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I agree. Look at any other country with alcohol, they trust that the vast majority of adults will drink responsibly, and they do.
No need to punish the masses for the actions of the minority. I've seen clubs and bars kick people out for being too drunk, belligerent, and idiotic.
I'll try again, per moderator's suggestion asking for a longer post. I'm not sure what countries you're talking about or how they handle the limited amount of problem drinkers.
Of course, in the United States the vast majority of alcohol drinkers also drink responsibly. It is that ten percent or so who drink most of the alcohol and cause most of the problems and it is those for whom the restrictive laws must be made.
I'll admit that limiting everyone's rights due to some bad actors is distasteful to me, also.
Alcohol dependency rates are rising globally so I'm wondering what is happening in those countries you cite that are more tolerant of drinkers when they have some who are causing social problems or endangering themselves or others.
How do those countries handle that? Are they inclined to rehab? Ostracize? Ignore? Eliminate? Would three days in the slammer and a beating there be better than losing one's license here? Is it more comfortable to be an alcoholic there if no one tries to accomplish a state of community health?
This is particularly puzzling in light of the fact that many DUI offenders required to get interlock ignition actually do not comply. If it is so hard to get them to comply with that, would it not be sensible to, in essence, force sobriety on them? AND OP Title: Why is alcohol unrestricted?
Trying to engineer personal behavior, when only consenting and satisfied adults are involved is futile. We certainly learned that during Prohibition, when one group of the population attempted to restrict what another group of population did. It did not work and resulted in an outbreak of crime. Many say it started organized crime going though I doubt that.
Similarly, most marijuana laws have been futile as well. There is no victim, and the marijuana users actions are not so alarming as to compel societal intervention. I am definitely not a libertarian. I do believe, however, that the nanny state should stay out of people's personal lives to the extent possible.
So much of the whole "alcohol crime" thing varies widely based on state and even county.
This county has some kind of DUI grant where they'll aggressively pull people over for anything, even without probable cause. My dad used to work an extended second shift at a pharmaceutical plant here, getting off at 2. He was pulled over numerous times, likely because the police assume that anyone out at that hour is in some sort of criminal activity.
What makes me so bitter is that everything I went through was largely because I live in the wrong place. No one was hurt. Nothing was damaged. Far as I can tell, the best they likely had on me was some camera footage of my car driving poorly, but I'll never know.
Any sort of court-ordered treatment is going to have the one and only goal of complete and total sobriety. There's no concept of "harm reduction." Courts tend to focus on groups like AA, which has a quasi-religious component. As a nonbeliever, I don't find the whole "higher power" logic helpful at all. You never want to be forced into treatment with the force of the law behind it. You're better off to lie your way out of that, then seek treatment privately if you want.
My family has almost exclusively two tracks - teetotalers and alcoholics/addicts. They almost always end up on one side of the fence or the other - my dad is the only person I know in the family that drinks very occasionally, uses weed, but no other drugs. Basically everyone else is either a teetotaler or an alcoholic.
The big issue is that alcohol is basically available everywhere you go. I'm going to eat with my parents in a little bit. The restaurant sells alcohol. I'll pass by several grocery stores, gas stations, and other retail establishments that sell alcohol.
For me personally, a lot of drinking comes out of a somewhat boring life, especially in the colder months of the year. I drink a lot more during the winter and on bad weather days. I work from home and live alone. It's easy to open that beer too early in the afternoon when no one is going to know. My girlfriend lives an hour and a half away - she wants me to move in, but with her two adult kids and her daughter's boyfriend also living there, I'm not moving in until they're out. It's easy to go out to the bar to talk to people when you haven't seen anyone in a couple of days.
Re: harm reduction/AA/etc, I agree completely. After both of my DWIs, I repeatedly stressed to my counselors that I wasn't actually interested in attaining full sobriety, but I was sincerely interested in reducing my consumption. This was true in 2009, when I averaged 15-20 drinks per week, and it was even more true in 2021-2022, when I was accustomed to drinking ~10 drinks every other night. All three of the counselors I dealt with for any length of time were decent people whom I generally enjoyed seeing, but they all toed the company line when it came to insisting on total abstinence rather than promoting drinking in moderation. There seems to be a widespread belief that people with a history of abusing alcohol are incapable of learning to drink in moderation. If that is indeed universally the case, show me the data. Show me the studies that have reached that conclusion. None of these counselors ever did, of course. They expect a former philosophy major such as myself to be satisfied with mere assertions and arguments from authority? Heh, sorry, that doesn't work for me.
