Are You Comfortable With Our Drinking Culture?

18 comments

1. I don’t think its too bad.

   As a young guy who doesn’t drink though I still find it frustrating how so much of my peer’s lives and ideas of fun basically just consist of getting wasted though. Has made it very difficult to make friends when I don’t take part in drinking from my experience.

2. Alcoholism is practically celebrated as a part of manliness.

   You need only look at the scenes of Aquaman drinking a quarter of a bottle of whiskey while stripped to the waist and diving into the ocean.

   …Or any number of action heroes pouring themselves a full glass of hard liquor and then downing it in one gulp…

   I guess George Thorogood’s ‘One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer’ and ‘I drink alone’ are now pretty old songs but they continue to be played as examples of manly songs.

   Drinking straight hard liquor as fast as possible is celebrated as a very manly thing to do in our media.

3. Binge drinking is up and alcohol-related deaths spiked during covid. Not sure why you think we do well at discouraging excessive use.

4. My parents didnt drink and I was amazed at the amount of people who drink when I reached adulthood. I pretty much only drink beer and usually at home while doing yardwork/chores.

5. Why is alcoholism being stigmatized a bad thing? Alcoholism is a drug addiction, it should be treated and I think American society is pretty tolerant of rehab and cessation support groups.
   Many Americans are in denial of being alcoholics, mental dependency happens faster than physical dependency, you don’t need to have DTs to be an alcoholic.

6. I work with addicts and alcoholics. It is certainly still a huge stigma and seen as a personal failing by many rather than a disease.

   People are sympathetic to people with depression, anxiety disorder or bipolar issues. They are often much less so with addiction and alcoholism.

   The silver lining is there is a very strong recovery community if you take advantage of it. There are traditional 12 Step Programs as well as SMART and CBT or DBT programs and they often work hand in glove with each other.

   Our drinking culture is neither good nor bad. For people without an issue it’s fine to go out and get drunk on a special occasion or when you want to blow off steam and there are places to do it. For people with a problem the problem isn’t with the drinking culture it is with them.

   As one of my closest friends told me. “Going out to the bar was never my issue, I could drink a couple beers and be fine. It was the eight shots of vodka when I got home that was the real problem.”

   One thing to keep in mind is that every single one of you knows an alcoholic or an addict. You may not know it but you do.

7. Drinking culture is not uniform across the US. The most startling (but lovely!) thing about moving from the SE to the Midwest was the *radically* different approach to alcohol consumption. Especially in public

8. I don’t really care what anyone else does. I myself have a glass of wine with dinner once or twice a week, and maybe a couple of beers with friends, and that’s it. I probably don’t even factor into most alcohol related statistics

9. I’ve known people in my life that have had their lives destroyed by alcohol and my dads side of the family in particular struggles with alcoholism. I’m also in a profession (law) that’s known for alcoholism and we had seminars about alcohol abuse even during our first year of law school.

   That being said, I think the alcohol culture in other countries is more aggressive. For example, in Asia you can’t get a business deal done without getting hammered and young employees are often forced to be out drinking with their bosses until early morning.

10. If you think there is only one drinking culture in the U.S., you have never been to Wisconsin. That is a culture unto itself.

11. I’m not really all that aware of our drinking culture as I drink only a handful of times a year.

    I’m glad that NY allows for drinks on the go again even if it was a bit of a distraction from that Buffalo Bills Stadium controversy. I’ve never been to a proper bar but I’d have to imagine bar hopping would be a lot more fun if you can stroll with your drink to the next spot. We’d just have to do something about open container laws and I think I’d contemplate walking around on a hot summer night with a gin and tonic in one hand and a joint in the other in a perfectly legal scenario

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13. Sober alcoholic here. I don’t think the drinking culture is that bad. A lot of alcoholism is genetic.

    The U.S. drinking culture seems much saner than what I understand the UK’s to be.

14. I think American drinking culture is healthier in comparison to my country and other countries in Europe. Drinking has been in most European countries cultures for hundreds of years. It’s completely normal to drink in the day in my country and to have a few drinks every night and not be considered an alcoholic. Social events are largely based around drinking and if you don’t think you absolutely will get teased.

    In some jobs (not jobs like doctors tho) it’s also normal to turn up to work drunk and hungover as long as you do the job. I’ve noticed recently that America seems to accept weed more than my country does and my country accepts drinking more than America does.

15. I’d lower the drinking age to 18. They’re old enough to vote. No one I know actually waited until 21 to drink, and I think that it just normalizes the idea of law-breaking.

16. Alcohol is a drug. I see people who drink alcohol no different than people who use meth.

17. It took for me to live in Switzerland to realize that the American (any British colony actually) drinking culture is pretty weird. Like it’s extremely evident, and one just has to look at commercials during sporting events to see that. But people want to pretend it doesn’t exist or that it’s not a problem. Example: Open container laws.

    From my experience, Swiss youth have a much more responsible approach (compared to Americans) when it comes to drinking and I found that pleasant.

    Likewise it’s nice to have a work lunch with a glass of wine/beer and not have people give you the stink eye.

18. Alcoholism should be stigmatized. Get help for your problem, sure, but it’s important to stigmatized damaging behavior patterns and substance abuse. These things cause so many deaths and collateral damage.