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This isn’t culture war for today. It was between roughly 1918-1930’s. It’s short and about why he quit drinking alcohol. In my opinion he hit all the key points on the subject, his logic is correct, and wrote it in a very concise way.
He does seem to miss drinking alcohol. I have to agree as a mild alcoholic he’s correct. I think he’s also correct that cannabis isn’t the great substitute society now claims it is. Shrooms I am far less sure on.
It’s not culture war today but I’ve grown a lot of respect for the prohibitionists as being basically correct. I also wanted to post this as I felt like it’s a good example of fantastic writing.
https://pmarca.substack.com/p/on-pausing-alcohol?r=h8x
Edit: should we either more explicitly allow less culture war subjects or have another thread. Sitting on an Afghanistan article I found that was good journalism but it’s not heavily culture war
All else aside, I think the trend of people that didn't have any apparent drinking problem proudly announcing that they've quit drinking and feel so much better is really weird. I'm really not clear what they're optimizing for or what they're experiencing that is ostensibly so much better in their post-alcohol phase. I guess Andreeson spells it out a bit:
I can buy the sleep portion of things and sleep certainly has downstream effects, but I also think that you have to drink a lot for these to be all that noticeable. I drink more than I probably should, but do no meaningful experience any problems with energy for exercise or controlling my diet. Are the people that say that they feel much better sans drinking just even heavier drinkers than me or are they experiencing the world very differently?
As irritating as people that make drinking their identity are, people that make not drinking into an identity are even more irritating.
How much are you drinking?
I certainly notice some effects when I stop drinking. I have a sleep and heart rate monitor and it is easily apparent how much alcohol affects my sleep.
Also while some people (like my doctor) consider me a heavy drinker, in some of my social circles I'm a light drinker.
A light night of drinking for me is 4-6 drinks, usually spaced out over 2-3 hours. A standard drinking night is more like 10 drinks, and a heavy drinking day is about 15-20 drinks over the course of an entire day.
I don't notice the effects of just two drinks, enough so that I'd rather just not drink than have only two.
The main benefit of me going sober for a few weeks is that it seems to lower my tolerance back to more normal ranges.
I'd say my modal day is two beers. Having four or five standard drinks isn't uncommon, particularly if I'm dipping into barrel-proof whiskeys or barrel-aged stouts. On a football Sunday, I'll go quite a bit higher, maybe 8-10 standard drinks over the course of a day.
From stress score and sleep metrics, I see only a transient stress effect from a couple beers and no impact on sleep. Going up to four or five has a large stress score impact and adversely impacts sleep. The heavier days depend on timing and spacing of drinks. Even if I'm hungover, I'll get up and run in the morning, but the performance hit is large if I had ten drinks the previous day.
So maybe this is just a dose thing and I'm underestimating how much people are drinking when they say, "quitting drinking made me feel better". If I was slamming ten drinks a day, yeah, I'd be a lot better if I stopped.
I thought this might be the case, which is why I gave my numbers. I drink an unhealthy amount, so when I stop the effects tend to be easily noticeable. I'm also only in my early thirties. From everything I've seen and everyone I know, the effects of drinking get worse with age. I have mild-moderate hangovers these days, a decade ago I didn't really get hangovers at all. My friends that are a decade older get knocked out for a full day.
Quitting my current level of drinking in my forties seems like it would be extremely noticeable.
Here is where I say "Go fuck yourself, that horseshit about being the tough realist who knows the underbelly of life and the real grit and dirt is that same old 'tortured artist' bullshit which makes mediocre wannabe rockstars start a heroin habit because all the great artists are crazy in some way or druggies or drunks".
That's unkind, but the "non-drinkers are stuck up perfect guys" reeks of an excuse about "so what if I piss myself and vomit all down the front of myself, that's real life bitch". Next thing is a quote from Fight Club, right?
The non-drinkers are the ones mopping up the puke afterwards, they see plenty of shit and clean it up.
I drink, but I have to restrict myself because the way I drink I know it's bad for me, I don't make any "social connections", and there's alcoholism on both sides of the family for several generations back so very easy to get addicted and end up down that path. That's why I find the pretentiousness about seedy bars and the real side of life annoying. Drunks are drunks, they're not some cheap guru with the inside track on the reality of experience. They reek of shit and piss and vomit and stale booze and cigarette smoke, you're right about that.
What do you care what other people do or don't do for fun and enjoyment? If they don't nag you to stop drinking, why need you nag them to start?