As for AA, we've associated previously on the atheism and agnosticism forum, so we're on the same page there. My (atheist) friend handed me a copy of the Big Book when he was attending meetings in Washington DC about a decade ago, and he (then employed as a copy editor at the Washington Post) and I proceeded to spend the next few hours making fun of the writing contained within. There's an entire chapter devoted to denigrating nonbelievers. Yeah, no thanks. This second time around, my lawyer kept encouraging me to attend meetings for appearances' sake, even going so far as to claim that atheists were welcome, but I resisted. I also resisted his advice to accept the court's offer of placing me in DWI Court, as that would've involved wearing an ankle bracelet for 6 months and presumed zero tolerance for any slip-ups. I have a friend who once did 10 months in county jail for possession of a single opioid pill, and upon release, he was placed in drug court, DWI Court's predecessor and conceptual twin. He spent years bogged down there, with daily or near-daily check-ins, random drug tests, occasional short stints in jail as punishment for relapses...just brutal. Way too punitive, not at all rehabilitative. The stress of it all is enough to drive a person to want to (or need to) use their drug of choice even more. So primitive and counterproductive
Oregon was on the right track when they decriminalized all drugs a few years back, but unfortunately the preexisting social ills in greater Portland caused some backlash there, and as far as I know, they've repealed decriminalization. And so I must return to looking to Portugal rather than Portland for inspiration
You don't need any sort of additional registry other than the driving registry that already exists. A DUI offender would simply need their license or ID card confiscated and replaced with an ID that says "Do not serve alcohol until XX date".
The alcohol restriction is part of the criminal process and would be a separate, criminal database. It has nothing to do with the DMV/license processes and databases. They are essentially processes upon a DUI arrest or conviction.
Also, many states require the ID for anyone attempting to purchase alcohol, but some do not, and of those that do, people who buy their alcohol at the same place over and over aren't ID'd often. If I pick up a six pack at the same grocery store a few days a week, I've seen most of the clerks and they've ID'd me before.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lodestar
How do those countries handle that? Are they inclined to rehab? Ostracize? Ignore? Eliminate? Would three days in the slammer and a beating there be better than losing one's license here? Is it more comfortable to be an alcoholic there if no one tries to accomplish a state of community health?
To me, the goal should be to prevent the person from driving drunk. Giving them an interlock restricted license is the way to handle this. Taking it outright isn't going to do much more than cause them to get additional charges for driving on suspended when they are doing the things they have to do.
You want people to remain employed, paying taxes, and not falling into a cycle of crime. Restricting a DUI offender to a car with interlock ensures they are sober while driving. Of course, there are drug DUIs, but my guess is the vast majority of DUIs are alcohol related.
When I was in jail, the DUI people were generally "normal people" who were trying to keep a "regular schedule" in jail and keeping a positive mindset. Many of the other guys in the pod were just complete screw-ups and idiots.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jbgusa
Trying to engineer personal behavior, when only consenting and satisfied adults are involved is futile. We certainly learned that during Prohibition, when one group of the population attempted to restrict what another group of population did. It did not work and resulted in an outbreak of crime. Many say it started organized crime going though I doubt that.
Similarly, most marijuana laws have been futile as well. There is no victim, and the marijuana users actions are not so alarming as to compel societal intervention. I am definitely not a libertarian. I do believe, however, that the nanny state should stay out of people's personal lives to the extent possible.
Personally, I think marijuana is far, far less harmful than alcohol. At the individual level, you can eat one edible and be high for hours. With alcohol, you're ingesting a ton of extra calories. That alone isn't healthy. Not to mention potential liver, cardiovascular, and other issues related to alcohol. Fortunately, other than my cholesterol (because I eat too much meat), my blood work was normal. Liver indicators have been normal for a couple of years with no changes.
I have severe sleep apnea. I've probably had it since at least my early 20s. My SPO2 reading craters into the 75% range at night if my mask slips off, when I had the sleep study, etc. I'm sure it was much, much worse after a big drinking night. Alcohol aggravates sleep apnea.
I sometimes wonder how I'm not a brain dead vegetable at this point.
Last edited by Serious Conversation; 04-04-2024 at 11:47 AM..
