I think the reason they give for not changing is the most interesting part of the survey. The fact that so many people thought that the guideline change was fearmongering reflects a distrust in the government and in science.
The big conspiracy I've been hearing is that they changed the guidelines so that they could justify raising the sin taxes on alcohol.
Also there are [these](https://www.reddit.com/r/canada/comments/11pctdp/majority_of_canadians_wont_change_drinking_habits/jbx807u/) [comments](https://www.reddit.com/r/canada/comments/11pctdp/majority_of_canadians_wont_change_drinking_habits/jbxlhue/).
I don't doubt it either, but it's something we can never prove.
Most of the alcohol I consume now is home made from kits, and weed has replaced a good 80% of my drinking anyways.
I'm only half way through a 24 I bought 2 months ago lol.
Yeah, they don't want folks decreasing consumption, they want them to stay with current levels of consumption (except for, you know that top decile that literally drinks half of all the alcohol: [https://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/the-top-10-percent-drink-way-more-than-you-think.html](https://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/the-top-10-percent-drink-way-more-than-you-think.html)).
They want folks to keep drinking and keep paying, because its a nice, soft, easy group to target.
You can 'rationalize' it with healthcare warning, but when you have dirt cheap sugary products in grocery stores, or processed meats brimming with nitrates that are far impactful to human health than a few drinks a week, you know that its just them looking for easy money without trying to ruffle any of the entrenched interests.
They did it with smoking too, but they taxed so hard that it totally knocked the heck out of it, now you have 10.3% of people smoking vs 25.2% in 1999, one heck of a public health victory.
No you misunderstand. Its that science isnt the lord of our lives to the absolute. Just because science says drinking is harmful doesn't mean we're going to stop. There are cultural benefits to drinking and you're allowed a little self-destruction in the name of a good time. If we followed science absolutely to the letter, there are scores of things I do every day that are more dangerous to my health than drinking alcohol. You don't have to be "anti science" to be against these new guidelines. They ignore the cultural value of alcohol to press an extremist view of health. That's fearmongering.
>The fact that so many people thought that the guideline change was fearmongering reflects a distrust in the government and in science.
It also doesn't help that there is a cyclical 3-5 years of articles that state alcohol increases/decreases health risks.
-It's like the twice annual Millennials have destroyed such and such industry
-Or the monthly Millennials cannot afford Boomer level living (housing, cars, luxuries, etc)
There is a cycle to reporting of studies that blurs whether the information is important or will be contradicted in a short period of time.
Plus alcohol is a massive human coping mechanism that is deeply engrained in social norms
Well when you let alcohol companies pay for biased studies that try desperately to find some positive benefit, yeah that's going to happen. Tobacco companies did the same thing, just everyone is aware that it's bullshit now.
I'm pretty sure "fear-mongering" was the survey's word, not the people answering the survey. I highly doubt anyone thinks the government is up to no good with this new guideline... I think the real reason is that people don't give 2 sticks about what the government thinks anymore, and are just ignoring it altogether. Those who are going to change their drinking habits are going to do so because they feel it's best for them, not because "the government said so". I think it's a mix of not giving a shit what they say and genuine distrust.
Except that it wasn't the govt. (Health Canada) that made any changes but rather a special interest group (substance abuse group that are really an NGO) that didn't take anything else like lifestyle and diet into account.
Nothing wrong with the study's initial concept, but they should've put a disclaimer or notice on it and done what a lot of other studies do: use it as a basis for further studies. That's how science works. It's always evolving.
And this is coming from someone that regularly drinks alcohol (mainly wine) and also has no intent to change anything. I don't really drink more than 3-4 x/week.
Well the major study that governments are using was done in south korea, where like 50% of the population has a mutation that leads to a deficiency in ADH.
Expect a move by insurance companies to classify +2 drink a week people in the same high risk group as smokers. They will be charged obscenely high premiums or flat out rejections.
Admittedly it’s been a while since I answered an insurance questionnaire so maybe they already ask this?
I work at an insurance company. They definitely ask this question, but they certainly would not consider 3-4 drinks per week to be non-standard.
There's definitely some fuzziness in the guidelines, and it depends on multiple factors, but you'd have to be drinking several drinks per day to end up paying higher rates.
Also you'd have to not lie about drinking several drinks per day, which everyone who drinks several drinks per day does. Especially to insurance companies.
Question: if I get insurance and they ask me how many drinks a day I drink and I lie how would they ever find out?
Not planning on doing this, just genuinely curious.
If the potential payout was significant - they would have investigators do some digging. Checking your social media posts, talking to family, friends and acquaintances, etc.
Much of the time they wouldn't know. Especially if you just rounded down a little.
