Apparently, it’s a dry January for those who celebrate. And from what I’m seeing in the news this week, the media wants us ALL to celebrate. Every paper, TV station and website in America seems to have a guide on how to have a “dry January” (meaning no alcohol consumption) while still having fun. The surgeon general wants to go further than that, saying that no level of alcohol consumption is safe and recommending cancer warnings on bottles of alcohol like the ones we already have on cigarettes.
I don’t know why I find this so annoying. I’ve never been much of a drinker. My parents were teetotalers. We had “dry January” all 12 months of the year in my house! As an adult, I enjoy an occasional cocktail. I especially like a nice glass of Sauvignon Blanc. If I’m at a bar or restaurant, I’ll order a fun seasonal drink or one of those girly martinis with about 6 different ingredients. But I have bottles of flavored vodka that I brought with me from my old house when I moved in 2018. I bought a 12 pack of Sam Adams Oktoberfest that lasted me until the NEXT October. I’m also at the age where just that one beer or glass of wine means I’ll be asleep at 8PM, so I’ve cut back on my already low consumption. I did go on vacation last month and indulged a little more than usual. I actually plan on much heavier drinking after January 20th for the next 4 years, give or take. But that’s a different rant for a different day.
The more I thought about these stories, the more they bothered me. It actually made me want to do a few shots just out of spite. Why am I so irked by a push to get me to cut back on something I don’t do much anyway? Maybe I’m just tired of all these experts telling me what to do. The health recommendations never stop. I don’t eat enough vegetables. I don’t get enough exercise or sleep. I need to lose weight. I DID manage to quit smoking 30 years ago, but that’s when I started to gain weight! My pharmacy wants me to get a flu shot (which I already did.) CNN wants me to drink more water! I’m already up 3 times a night, what more do they want from me! I forget to apply sunscreen, and yet I don’t get enough vitamin D. I’m overdue for a mammogram. It JUST NEVER ENDS.
And it’s not just health advice! I don’t have enough savings. I spend too much money. I spend too much time on Facebook. I don’t change the oil in my car every 3,000 miles like the manufacturer recommends. I drive too fast and break too hard. I don’t wash glass items for recycling. I don’t always put my cart back in the corral at the grocery store. I bought my cat from a breeder instead of adopting one from a shelter.
Then there’s religion. Could one reason that church membership has been in decline in recent years be that we already have enough things to feel bad about? I confess that I have lusted after Jason Momoa in my heart. I covet my neighbor’s Lexus. Mostly, I struggle with that whole “love your neighbor” thing.
But you don’t have to believe in a religion to feel like a sinner. There’s shame attached to everything. If you use the wrong pronouns for someone, you will be shamed. Every time I hear the term “birthing person,” my eyes roll back in my head. If you question providing puberty blocking hormones to minors questioning their gender identity, or the fairness of allowing biological males to compete in women’s sports, then you are just WRONG. One of my oldest friends called me a bigot when I told her I was uncomfortable sharing the women’s locker room with people who have male genitalia. The word “racist” has been tossed around so much it’s practically lost all meaning.
I know it sounds like I’m being glib. I acknowledge that these are all serious issues. But – it’s just TOO MUCH! Everywhere I turn there is someone trying to make me feel bad for some reason and I can only heap so much self-loathing on myself before I just decide “screw it.”
Maybe, as we say so often, “this is how you got Trump.” Voting for him was an act of rebellion by a lot of people who are just fed up with being told how awful they are all the time. It may not improve their lives, but it seems to upset all those scolds who have been preaching to us for so long.
The problem with nagging people all the time in an effort to better them is that eventually they tune you out completely. As a teen, my mother sounded like one of the adults in a Charlie Brown cartoon. It was just “wah wah wah” all the time. Nigel Tufnel knew that the beauty of having an amp that goes to 11 was the ability to kick it up an extra notch when you wanted that extra punch. But if you leave it on 11 all the time, everyone just goes deaf.
I think that’s where we are in our society now. The amp is blown, our ears are ringing, and we just want to be left alone to our debauchery. At this point, any effort to improve us will just backfire. I predict that a year from now, studies will show an increase in alcohol consumption, which will spawn another round of hand-wringing from the experts. But by then they will have found at least a dozen more things that are bad for us and at least 20 ways we’re destroying the planet.
It’s enough to drive you to drink.
I’ve not been on social media in 2 decades. It was filled with inane comments by my “friends” about crap I didn’t care about or pitches from them for their business.
A lot of this above is “we have to justify our funding by doing something.” Is there truth to a lot of it. Yes. The devil is in the degree. Is it demonstrably worse for you to drink 10 beers a day versus none? Yes. 1? Maybe not, maybe yes, but by how much? Ignore it. When it’s brought up, agree, “yeah, I need to do more/less of that. Good idea.” Then do what you want. In the end, it’s your life and you’re going to die. How do you want it to end? With a history of denial and absence of fun/joy in your life so you can extend your life a few more months / years when you’re likely suffering from something else as well? Nah, I’ll pass. Moderation is all things, even moderation.Report
A fun Onion headline from 1999: Eggs Good For You This Week.