It would open up a lucrative black market. Anyhow, Over consumption of food is also unhealthy I don't think we should get involved in personal addiction habits. Trying to regulate a persons intake of alcohol or food is stupid & unattainable.
The alcohol restriction is part of the criminal process and would be a separate, criminal database. It has nothing to do with the DMV/license processes and databases. They are essentially processes upon a DUI arrest or conviction.
Also, many states require the ID for anyone attempting to purchase alcohol, but some do not, and of those that do, people who buy their alcohol at the same place over and over aren't ID'd often. If I pick up a six pack at the same grocery store a few days a week, I've seen most of the clerks and they've ID'd me before.
To me, the goal should be to prevent the person from driving drunk. Giving them an interlock restricted license is the way to handle this. Taking it outright isn't going to do much more than cause them to get additional charges for driving on suspended when they are doing the things they have to do.
You want people to remain employed, paying taxes, and not falling into a cycle of crime. Restricting a DUI offender to a car with interlock ensures they are sober while driving. Of course, there are drug DUIs, but my guess is the vast majority of DUIs are alcohol related.
When I was in jail, the DUI people were generally "normal people" who were trying to keep a "regular schedule" in jail and keeping a positive mindset. Many of the other guys in the pod were just complete screw-ups and idiots.
Personally, I think marijuana is far, far less harmful than alcohol. At the individual level, you can eat one edible and be high for hours. With alcohol, you're ingesting a ton of extra calories. That alone isn't healthy. Not to mention potential liver, cardiovascular, and other issues related to alcohol. Fortunately, other than my cholesterol (because I eat too much meat), my blood work was normal. Liver indicators have been normal for a couple of years with no changes.
I have severe sleep apnea. I've probably had it since at least my early 20s. My SPO2 reading craters into the 75% range at night if my mask slips off, when I had the sleep study, etc. I'm sure it was much, much worse after a big drinking night. Alcohol aggravates sleep apnea.
I sometimes wonder how I'm not a brain dead vegetable at this point.
After my second DWI, I was subjected to court-ordered alcohol testing for about a year. This was after I'd already pled guilty to 'the lesser charge' as my lawyer always referred to it (DWAI). My arrest was early January 2020 (it happened to be the night of the Bills' overtime playoff loss to the Texans). Due to the pandemic, I didn't receive my sentence until August 2021. Given that I'd been doing weekly phone/'telehealth' sessions with a counselor throughout that intervening year and a half, I thought my obligations were finished. Imagine my surprise when I received a call from my law firm in September, with a confrontational lawyer on the line inquiring why I had not set up a screening appointment with an outpatient treatment facility. My response: 'Uh...I thought I was done with all this?' Nope, it was time to repeat the entire process, this time with urinalysis tests that could land me in jail were I to fail them. I in fact failed two of the first four, leading to the judge to summon me to court in March 2022. At that court appearance, he threatened me with a year in county jail (the max sentence for my original charge, DWI, though the max jail sentence for the charge I pled to was actually 350 days less). I immediately called my 'unofficial counsel' after that court appearance, a lawyer friend whom I met through poker. I asked, 'Was his threat of a year in jail legitimate, or did he forget the charge I'd pled to?' My friend wasn't entirely sure, but he leaned towards judicial error or scare tactic as opposed to legitimate threat.
In any event, message received, and I didn't fail another test between then and late summer, when Horizon Health Services sent a notice to the court informing them that I had completed my treatment program.
So I'd say my drinking was effectively restricted during that ~6 month time period at least, wouldn't you, OP?
Re: harm reduction/AA/etc, I agree completely. After both of my DWIs, I repeatedly stressed to my counselors that I wasn't actually interested in attaining full sobriety, but I was sincerely interested in reducing my consumption. This was true in 2009, when I averaged 15-20 drinks per week, and it was even more true in 2021-2022, when I was accustomed to drinking ~10 drinks every other night. All three of the counselors I dealt with for any length of time were decent people whom I generally enjoyed seeing, but they all toed the company line when it came to insisting on total abstinence rather than promoting drinking in moderation. There seems to be a widespread belief that people with a history of abusing alcohol are incapable of learning to drink in moderation. If that is indeed universally the case, show me the data. Show me the studies that have reached that conclusion. None of these counselors ever did, of course. They expect a former philosophy major such as myself to be satisfied with mere assertions and arguments from authority? Heh, sorry, that doesn't work for me.
