• ryven@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    3 days ago

    “Roughly 4 in 10 young adults who drink alcohol report drinking alone at least once in the past year,” said lead author Kasey Creswell, associate professor of psychology at Carnegie Mellon.

    Only 4 in 10? 6 in 10 young adults who drink alcohol never have a beer or glass of wine on a cozy evening in? I would have expected it to be the other way around.

    • blarghly@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      Yeah, wait, what? Thats what this whole report is based around? I fucking crack a beer after a hard day sometimes and just sit on my back porch - thats not problematic behavior!

      • ryven@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        3 days ago

        Yeah, the exact question they’re studying is:

        “When you used alcohol during the last year, how often did you use it in each of the following situations?…When you were alone.” Response options were 1 = “Not at all” 2 = “A few of the times” 3 = “Some of the times” 4 = “Most of the times” 5 = “Every time.”

        And they’re comparing the “not at all” responses against all of the other ones. I understand they’re analyzing data that already exists, so they don’t get to go back in time and start asking a different question in 1977 when the survey begins, but I’m not sure how useful this is to the current analysis without some qualifier like “When you had three or more drinks in one day.”

        • blarghly@lemmy.world
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          3 days ago

          Yeah, alcohol is bad for you. I dont think anyone should be surprised by that. So is chocolate cake and pizza and staying up late dancing and being really stressed at work because you are trying to get a promotion. But we do these things anyway because they are part of life. To optimize life away in the name of health is to put the cart before the horse. Your body is generally able to adapt to and heal from the abuse you shovel onto it and continue functioning. There are people who down handles of vodka every day and continue functioning quite normally.

          Having a beer or two on your back porch every once in a while is going to have a negligible effect on your physical and mental well being. Like, seriously, if you legitimately think that occasional, moderate consumption of alcohol, done without compulaion and having no obvious negetive effects on one’s health, day to day life, or relationships is problematic because a scientific study said “alcohol is bad for you (duh)” - then I think it is worth taking a step back and considering if you are overthinking things.

          • Aria@lemmygrad.ml
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            3 days ago

            Being stressed at work is a problem. There are articles about that as well. Generally, most people support employers who cause their employees stress being jailed.

            A chocolate cake or pizza is less bad for you than alcohol.

    • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      Yeah, sometimes I just want to savor some bourbon with tv. When I’m socializing I feel like a douche for swishing my sip and sniffing my glass. Which to be fair is pretty douchey but it brings out the subtleties