The big problem is that the studies tend to find stuff that is small and blow it out of proportion to the finding found.
Is it healthy to drink two bottles of wine every night and go to bed blackout drunk? Of course not.
Is it healthy to drink a glass of wine with dinner on Fridays and to have a few too many beers on New Year’s Eve and at the 4th of July BBQ?
To be perfectly honest, I don’t know how they’d even test for that second one. The control is people who never drink. You’d test against people who drink to excess twice a year?
The only tests you can meaningfully do are people who drink an unhealthy amount versus people who never do.Report
Also from Onion 1999, giving the perspective of the other side: Nation’s Experts Give Up. Though it’s funny to read this one in the light of what’s changed since then.Report
“The big problem is that the studies tend to find stuff that is small and blow it out of proportion to the finding found.”
I think it’s less the studies and more the people who let their endocrine system do their thinking. “Oh, big numbers are scary, big words are scary, information contrary to my established world paradigm is scary. I don’t like being scared! I’ll therefore listen to whatever this article says and do it times a billion.”Report
Also a lot of people got trained early on that if they didn’t Do What The Adults Said then they’d be Punished, and they interpret government guidance as The Adults Saying, and so they figure that a) if they don’t do it then they’ll be Punished, and b) if you don’t do it then you’re committing a moral transgression and they can jerk off their frustrated rage-boners onto you.Report
I was thinking of this particular XKCD comic: Green Jelly Beans Cause Acne!Report
See this related SMBC comic.Report
A lot of this is just bad reporting exaggerating very weak findings from low-quality or ambiguous studies.
Science journalism is, on average, really bad.Report
On this you and I agree. And on the very rare occasion a “science journalist” is any good, they are usually fired first when a round of layoffs comes down.Report
I wrote a similar post here years ago after the shaming my poor wife went through from the breastfeeding uh… enthusiasts.
I do think it’s critical at a certain point to let adults be adults. I myself do drink and in my younger days definitely drank more than I should. I’ve cut back on it of course, due to age and responsibilities, plus the need to set a halfway decent example for my boys. There’s a bit of alcoholism in the family and the last thing I need is to fall into all of that mess.
That said it may shock the Surgeon General to learn that no less than 15 feet from me right now is a cabinet full of bourbon and scotch. Down in my basement by the TV is a fridge, and that fridge has *gasp* beer in it. And yet I do not find myself drinking any of it, despite the fact that none of the containers include a warning about cancer.Report
I like the term “lactivists.” They were similarly brutal to my partner.Report
We were very lucky that one of the doctors at the pediatricians office put a stop to it. Something to the effect of ‘yea it’s good if it works out but I was formula fed and I turned out to be a doctor sooo…’ Sadly that doctor moved to a different practice so we don’t see her anymore but I will be forever grateful for finding the perfect way to put a stop to the totally unnecessary guilt and panic my wife was experiencing.Report
We probably didn’t get the level Chris is alluding to, but 30 years ago breast feeding was being pushed hard. Sadly, my daughter never took to it. I agreed with my wife that bottle feeding was better than starvation.
(Though my brother and I would joke privately about throwing out perfectly good steak.)Report
Remember when gas stoves were absolutely definitely 100% the reason for childhood asthma and the only morally-supportable response was to ban all indoor gas stoves and anyone who disagreed was a big mean jerk who was so conservative that they wanted children to die?Report
No.Report
Part of that discussion took place here.Report
There’s the discussion that happened and the discussion that DD thinks he remembers.Report
There was more of it here, including the parts Clement thinks didn’t happen.Report
People shouldn’t say things I don’t want to hear. I, on the other hand, reserve the right to say what I damn please. And don’t dare tell me I’m wrong.Report
I think a lot of the health advice is saying do 10 in hopes of getting most people to do a 5 to 7. There are also lots of people with a firm belief in human perfectibility. Living the most healthy life is possible and they can’t comprehend why every human doesn’t want to do this.Report
Perfection is for heaven, on Earth we have beer. And man do we need it.Report
I’m inclined to agree but the argument against us is that the reason the world is in such a mess is because people to strive for perfection enough but get distracted by pain relievers.Report
LOLReport
Frikkin’ experts. Constantly looking at things and finding stuff out…and then putting all that info in places where I let my eyes rest for a moment. Hey, I learned everything I need to know in kindergarten and I never poked my eye out with a stick. So there.Report
Alas, I think people enjoy scolding one another, and the instinct to scold transcends ideology. Some but not all of the scolds complained of in the OP originate from somewhere that clocks left of political center, and yup, there’s plenty of scolds left of center. There’s plenty of scolding that comes from right of political center too, and it lands on its targets exactly the same.
I think health scolding is probably apolitical, but politics is doing its best to worm its way into health controversies.
Mutatis mundatis with “preaching.” And at the end of the day, I’m not sure there’s anything to be done about it.Report
There is always the raspberry.Report
When I was in high school band, the director was a former Army Sergeant Major. He never scolded us; he never screamed at us; he never cursed. But he could calmly and quietly make it clear that you had disappointed him, and make you feel lower than dirt about it.Report