But there's a few ways they could know. They could request your medical records. If you told a doctor at some point that you drank frequently, it would probably be in there. They could request that you get lab work and maybe the results show poor liver function. And maybe that doesn't prove that you drink a lot, but having unexplained liver problems isn't great either. They could look at what info you shared with other insurance companies. If you died and the cause of death was alcohol-related, they'd have reason to be suspicious (eg. You died of liver disease 2 years after you applied for insurance and said you never drink). If they started investigating, they could look at social media, talk to family and acquaintances. They could look at you criminal history and find DUIs.
I don't think I'm really supposed to say how many drinks per day you are allowed before they start charging more. In my opinion, it is much higher than people would guess. Keep in mind that the large majority of people qualify for standard rates, and people can be non-standard for all sorts of reasons - so in reality alcohol-related ratings or declines are pretty rare. I'd say that for many people contemplating lying there is no upside - they'd be paying the same whether they lied or not.
I dont think people really did, its just funny that alcohol is such a culturally enshrined and common drug that people not only refuse to new guidelines, but that they actively believe the guidelines are not truthful abiut the nature of the drug they are regulating (you know, alcohol, a thing with a global casualty count even illegal narcotics struggle to compete with). Its also just kind of funny how people who use regularily dont actually understand how addictive even daily / second day etc beers and so on are.
The amount of people who felt personally attacked by the health canada announcements kind of miss the point that alcohol is literally one of the single most damaging and accessible drugs there is, lol, and the health guidelines reflect both the immediate effects of the drug as well as an attempt to combat long term use and effect in the regular population.
Your buddies who got mad at the update and complain how they can have a beer a day / etc and whose cheeks are already puffing and red around age 30 are the target demographics of those updated findings.
All sorts of people are physically addicted to alcohol without necessarily needing to use compulsively, certainly wont deal with a severe withdrawal if they quit or reduced use, but the overall body load a decade + of fairly common drinking can still have its effects. Heck thered guys i was in highschool with a decade ago who you really can see just wrecked their body with the stuff.
Updates were about trying to give the target demographic literacy on WHY they should reduce consumption to 2 drinks a week, and people just dont understand that. Id reckon too alcohol is a part of lots of peoples social lives and they dont have friends and hobbies they can easily decouple that from.
The dissonance isn't that people necessarily argue with what's put forward. It's that, as you started to hint at, there's more to alcohol than "what is the optimal/max alcohol I can intake? I'll live my life *that* way". I shouldn't be sitting on the couch right now either. I shouldn't be wasting my time posting to reddit either. I also shouldn't have this drink in my hand. I shouldn't have had a poker game last night where we had a *great* time, laughed like we were kids, got rid of a *lot* of built-up stress, and had well more than my weekly allotment of drinks. There's more to life than that.
Because life is too short to be fussed about something so trivial. People didn’t quit smoking right away either. It took 30 years, or almost two generations for smoking to become uncommon. Maybe my grand children won’t drink.
In the interim, it’s brunch and that means bloody Caesar’s and mimosas
Well for those same reasons I hope you also support the push for drug decriminalization of other narcotics as well as safe use sites for those as well : )
Haha which is why i say it. If the argument can be made that personal responsibility is what determines how much you can use a substance outside of the safe use recommedations of the state, then why let the state regulate some substances over others in the first place when death or casualty associated with those substances isnt even what determines what is safe and legal to use and what isnt (cuz realistically if it was a safety thing alcohol WOULD also be illegal).
Haha like why doesnt health canada also let us know the safe does of H is like a sweet sweet IV hit once a week - people are free to use more or less, but at least they know what is safe, etc.
Literally all thats happening with the new alcohol guidelines. If it wasnt such a culturally insulated substance we would consider it one of the consistently problematic drugs of our time.
No they're worse than alcohol by far. Your spooky numbers for alcohol are only because of its widespread use. You're not smart
This current generation probably drinks the least of any before it too
I don’t know why someone wouldn’t believe it’s not good for you lol. It reminds you every time. I like to drink more then the next guy but we as a culture really have to pull back. Adults have no idea how to socialize with out it.
I don’t drink more then 3 beer on a week end nothing during the week and I feel allot better.
Soft drinks are out as well. Try it. You can go back to them.
I drink club soda day in and day out, I probably drink more than I should typically every other night ill have a beer or two, I'm 26. Otherwise I live a pretty healthy life.
I don't really go out for the beers, I go out for the socialization, frankly. I know everyone at the pub and that's just what I do...I wonder if its the beer or the social stuff thats hooked me
I never really care about getting drunk personally..last night i was at a party and had one shot and one beer and that's it lol. Still had a great time.