As for AA, we've associated previously on the atheism and agnosticism forum, so we're on the same page there. My (atheist) friend handed me a copy of the Big Book when he was attending meetings in Washington DC about a decade ago, and he (then employed as a copy editor at the Washington Post) and I proceeded to spend the next few hours making fun of the writing contained within. There's an entire chapter devoted to denigrating nonbelievers. Yeah, no thanks. This second time around, my lawyer kept encouraging me to attend meetings for appearances' sake, even going so far as to claim that atheists were welcome, but I resisted. I also resisted his advice to accept the court's offer of placing me in DWI Court, as that would've involved wearing an ankle bracelet for 6 months and presumed zero tolerance for any slip-ups. I have a friend who once did 10 months in county jail for possession of a single opioid pill, and upon release, he was placed in drug court, DWI Court's predecessor and conceptual twin. He spent years bogged down there, with daily or near-daily check-ins, random drug tests, occasional short stints in jail as punishment for relapses...just brutal. Way too punitive, not at all rehabilitative. The stress of it all is enough to drive a person to want to (or need to) use their drug of choice even more. So primitive and counterproductive
Oregon was on the right track when they decriminalized all drugs a few years back, but unfortunately the preexisting social ills in greater Portland caused some backlash there, and as far as I know, they've repealed decriminalization. And so I must return to looking to Portugal rather than Portland for inspiration
If someone is abusing alcohol, or any other drug, there's usually something else going on.
I used to live in Indianapolis. I had a big social circle between work and other transplants I met in the community. There was always something going on, even in the winter months. I usually had someone to do something with. I probably went to half of the Indiana Pacers games a year. We'd often go to eat after work, get a balcony ticket for under $20, maybe a drink a few beers. But it tended to be three or four beers over three or four hours.
Where I am now, aside from the outdoors, there's very little going on. I like baseball. We have some kind of wooden bat league now that plays about ten weeks during the core summer months. Other than the regional state university, about 40 minutes away, I'm an hour and a half's drive from any kind of game affiliated with MILB. I'm at least three hours from an NBA/NFL city. Any sort of decent concert I'd like is an hour and a half or more away. For any kind of cultural thing, it's essentially the middle of nowhere. It's easy to fall into the trap of drinking/using when there's not much going on.
The whole COVID, work from home situation made me worse. Prior to that, I always had to look presentable in the office, had to be up at 7 or so, be in the office by 8 or so. There was no cracking that first beer before you got home. I'd often stop for dinner at a restaurant, drink a couple of beers, maybe drink a six pack on top of that a couple nights a week. Probably too much drinking, but not alcoholic levels of drinking. Because I was out of the house all day, I was glad to be there after work and relax a bit.
The WFH situation turned my lifestyle completely backwards from what "normal people" have. I'm home all day, every day during the work week. That makes me want to go out to the bars in the evenings, simply because I haven't seen anyone outside of Teams calls all day. I've gone from Monday to Friday often without really interacting with a live person outside of a grocery store, a waiter at a restaurant, etc. My girlfriend lives an hour and a half away, so we basically see each other just on weekends. If I crack open a beer at 3 PM, who is really going to know? No one.
Take a day like today. It's been nasty weather this week. It's 45F outside and rained most of the day. It's too cold for me to want to do much outside after work. Tomorrow is going to be the same thing. I've got my stuff packed for my girlfriend's in the car already so I can leave a little before 5 tomorrow. The housework is caught up. I've got some frozen wings thawing to put in the air fryer, maybe on the Traeger if the wind dies down, for dinner. Most of this week has been like this weather-wise. I've drank a lot and played way too many video games.
I'm very fortunate to have the lifestyle I have. I wouldn't want to be completely harried and frazzled all the time. Most people have it worse than I do, but this kind of near solitary lifestyle gives me an opportunity for a lot of drinking without anyone really noticing.
If someone is abusing alcohol, or any other drug, there's usually something else going on.
I used to live in Indianapolis. I had a big social circle between work and other transplants I met in the community. There was always something going on, even in the winter months. I usually had someone to do something with. I probably went to half of the Indiana Pacers games a year. We'd often go to eat after work, get a balcony ticket for under $20, maybe a drink a few beers. But it tended to be three or four beers over three or four hours.
