech company and had a whole career laid out in front of him but he just wrecked it all. |
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| SYSTEM-J |
| quote: | Actually they don't - If I'd said just men, you'd be arguing about a difference of 1% so it would would have just been a while lot easier if you'd stated that but again, you want to get all pedantic about it so here's the math:
men (9%) + women (4%) equals: 6.5% average.
So your 1.6 million, or to use the same terms as the NHS figures, is 2.5%.
6.5% is a lot closer to 10% than 2.5% is.
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You might want to consider that your statistic pertains to adults aged 16 - 74 rather than the entire UK population. 25.5% of the UK population falls outside that age range according to the UK census. 6.5% of 74.5% = 4.8%. A lot closer to both <5% and 2.5% than 10% I think you'll agree.
The pedantry war rumbles on.
Besides, I did read the article I linked. I'm not sure why you would claim "I don't quite know the quantification of "Harmful drinkers" as it's an ambiguous term", when the article gives you a helpful breakdown:
Moderate drinker: 0-21 units per week for men; 0-14 for women. Increasing risk drinker: 21-50 units per week for men; 14-35 for women. Harmful drinker: 50+ units per week for men; 35+ for women
| quote: | | This all started because I said about 1 in 10 have a drink problem, and I can back it up. |
Actually, this all started because I said: "I don't really know anyone with a serious drinking problem". I think the operative word is pretty clear there. Sure I know plenty of people who drink more than is healthy, which your triumphantly "objective" statistic has quantified, but we were discussing alcoholism and addiction and whether I'd witnessed it in close quarters. Your indiscriminate spamming of tangentially relevant statistics might make you feel knowledgeable, but once again it has failed to illuminate the discussion with any genuine insight. |
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| OrangestO |
If alcohol negatively impacts your life in any way, you are an alcoholic.
When it comes to how alcoholism is defined, that's about the biggest umbrella you're going to hear about.
It's not just about dependency, fellas. That's just one - albeit extreme - form of alcoholism. |
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| OrangestO |
| And lol @ the pissing contest taking place between the two statisticians with (obviously) too much time on their hands. |
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| SYSTEM-J |
| Go on OrangestO, criticise my lifestyle. Let's see how that one plays out for you. |
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| OrangestO |
Lol.
Lighten up, dude. |
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| DJ RANN |
| quote: | Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
You might want to consider that your statistic pertains to adults aged 16 - 74 rather than the entire UK population. 25.5% of the UK population falls outside that age range according to the UK census. 6.5% of 74.5% = 4.8%. A lot closer to both <5% and 2.5% than 10% I think you'll agree.
The pedantry war rumbles on.
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It does rumble on indeed, but , that's about as tenuous as it gets. You should really warm up before making stretches like that!
So you just want to talk 16 and above? Then if the stats were taken from those ages and we have to state they extend beyond the 74th birthday (you don't suddenly get magically sober on that birthday do you?).
Therefore 16 to death = 86% of the population, and if 6.5% on average of them have a dependency problem, then that equals more than double your number of 1.6m.
Furthermore, the actual figure from the NHS which you keep glazing over and not mentioning is 9,000,000 people from from 64,000,000 which is actually just over 14%
Which ever way you want to cook that, it doesn't:
| quote: | Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
average out at almost exactly the same as the stats I cited
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| quote: | Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
Besides, I did read the article I linked. I'm not sure why you would claim "I don't quite know the quantification of "Harmful drinkers" as it's an ambiguous term", when the article gives you a helpful breakdown:
Moderate drinker: 0-21 units per week for men; 0-14 for women. Increasing risk drinker: 21-50 units per week for men; 14-35 for women. Harmful drinker: 50+ units per week for men; 35+ for women
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You're putting things in speech parenthesis that I never said: "I don't quite know the quantification of "Harmful drinkers" as it's an ambiguous term"
That's your text, and misleading paraphrasing, so don't palm that off on to me. I never said that or in that context.
None of those stats from the NHS start to go in Moderate or hazardous or harmful - Yours may, but that's no my problem :p
Mine was, and still is:
| quote: | The NHS official estimates are that around 9% of men in the UK and 4% of UK women show signs of alcohol dependence
More than 9 million people in England regularly drink more than the recommended daily limits or are alcohol dependent
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| quote: | Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
Actually, this all started because I said: "I don't really know anyone with a serious drinking problem".
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And again, I'm surprised by that (which is what really started all this) as 9% of every adult man you know shows signs of alcohol dependence, which is in itself a serious problem.
| quote: | Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
I think the operative word is pretty clear there. Sure I know plenty of people who drink more than is healthy, which your triumphantly "objective" statistic has quantified, but we were discussing alcoholism and addiction and whether I'd witnessed it in close quarters.
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Unless, you're narrowing the odds by only knowing less than 11 people and therefore not allowing that 9% potential to yield, you're statistically blind to it.
| quote: | Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
Your indiscriminate spamming of tangentially relevant statistics might make you feel knowledgeable, but once again it has failed to illuminate the discussion with any genuine insight. |
Sorry, but knew you were going to pull that, which is why, three posts ago I...
| quote: | Originally posted by DJ RANN
you should really read that Guardian article you carpet bombed from
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(I hope you're flattered that I remembered that one) |
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| enydo |
| oh my god please just go die somewhere |
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