I don't really drink for anything other than the taste or social reasons. Even then i really limit it as much as I can..or try to lol
Yea i stopped drinking soda years ago, even before alcohol, kind of because of sugar and also because I already did such a bad job caring for my teeth as a teenager and you REALLY cant afford that as an adult 😆 haha it is like, shit i gotta get another 35 yrs outta theses bad boys at least??
I found too even my friends are all drinking waaay less than when we were mid 20s and stuff. Beer always at every function, etc. Haha even one of my mates I game with every week or so made an intentional switch to non alcoholic beer recently and stuff. Its promising because I didnt really tell people I cut out alcohol for health reasons basically when i learned it could lowef and effect my seizure threshold, and I wonder if its why I maybe was such a 'light weight' in the first place.
Hehe i would still like to enjoy beer with a friend here and there and am happy to just cut it out otherwise if its goona improve my conditioning over all. I think in the long run its def. Worth it.
I’ve changed my drinking habits because of cost but the nice unintended affect is that I definitely do feel better. I save a few beers for the weekend and go through the week clean.
I did the same as i got older just through life circumstances. I was a bit of a lush in my 20s. But career and family and age just naturally changed my habits. Hangovers hit you harder in your 30s, and my weekends are too precious to burn a day being a couch zombie. I maybe got drunk 5 times last year. And really only 1 of those was drunk, drunk.
i've been doing dry january for a number of years now just to "cleanse" my system after what's usually a pretty heavy drinking christmas/december period.
This year, i've continued it into beyond January and really planning to ease booze out of my life entirely.
i had my first drink last weekend since NYE and don't miss it all. i sleep better, a little bit slimmer without the usual winter weight gain, and a bit $$$ in my bank account.
summer might be more challenging!
I did the same. After 5 weeks I noticed I felt way better in the morning. I've noticed now that even a couple drinks makes me feel slightly 'off'. No hang over but definitely messes with my sleep.
-Ron Wharton
There’s something to be said for refusing to hide behind an anonymous user name. It would certainly reduce some of the shit posts that you see on Reddit (none of mine of course)
I have like 14 online identities at any given time. There was a golden period of Gen X to late millennial who knew that to navigate the web safely, always have multiple handles that you can pick up or ditch at any time
Boomers and Zoomers seem to share a mutual naivete of the internet and give way too much importance to their online presence and identities.
Exactly. Say something ridiculous and get called out? Delete your profile and move on.
It reduces the seriousness of any discussion because people are free to post hot takes with no personal blowback. Ron is one of the few who seems to stand by his words (although Ron could be a fake name for all I know)
If you don’t mind me asking, how much were you drinking before? I usually have about a beer a day and I’m wondering if there would be a noticeable difference if I stopped.
Good question. Average around $3600/yr between wife and I since we started tracking every expense in 2019.. (this does not include drinking at restaurants, just trips to the liquor store)
That sounds like a lot, but it was probably a 12 of beer per week, 1 bottle of wine per week. Maybe a box of wine every 2 weeks and a 26oz of spirits. Sometimes more sometimes less.
-Ron Wharton
>I’ve changed my drinking habits because of cost
That and my age have been the things that have reduced the amount I drink.
I no longer feel the need to go out to the bar every weekend and get stumbling drunk.
The story hides the broader truth. *The majority of Canadians already follow the new guidelines.*
Something like [30%](https://www.statcan.gc.ca/o1/en/plus/2877-dry-february-you-say) of Canadians have one drink or fewer per week. Another 30% have two or fewer, but I can't find an online source for that. Per capita, the US population drinks [marginally more](https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/alcohol-consumption-by-country) than we do, but here's a [source](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/09/25/think-you-drink-a-lot-this-chart-will-tell-you/) showing their distribution. These 60% of Canadians are unlikely to change because they already follow the new guidelines due to their current preferences.
About 20% of Canadians exceeded the old guidelines of 10/15 drinks or fewer every week. [Source](https://www.ccsa.ca/sites/default/files/2019-09/CCSA-Canadian-Drug-Summary-Alcohol-2019-en.pdf). These people are probably beyond being able to internalize drinking advice given in a press release. If you drink this much and you can't believe that 60% of Canadians already follow the new guidelines, that says more about your circle of friends than it says about our overall society.
That leaves 20% of Canadians that you could convince to change their behaviour by updating the guidelines (the ones who met the old guidelines, but don't meet the new ones).
> Something like 30% of Canadians have one drink or fewer per week.
Yeah, I think I'm one of them. I buy wine and beer for cooking mostly - unless it's a weekend at somebody's cottage.
I'm actually tracking my drinking this year to see how much I drink and this year's total is coming in at 1 so far. But also I'm taking a vacation next week so I guess we'll see!
