Not zoomer "Having one beer a day after work makes you a chronic alcoholic" nonsense but actual, damaging alcoholism. I've heard that people in Europe and Asia drink a LOT more than people in the USA so I'm curious.

It's not about how much, it's about how detrimental it is to your life and the lives of people in your life.
And yeah, we drink more than Americans but we don't have anywhere near as much drunkenness as Americans it really anglos in general do. I don't know why. Even the Irish didn't have was meant problems with drink as Americans.

I think any more than 1 drink a day is a slippery slope. Even binging twice a week is alcoholism. I did a lot of mental gymnastics to try to prove I wasn't an alcoholic until I was drinking 15 a day and going to work drunk.

I'm not saying bring an alcoholic is bad either. The best times of my entire life were when I was an alcoholic.

If you NEED it, you're an alcoholic.

When all of your kids look Asian or like they have fetal alcohol syndrome, maybe you should have a few more drinks so you can pass the fuck out and not worry about things.

I dunno but from 2016-2020 I was averaging 10 drinks a days Mon-Thurs, then 14+ (I'll say 16) Friday and Sat. would do that about 3/4 of the year
>[(4x10) + (2x16) x 52] x 3/4 = 2,808 drinks a year; 11,232 drink in 4 years. it was probably higher than that.
couldn't account for 2010-2016 because that was college and grad school and didn't really keep track then, but probably pretty high as well.

>inb4 permanent damage
luckily liver and kidney enzymes are normal, probably because I've cut down. now I just binge drink on Fridays when I'm bored

>>21414505
>The best times of my entire life were when I was an alcoholic.
Why did you stop the good times?

>>21414515
I developed some stomach issues and weird dizzy spells. I was hallucinating at night and having a hard time telling my dreams from reality. Also I was just shaky and weak all the time and felt like I was going to die. Right before I quit I wasn't eating at all I was just drinking. Guess I just went a little too far.

>>21414522
pussy

>>21414505
Bullshit.
The US has a significantly higher prevalence of alcohol use disorders than Italy, across both genders and all age groups. Italy’s Mediterranean drinking culture and strong social norms around moderation contribute to lower AUD rates, while the US (and all anglo-culture countries) faces broader issues with binge drinking, stress-related use, and addiction, however, alcohol, particularly in the form of wine, is a daily occurrence in Italian life and Italy in general consumes more alcoholic drinks than the US
And yet, AUD rates are lower in Italy.
Going a little north, Switzerland also has higher overall alcohol consumption than the US yet also has much lower rates of AUDs. Like the US, beer is common yet unlike the US, binge drinking and "weekend warrior" alcohol consumption is not.
The main difference I've noticed is that intoxication and "feeling good" is the point in the US. Socialisation is the point in Europe and Asia. Drinking tends to be regular in Europe and Asia and episodic in the US and other Anglo countries. Intoxication is discouraged/stigmatised in Europe and Asia. "Bro, if you remember the party, you didn't have a good time" is the POV in the US.

>>21414514
>>21414522
I have a personal theory that alcoholism itself isn't nearly as damaging to the body as people think, and that it's mostly second-order effects that kill your liver. If I had to guess, the main culprit is probably people abusing OTC painkillers (notoriously hard on your liver, especially when combined with alcohol) to deal with hangovers. Historically people drank way more than they do today and yet the incidence of death from alcoholic liver failure was the same or lower. In the mid-1800s the average American drank like two liters of cask-proof whiskey a week.

>>21414484 (OP)
>less than 6 pack/day or 6 shots/day
non alcoholic
>more than 6 pack/day or 6 shots/day
alcoholic
Funny how 6 beers seem like nothing but 6 shots sounds like a lot.

>>21414535
yeah I was a mega alcoholic for years and all of my blood tests came back fine after a recovery period. my white blood cell count was like an aids patient when I first quit though.

>>21414539
6 beers a day is not nothing lmao

>>21414535
the thing that made me decrease from 6 days a week to just Fridays was blood pressure, and the dreaded holiday heart syndrome when your brains gabas are getting rebooted and all your nerves get shocked back to normalcy.
>binge drank one night, next day kinda hungover, blood pressure high but whatever, that's normal
>got pissy for some reason
>felt kinda fucky, check heart rate
>223
>neat, check blood pressure
>182/82
that was rude...

>>21414500
fpbp

addiction is about not being able to function (or believe that you can't function) without something. it has nothing to do with the actual amount you drink. if you drink that one double of whiskey every night to "help you sleep", then you're an alcoholic

>>21414545
182/82 really isn't that bad for a single event that rapidly passes. My stepmom went to a routine doctor visit and her blood pressure was like 210/120. As in, that was her regular blood pressure, all the time. And she said she felt fine. It's extended periods of high blood pressure that cause damage. The pulse of 223 is insane though.