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I think you nailed it with the "fog". It was hard for me to really gauge where my drinking was at for a long time, before I started having frank and honest talks with my doctor. I had friends that could finish a half bottle of whiskey in a night, and this would only result in them a semi functional drunk and a bit hungover the next day. I would look at them and be like 'thats insane, I don't drink that much' and think I'm fine. I don't know many of those friends that continue to do that, so maybe that should have been an answer in itself.
I find myself kinda agreeing with the take of either drink nothing, or drink enough to feel something. I don't like to be drunk, I do like to be a little buzzed. But I can see that the difference between me and a serious alcoholic is in that slight difference in preference. Having a drink without the buzz feels pointless to me. But to maintain that buzzed, or tipsy feeling over multiple hours is where the quantity comes in. Two to three drinks in the first hour to feel tipsy, and then one or two drinks every hour afterwards to maintain. Usually its on the 'more drinks' side of those numbers if I haven't recently gone without drinking for a few weeks, because my tolerance has gone up. So that easily ends up being 10 drinks over the course of 4-5 hours.
I do like the social lubricant aspects of alcohol. There are some sober people I know that don't seem to need any social lubricant, or if anything they get too lubed up from alcohol. To those people I feel like "you don't need to drink, but please let me drink around you so I can be on your level". I don't think I think any better of someone for throwing up from alcohol. If anything it downgrades my opinion of them. When I throw up I consider from alcohol its kind of a failure to me, it means I drank too much. But I'm also not really willing to hangout with people in the first place if I think they are stuckup.
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Wow, unless you have a weird definition of "drink", then those are truly massive amounts of alcohol. Like Huberman would say, this is called "alcohol use disorder".
Those wouldn't be considered particularly outrageous amounts in many Finnish university student circles (assuming you are a big guy). Not daily, of course but for parties / weekend.
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I saw that podcast when it came out! Huge fan of Bert and Tom.
It might be thrown off cuz I've generally switched to low carb beers and hard seltzers that are in the 4-5% alcohol range. Back when I was drinking heavier carb beers in the 8-12% range i was definitely drinking half as many. I do drink hard liquor as well, and maybe that is a better gauge of alcohol consumption. Though its not like I'm measuring out shots, and I usually mix the liquor with the light beers. My numbers might be 20% lower if I assume my liquor consumption is more accurate, and the lower alcohol drinks I normally have aren't a "full" drink per can.
But yeah in general I am aware that I consume an unhealthy amount of alcohol, its something I hope to work on one day. Op seemed to be surprised that people could have drastic improvements in their life by just quitting alcohol. I wanted to let Op know that yes, you can have drastic improvements if you are drinking an unhealthy amount to start. And based on ops response, they aren't quite at the level of an obviously unhealthy amount of drinking, so the effects are probably less noticeable for them.
Not germane to the discussion, but can you explain Bert Kreischer for me? I like Tom fine, think he's quick and pretty funny, most of the rest of the deathsquad guys are pretty okay at least to me, but Bert has always been a guy I just don't get. He feels to me like he isn't a real person, I've always felt like he's some kind of cutout for a PR company whose name no one knows (Bent Pixels maybe?). Am I just a hater? I'm okay with having an irrational dislike of a comedian, pretty easy for me to just not consume content that rubs me the wrong way.
Its kind of hard, on paper I really should be a fan of Tom more.
Bert isn't fake though. He is the real life thing that marketing companies try to imitate. And a real life party animal doesn't get that way by being a stable normal human being.
I maybe like something about his energy. "life of the party" is not an exaggeration. He is the embodiment of the energy and excitement of a party. I like that energy.
If I got to hangout with Bert and Tom separately, I'd choose to hangout with Bert for a night of partying, and then hangout with Tom two days later after my hangover. I'd reminisce with Tom about the fun I had during the Bert party.
Fair enough, maybe my personality is too neurotic to find "the life of the party" attractive. Thanks for letting me ask in a place I'll get a straight answer, fans and haters alike would rattle off the weird inside baseball stuff that I know and don't care about, which can be fun and funny but is counterproductive to getting a straight answer. Sounds like it really is just a me thing.
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20 5-6% beers is still an incredible amount.
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I think a large contingent of people at the parties I go to drink that much at parties but don’t drink much at all other times. It’s definitely binge drinking but I don’t think it’s that unusual. Alcohol use disorder sure, but it’s common at parties in my experience
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depends on bodyweight and proof
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