Where I am now, aside from the outdoors, there's very little going on. I like baseball. We have some kind of wooden bat league now that plays about ten weeks during the core summer months. Other than the regional state university, about 40 minutes away, I'm an hour and a half's drive from any kind of game affiliated with MILB. I'm at least three hours from an NBA/NFL city. Any sort of decent concert I'd like is an hour and a half or more away. For any kind of cultural thing, it's essentially the middle of nowhere. It's easy to fall into the trap of drinking/using when there's not much going on.
The whole COVID, work from home situation made me worse. Prior to that, I always had to look presentable in the office, had to be up at 7 or so, be in the office by 8 or so. There was no cracking that first beer before you got home. I'd often stop for dinner at a restaurant, drink a couple of beers, maybe drink a six pack on top of that a couple nights a week. Probably too much drinking, but not alcoholic levels of drinking. Because I was out of the house all day, I was glad to be there after work and relax a bit.
The WFH situation turned my lifestyle completely backwards from what "normal people" have. I'm home all day, every day during the work week. That makes me want to go out to the bars in the evenings, simply because I haven't seen anyone outside of Teams calls all day. I've gone from Monday to Friday often without really interacting with a live person outside of a grocery store, a waiter at a restaurant, etc. My girlfriend lives an hour and a half away, so we basically see each other just on weekends. If I crack open a beer at 3 PM, who is really going to know? No one.
Take a day like today. It's been nasty weather this week. It's 45F outside and rained most of the day. It's too cold for me to want to do much outside after work. Tomorrow is going to be the same thing. I've got my stuff packed for my girlfriend's in the car already so I can leave a little before 5 tomorrow. The housework is caught up. I've got some frozen wings thawing to put in the air fryer, maybe on the Traeger if the wind dies down, for dinner. Most of this week has been like this weather-wise. I've drank a lot and played way too many video games.
I'm very fortunate to have the lifestyle I have. I wouldn't want to be completely harried and frazzled all the time. Most people have it worse than I do, but this kind of near solitary lifestyle gives me an opportunity for a lot of drinking without anyone really noticing.
I hear you re: lifestyle and weather (and the impact of geographical location). Those things all impact me as well--I live in Buffalo, and I play poker for a living. Poker and drinking go hand-in-hand. We're experiencing very similar weather as you today (and have a similar prediction for tomorrow). I take walks every day, outdoors, year-round, barring blizzard-like conditions, and I run 7-8 miles every other day (with the same caveat about weather applying there). My life has very little structure, so I do my best to impose some. I show up to a local bookstore every day as if I'm reporting to a job, then I play poker every other night. And I drink when I play, for many reasons--to make an otherwise repetitive game more enjoyable, to ease stress, to (try to) lose myself in the moment. I could easily imagine a lifestyle where I wouldn't drink so much, but maybe I'm kidding myself, and maybe I'd always find a way to rationalize heavy drinking. I very much enjoy drinking, so it may be the case that it would remain constant in my life regardless of circumstance. As the great alcoholic Charles Bukowski once said, 'Find what you love and let it kill you.'
Yes, and all those getting free passes today even if they're at fault in an accident. I'm talking about sleep-deprived drivers, well-proven, equal to the danger of drunk drivers.
The black marketeers would love to see alcohol banned, they could resume their profitable operations from the 1920's with speakeasies and cops getting rich from bribes.
Like the tax revenue stream from cigarettes and alcohol, there'll never be any restrictions.
Napoleon said something to the effect that "He would be glad to get rid of tobacco, if the people asking him to do so would kindly point out a virtue that would generate as much tax revenue as the vice does!"
If you are under the legal age, there is absolutely zero allowance to drink under any situation, however, if you are over the legal age, there is no restriction at all - even if you have multiple DUI's and even if you just got out of a mental institution or a hospital for a problem caused by drinking. Being over the legal age to drink is, in effect, an irrebuttable presumption of responsibility.
Would it not make more sense to put DUI offenders and the like on some sort of list, and block the sale of alcohol to such people for a period of time (perhaps 2 years is reasonable)? And why is it that one day before your magic birthday, you are completely disallowed from having a sip yet the next day, no matter what you do, you can legally buy it in any amount without any limit, supervision or other restriction?
This is particularly puzzling in light of the fact that many DUI offenders required to get interlock ignition actually do not comply. If it is so hard to get them to comply with that, would it not be sensible to, in essence, force sobriety on them?
That is not true at all. It's legal to drink, under 21, in many states. Now you can't legally purchase it though.
The rest of the post reeks of a CCP social credit score surveillance state.
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