I binge drank once last year and the next day my heart skipped a beat like every 5 seconds for the entire day, and even now a year later I still get heart palpitations every single day randomly.

>>21414558
well the thing that startled me was how quickly it was increasing. 190/whatever is considered heart attack range.
>210/120. As in, that was her regular blood pressure, all the time.
that's fuckin hardcore...

>>21414535
>Historically people drank way more than they do today and yet the incidence of death from alcoholic liver failure was the same or lower
Source?

>>21414572
>yet the incidence of death from alcoholic liver failure was the same or lower
shit wasn't as well documented in the past

>>21414548
Thanks, even though I thoroughly fucked up everything in that post (or, more accurately, the autocorrect did), I'm glad the point still came across. We drink more than the Americans do yet our alcoholism rates are considerably lower and I think it's more to do with the culture around alcohol than anything else. Anglos drink to feel better or just to simply get drunk while we drink because wine goes with the meal or to simply socialise. We drink daily. We'll have a bottle of wine to ourselves each day over the course of lunch, dinner, and an evening stroll with friends. An American will have a six pack of beer over the course of thirty-two minutes on Friday while his friends chant "chug chug chug chug" at him then he won't remember the next morning and think he must've had an amazing time. : )
It's this emphasis on drunkenness that, I think, leads to alcohol being more problematic in American and other Anglo cultures vs those of Europe.

>>21414484 (OP)
If you are drinking more than two drinks every day or more than 6 drinks in one day at least once a week, you are an alcoholic.

>>21414565
stress increases blood pressure by a fuck ton. my blood pressure is like 120/80 normally but I've taken it during a panic attack and it's been 180/80. If your BP is that high you're supposed to calm down and basically just stare at a wall for 5 minutes, not moving at all, and re test yourself. It's only an emergency if your BP stays that high and doesn't drop back down.

>>21414587
stress is a bitch. I pretty much had to do that, use meditative breathing techniques. stayed like that for 10+ minutes so I called the EMT just in case and they told me that I'm a dumbass and what holiday heart syndrome was. pretty chill people.

>>21414593
yeah my workplace called an ambulance because I was having a panic attack and my arms and legs went completely numb and I thought I was dying. ambulance plus ER ended up costing me like 3000 dollars.

>>21414507
need booze because my evenings are alone w/ my thoughts, it's hell

>>21414600
...fuck man...hope all is well now

>>21414605
It's alright. I went to a cardiologist for the heart palpitations and ran on a treadmill, spent 2 weeks with a heart monitor on, 3 ECGs, and a heart ultrasound and everything is fine. Also had an endoscopy and gallbladder ultrasound and that was fine too. Guess my brain and emotions are just the cause of all of my problems.

>>21414612
did the ECG and holter monitor thing as well, came back as normal. went right back to binge drinking on Fridays after work

I've averaged about 70 drinks a week over the past decade. Mostly binge drinking on the weekends. I definitely "know" I'm an alcoholic but it hasn't ruined anything in my life yet except for a DUI about 5 years ago. Still not giving it up or slowing down until my body starts breaking down more than it already is. I will say the hangovers are starting to get rough now that I'm in my mid 30's. I have to be a little strategic now about when I drink, which days I can show up late for work, which days I can spend the entire day after in bed, etc. I'm starting to get hallucinations during my hangovers, too. I've had auditory hallucinations for a while now but now it's flat out melting walls, faces in the corner of my eyes, vision turning into static. STILL NOT STOPPING THO.

Friendly reminder to all my alcobros not to use up all your mana

>>21414619
I tried to go back to drinking but it didn't have the same spark anymore. It used to make me feel alive. I'd drink and then get the urge to reconnect with old friends or cook a nice meal and relax. Last time I drank I just kept drinking more and more and waiting for the good feelings to come and they never did. I just ended up going to bed. I would give up a leg to feel like alcohol used to make me feel. It really was the best time of my life. I don't even really have friends now that I stopped drinking because the only thing that enabled me to engage in friendship was alcohol.

>>21414535
>If I had to guess, the main culprit is probably people abusing OTC painkillers
mfw my distrust of doctors and pharmaceuticals has kept my alcoholic self relatively healthy.
Haven't taken anything stronger than a cough drop since I was in high school. No """medicine""" invented after penicillin is intended to help you.

>>21414484 (OP)
I believe that 1 drink per day makes you an alcoholic because in my eyes it isn't about the amount, but the consistency.

