Have we normalized mild alcoholism? (top, rum, coke, healthy)
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In my social circles I don’t know anyone who has appears to have problems with alcohol but earlier today I was sitting in the airport lounge and a lot of people were ordering martinis, large glasses of wine, rum & cokes at 10am.
And then there is now a lot of comical merchandise being sold to “wine moms” that says things like “coffee or wine?” On the side of a coffee cup.
Go to a restaurant for brunch and you’ll see people ordering bottomless mimosas at 11am on a Sunday.
Well, according to a recent study, 10.6% of Americans 12yo and older had Alcohol Use Disorder in 2021. So it's a minority of people, but certainly not rare. That means you have alcoholics on every street in town.
Having mimosa, beer, or glass of wine at noon with their lunch doesn't mean someone is an alcoholic (mild or not).
I often have glass of alcoholic beverage with my meals, and I am not an alcoholic.
Some people you see at airport bars often try to deal with their flight anxieties.
In the 19th century alcohol consumption was much higher, because water sources could not be trusted to be sanitary. People drank a lot of beer and hard cider, and alcoholism and its associated problems were worse.
One unappreciated aspect of the temperance movement is that potable water was then available, so there was an alternative to alcohol.
I think all the drinking culture paraphernalia like wine moms and beer o'clock t shirts are super tacky, but alcohol consumption is down compared to the past (although it has risen moderately since the mid 90s). Like many things in our culture people project an illusion to look cool but actually live more staid lives than appearances would suggest.
In the 19th century alcohol consumption was much higher, because water sources could not be trusted to be sanitary. People drank a lot of beer and hard cider, and alcoholism and its associated problems were worse.
One unappreciated aspect of the temperance movement is that potable water was then available, so there was an alternative to alcohol.
I think all the drinking culture paraphernalia like wine moms and beer o'clock t shirts are super tacky, but alcohol consumption is down compared to the past (although it has risen moderately since the mid 90s). Like many things in our culture people project an illusion to look cool but actually live more staid lives than appearances would suggest.
I was going to say the same. Children were given ale to drink instead of milk which could carry diseases until pasteurization was developed. Distilled beverages were "cleansed" of germs and unseen toxins. Ale fattened children and put meat on their bones, it was thought to be healthy.
Most people drank some sort of alcohol throughout the day, thought nothing of it.
Temperance brought much more awareness, and disapproval, of drinking.
In my social circles I don’t know anyone who has appears to have problems with alcohol but earlier today I was sitting in the airport lounge and a lot of people were ordering martinis, large glasses of wine, rum & cokes at 10am.
I've certainly seen this kind of day drinking at airports. Many people are nervous about flying, or feel demeaned by the general air travel experience. I see people ordering multiple drinks, while waiting to board, when they normally wouldn't have even one. And once you're aloft, if you want a drink you typically have to wait for the flight attendant to come by, and you have to pay him or her, if you're in coach. This is another incentive to pre-game at the airport; at least it seems more civilized, if you will, in a terrestrial bar. If you're flying first class, then cocktails on the plane are free which is a good incentive not to spend your money at the airport bar.
I'm not involved in the airline or travel industry, and I don't even fly very much, but I have definitely noticed this when I do travel.
Airport lounges - with free booze - routinely open at 430AM - and I have waited in the line that is ALREADY at that bar. An airport is a different environment than your kitchen.
Bottomless mimosas are common at "Brunch" nearly everywhere - starting around 11. The bloody mary has been staple "breakfast" drink for decades. Both drinks have been around nearly a century. So - we aren't "normalizing" anything that hasn't been "normal" for a long lonnnnnnnnng time.
In any case - call it something else but there is no "mild" alcoholism. Sounds to me like the simple idea of someone drinking NOT after 5pm is bothering you a little. To each his own. But if the person has just one drink at 5AM - and none before or since - then are they still a mild alcoholic? Of course not . You're trying to assign a time of day to a disease.
Yes unfortunately. Since the Great Recession (2008) there's been a spike in average consumption of alcohol plus more sales at bars. & A corresponding increase in causes of death related to drinking.
Sad but a symptom of people needing to escape their troubles.
What you are referring to technically is early-stage alcoholism. It's the ideal time to curb it before the symptoms worsen.
And your answer is yes. This is an historically cyclical issue. I'm sure that the Covid epidemic and isolation contributed a great deal to this. But we were escalating long before that.
It's hard to see the accompanying decay of culture that correlates to this since the issue is so universal. The majority of the public is still surprisingly uninformed about the issue of alcoholism and that complicates solutions.
Nearly all of our legal, political, social, economic and familial problems have a high correlation with addiction. And it has become the USA's third leading cause of preventable deaths.
Last edited by Lodestar; 05-18-2023 at 10:00 AM..
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