Is alcohol a net benefit or detriment?

[SkepticLance]

Alcohol has been a part of my entire adult life. As a teenager working on my father's farm, harvesting hay, a cold beer was the reward after a hard and hot day's work. Pure pleasure!

 

There is no doubt that we drink alcoholic drinks for the drug high. Whisky without the kick would be a revolting drink, but we soon learn to enjoy the taste, since it is associated with pleasurable feelings.

 

Yet alcohol is harmful. It leads to social ills, such as alcoholism, and nasty drunks beating up their wives. It causes drivers to crash and kill people. It leads to cirrhosis of the liver, brain damage, and an increase in cancer rates. It causes immense harm to society.

 

Yet it also causes enormous pleasure. It is a social lubricant assisting in forming relationships. It makes ordinary activities most enjoyable. Some of my best moments have been sailing a yacht with a cold beer to enhance the pleasure.

 

What do you think? Is alcohol a net detrement or a net benefit to society? Is the added pleasure given to billions of people justification for the harm received by hundreds of millions? What is your view, and why?

[ecoli]

I don't think something like that can be determined.

[iNow]

Net benefit. We'd all be a lot angrier and a lot more nasty with each other if there weren't occasional libations.

[SkepticLance]

ecoli

Obviously we cannot make an objective determination of which is greater, but this is a question of opinion. What do you personally feel, and why?

[Mr Skeptic]

I personally don't drink, nor take any drugs other than caffeine when needed. However, drink your heart out if it makes you happy, just don't be drunk in my face and don't send me your medical bill.

 

A related question: does alcohol cost the government more than it makes for them in taxes?

[npts2020]

I personally don't drink, nor take any drugs other than caffeine when needed. However, drink your heart out if it makes you happy, just don't be drunk in my face and don't send me your medical bill.

 

A related question: does alcohol cost the government more than it makes for them in taxes?

 

I would say probably not in America. Most of the cost (insurance and health care) is borne privately. Now, if you ask whether society gains or loses more (kind of the original question) that is different and IMO is very difficult to quantify adequately. I also wonder how negative effects between legality and prohibition compare?

[Baby Astronaut]

Benefit if it benefits you. Detriment if it's a detriment.

 

Yet alcohol is harmful. It leads to social ills, such as alcoholism, and nasty drunks beating up their wives. It causes drivers to crash and kill people. It leads to cirrhosis of the liver, brain damage, and an increase in cancer rates. It causes immense harm to society.

Nah. The associated escapism leads to harm.

 

1. People who drink to escape their problems

2. face a bigger one. The problems don't go away, as they

3. need to be addressed. Otherwise they'll mount up to

4. a point beyond one's ability to handle them in an efficient manner.

5. Totally quitting rarely helps because now you're avoiding

6. the problem you have with escapism, and it needs solving.

7. Thus your best avenue is finding a way to conquer your dependency and escapism

8. by confronting each, instead of running away from them.

9. If you can have a drink at will or leisure

10. and not trigger any relevant social negativity

11. then you don't have this problem to begin with, or you've simply mastered it.

 

There, my "11 steps program"

 

Anyone who simply loves drink for its own sake, and isn't trying to drown their problems, nor attempting to fit in by getting drunk, and for the most part handles themselves wisely, isn't going to have much of a problem.

 

Except if their system is weak internally against the effects of drinking. Such as organ disease or whatnot.

[padren]

I have to call benefit.

 

Our society would not be nearly as rich and diverse in terms of the arts without it. In my opinion, just having had the experience of getting hammered enough to no longer be able to recognize yourself helps a person be less confined in their thinking especially when it comes to having patience understanding someone else who has a very different perspective.

Once you see the range you can have, it makes you more flexible and open to understanding the range other people can have.

 

 

I'll admit there could be long term damages if done too much I'll admit.

[waitforufo]

Do human societies exist that do not have some form of social intoxicating drug? Even very primitive societies seem to find some way of getting high. The earliest artifacts, art, and writing of most human cultures describe people getting high. This is particularly true when it comes to alcohol. I wonder if sophisticated societies would have evolved at all without alcohol or some other social drug. In our modern times there are groups that prohibit such recreation but generally they still turn a blind eye to the taboo use and such drugs are generally easy to find. Societies that do the best at avoiding alcohol (Muslims for one) seem to have more problems then ones that celebrate use (western cultures).

[padren]

Societies that do the best at avoiding alcohol (Muslims for one) seem to have more problems then ones that celebrate use (western cultures).

 

You do raise some interesting points, but on the one I quoted I can't help but to think it's mostly other factors, which make it difficult to test. For instance, Malaysia is a self proclaimed Islamic country, but is pretty stable. It also is fairly tolerant of alcohol which could be read as supporting your suggestion - but it could be a side effect of tolerance in general: that highly intolerant societies (of alcohol, or anything else) seem to have more problems.