>>21414627
how the fuck am I supposed to know my lifetime drinks

>>21414652
Years of drinking is across the top and the cells are number of drinks per day, you read it across to the odds of cirrhosis on the left. So 20 years of drinking 2.5 drinks per day confers 18% risk

>>21414484 (OP)
Most Europeans are raging alcoholics who excuse it as "muh culture". Germans, French, Italians, Brits, Spaniards, all drink like fish, and the further east you go, the worse it gets. At least the aforementioned countries mostly drink beer and wine; the Slavs all just drink hard liquor all day.
A lot of these countries have lunch breaks that last several hours, so the workers can go home, drink a bottle of wine and sleep it off. Their whole economies are based around the fact that they have to drink a ton of booze all the time.
If we can agree that "cultural" things in Africa, like cannibalism and child soldiers, are bad things, we should be able to apply that to bad cultural things in Europe, too.

>>21414627
According to this graph, 20% of europeans over the age of 70 (1 drink a day for 50 years) should have failing livers which is absolutely, retardedly incorrect.

>>21414622
>Brain is turning to mush
>Still not stopping lol I'm still fine
Fuck it, at this point even if you stop, you'll probably be a dry drunk.

>>21414628
>enabled me to engage in friendship was alcohol.
kinda annoying that the few friends I have left, alcohol is the social glue that keeps us together. if booze aint on the menu then they mysteriously have errands or something popped up. bunch of nancies

>>21414535
lmao in the mid 1800s the painkiller was fucking morphine mixed with whiskey

People were dropping like flies

>>21414665
I think you overestimate how much euros drink.

>>21414484 (OP)
however much you can handle before your life starts going to shit. also keep in mind that even relatively small amounts of alcohol can cause a dangerous physical dependence if you drink regularly enough. like if you drink 1 beer every two hours you'll never be drunk, but if you do it for 6 months to a year without a break you will need to go to a hospital when you stop or you might just die.

>>21414673
the tincture of laudanum is the greatest invention man has come up with

>>21414681
if a fairy were to supply you with a couple Xanax bars you can use them to get yourself through severe alcohol withdrawal. it usually peaks at around 24 hours. for me personally it's 18 hours, which I've timed because I've withdrawn so many times. The danger here is obvious - that a withdrawing alcoholic will take home Xanax prescription and then chug liquor with it and die. Thats pretty much why they tell you to commit yourself even when it's very simple to do at home.

>>21414740
also been to detox multiple time, one time the hospital just gave me a bunch of librium to take home and that went about how you'd expect. i know my limits, i've gotta be in the hospital or i'm just not detoxing.
God i hope i never have to go through that shit again

>>21414740
Alcohol is one of the few drugs where detox alone can straight up kill you. While some people may kill themselves by taking opioids and going back to the bottle halfway through, super extreme alcoholics can die just from the withdrawals. Alcohol is one of mankind's earliest drugs, we have literally evolved with it, it is so intertwined with our DNA that it affects the body in ways other drugs don't. It replaces certain receptors in our brain and going cold turkey after super extreme alcohol abuse can definitely kill you.

>>21414748
It took me a while to be able to watch TV again because every time I saw a scene with alcohol in it, it's all I could think about. I'm glad it's over but I still miss it profoundly. I never had to go to a hospital because for me the hangovers were getting so bad that the withdrawal wasn't much worse. I woke up some days and the hangover legitimately had me thinking about just ending it.

>>21414757
Xanax calms down your brain and prevents the DTs. Xanax and alcohol work in very similar manners so you're basically subbing the alcohol for Xanax during the worst of the withdrawal. It's literally what they do in the hospital to prevent DTs is give you Xanax or another benzo.

I'm an American who drinks 1-2 drinks per day (~1.2 avg.) without binging. There are a lot of Americans like me, but it won't endear you to any in-group. The people who never grew out of fratbro mentality will think you're a pussy and neo-puritan zoomers will think you're an alcoholic.

Do you drink to ease the effects of a hangover? Good job, alcoholic.
Do you need it to relax, or somehow don't have quite the same dopamine rush from your favorite activities without drinking? That's alcoholic behavior, too.
Frankly, it's more a collection of behaviors that dig your pit, and it's not always the same.

Former alcoholic here. I think my AA guy said it best - it's not about how much you drink, but your dependency on it. For example, can you just quit without thought one day and not think about booze? Then you are not an alcoholic. If you quit and booze is always on your mind? You are an alcoholic. Are you drinking everyday out of boredom? Your an alcoholic. Drinking just to fall asleep? Alcoholic. You get the point.

Every alcoholic I knew drank over a fifth of liquor a day at the minimum, so I will say you a fine.