[SkepticLance]

There are many societies that had no intoxicating drugs. In my country, the native people (the Maori) has no alcohol or other intoxicants. The Australian aboriginees (except for one small tribe) had no drugs. However, it is clear that these societies, with no experience of alcohol, seem particularly prone to abusing it when it is introduced.

 

My own inclination is towards alcohol, since I enjoy it so much. I love looking at the sea, either from my lovely deck, or from the cockpit of a boat, and having this accompanied by a suitable alcoholic beverage, with its intoxicating effect, enhances my pleasure. In addition, my experience is that alcohol improves social gathering, increasing the convivial mood. However, I was interested to see if many people agreed with me. My own view is towards net benefit, but this may be a personal bias.

[D H]

A related question: does alcohol cost the government more than it makes for them in taxes?

I'll see if I can dig up some references to back this up.

 

IIRC, alcohol abuse represents a net loss to society while tobacco abuse is the other way around. In short, alcoholics have a much greater tendency to lose their jobs and live for years on the dole while tobacco smokers keep working until they drop dead the day after they retire.

[Royston]

There are many societies that had no intoxicating drugs. In my country, the native people (the Maori) has no alcohol or other intoxicants. The Australian aboriginees (except for one small tribe) had no drugs. However, it is clear that these societies, with no experience of alcohol, seem particularly prone to abusing it when it is introduced.

 

Plus, due to it's relative recent introduction, there hasn't been enough generations for the indigenous people to metabolize alcohol properly (I'll look for a reference.) This is just something I heard when living in Australia, and experience seeing Aborigines getting very drunk, on very small amounts.

 

I'll see if I can dig up some references to back this up.

 

http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/show/245.html

 

http://www.niaaa.nih.gov/Resources/DatabaseResources/QuickFacts/AlcoholSales/default.htm

 

If anyone can find any figures for alcohol related crime in the US, and the cost in health care, it's just a matter of some simple arithmetic. I would imagine the former is a bit fuzzy.

 

In the UK, money spent on alcohol related crime is roughly 7 billion a year...

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3537257.stm

 

Scroll down to revenue...I'm guessing there's a profit made, but I'll need to get some figures for health care costs...

 

http://www.ias.org.uk/resources/factsheets/tax.pdf

 

Yoink...

 

http://www.marininstitute.org/alcohol_policy/health_care_costs.htm

 

There appears to be significant profit made from taxes of alcohol in the UK, over health care costs, and alcohol related crime.

Edited January 24, 2009 by Snail

[waitforufo]

There are many societies that had no intoxicating drugs. In my country, the native people (the Maori) has no alcohol or other intoxicants. The Australian aboriginees (except for one small tribe) had no drugs. However, it is clear that these societies, with no experience of alcohol, seem particularly prone to abusing it when it is introduced.

 

Thanks for the information on the Maori and Australian aborigines. By modern standards however (yes, I realize that some will take this as racist), these cultures would be considered primitive and with only small groups of people living together under most circumstances.

 

I guess what I'm trying to get at is that as societies grow in size, density, and complexity, social intoxicants may permit people to live more easily in harmony. Perhaps it is easier for people living in small groups in primitive rural settings to isolate themselves when feeling antisocial. Also, their need for social unity may be more apparent to them. When human density increases, social unity becomes more abstract, and the ability to find isolation decreases. Also, people living in more primitive settings are generally in a more natural human environment. By this I mean they are closer to the environment in which humans evolved. As our societies become more technologically advanced, the further we remove ourselves from our natural environment, the more stress this causes on our mental well being. By drinking alcohol (smoking marijuana, opium, etcetera) we are simply self medicating to reduce this stress. By participating in such activity in a social setting, we may also create social bonds with others in similar situations, and resolve conflicts created by our self created unnatural environment.

 

This of course all conjecture on my part. It just seems that human history, particularly involving the origins of what most would consider successful modern societies, include social intoxicants. Why is this?

[SkepticLance]

waiforufo

I think that it is the availability of intoxicants that leads to their use, more than some social factor. After all, there are heaps of cases of animals becoming hooked on alcohol or other drugs, once humans make these available. I knew a parrot that was owned by a publican. It gained freedom inside the bar whenever it was possible. (the owner generally tried to limit this), and begged beer from patrons. By the end of each evening of freedom, it was wasted.

 

Humans are not that different. If drugs or alcohol are available, we tend to use them, regardless of social norms. Even in Muslim countries, where alcohol is nominally banned, lots of people drink in secret.

[Dudde]

Personally I find it's the people who really need the intoxicating effects to relieve stress that tend to abuse it and make it seem worse than really is - although I still think those people would be around to ruin something else if these substances were not around, those who can't deal with their own consciousness

 

I think it's a benefit to society for the most part, combining the profitability with the social uses.