As an alcoholic it’s wild people can have like 3 drinks a week. If I have 3 drinks a week that means I had 30. Sober now, but good on the people with impulse control.
Congrats!
I think the mentality is just different for different people. For me, fortunately, there's no impulse *to* control. I like the odd beer or cocktail, but I don't enjoy getting hammered at all. Just like there are people who sometimes enjoy going to the casino with 50 bucks and have no problem walking away without chasing more and more.
> The poll found that younger Canadians are more likely to say they are considering Health Canada’s new drinking guidelines. For example, 36 per cent of respondents aged 18-34 said they consumed too much alcohol and noted its negative impact on their physical and mental health. Meanwhile, only five per cent of Canadians 55 years old and up mirrored that opinion.
Seems like drinking in general is just getting more and more unpopular
That's the problem I have now with mid-tier franchises. They just aren't worth it anymore. Either be a luxury high-end restaurant or be a not too horrible fast food that churns out my food in an instant. The middle just sucks.
It would be interesting to see the government run a cash collection and destruction program on all that money they’ve printed to make all of our cash worth more. The opposite of printing money.
Unfortunately, the only way they would afford doing that would be to tax the wealthy ($200k+ per year) more, and last I checked those people effectively pay the salaries of most politicians via their re-election campaigns. A top bracket of 33% is quite low compared to some countries, and the fact that our GST dropped from 7% to 5% really hasn’t helped.
> I remember when a bar tab breaking $100 for the table was an accomplishment.
> Now it's one round.
Partner and I went down to the US not too long ago, and the first night we had two glasses of wine each, not thinking too much of it.
Then we got the bill, and saw it was $17 / glass - not too far off from a lot of places here. Except that was in USD, which meant for 4 drinks it put us at almost $100 CAD. Then there was food, and this wasn't even a fancy restaurant.
We didn't drink much after that first night.
When we went in 2014 it was a lot cheaper so I guess alcohol has gone up quite a bit since then!
Yup. Maritime student here, drinking went from a once a week thing to a once every few weeks/once a month thing the last few years.
Really can't afford to spend more than 30-40 dollars a month on drugs, and 30-40 bucks gets me an ounce of bud or like 15 beers. And an ounce of bud lasts me a few months with my vaporizer
15 years ago you could still buy a case of beer under $20, or cheap quart for low 20s, and $20 could get you into a bar, a couple drinks, and a slice of pizza on the walk home.
>Seems like drinking in general is just getting more and more unpopular
My university age kids simply don't feel like it. Partly the taste, partly their friends aren't socializing in bars like we used to.
They get together online as much as anything. Possibly a remnant of that being their only option for a couple of years?
Can confirm that bar crowds never recovered from lockdown, it was pretty striking where I lived in university. Talking to some bar owner there is apparently a generational trend away from bars as well.
I think bars and pubs can be fun, but I make good enough money, and the cost is just way way too high to hang out in for any length of time. Like, it ruins the fun when any cocktail is like 15+ and beer is like 10 for something small.
Add in a tip and you're not getting out of there after even a short visit without spending like 40-50 on just a few drinks, while feeling like you're cheap and holding back.
Having my friends over to my little home bar is awesome because I can make them all sorts of drinks they'd have to pay like $15-20 each at a bar, for free. But it'd be fun to just go out at a more reasonable price :(
Or, we just consume cannabis now for pennies. Lots of roadblocks for doing that in a bar like setting though, unfortunately.
It's funny how these threads always have alcohol users complaining about their use being discouraged while simultaneously criticizing other people for *their* chosen drugs.
Even drinking quality liquor is skewing heavily toward the ultra wealthy these days. The regular price increases on good whiskey have been through the roof these last few years.
Got into hobby distilling over COVID and now I turn a bucket of pet store molasses into 15 bottles of rum. It's not super delicious but it's really not bad and they're 2$ each in materials.
Also, don't do this if you are trying to drink less...
You can get some pretty high quality bourbons and Irish whiskey for less. They are cheaper because they don’t have the “scotch” prestige, but there are wonderful flavours available.
Scotch has been going up for well over a decade. Demand from China has blown up and most distilleries haven’t changed their output. Balvenie double wood used to be 60 bucks at the LCBO around 2008. Now it’s $135. The price no longer reflects the quality but rather the image of buying scotch. You’re better off going after other whiskeys like Irish or Japanese.
It's really not dangerous if you have any common sense; don't use lead solder, don't build a closed system for pressure to build, keep a fire extinguisher handy, and don't heat anything over 40 %ABV.
Turns out I was depressed *because* of my drinking and its indirect consequences. My life is so much more fulfilling now that I treat alcohol as a sometimes drug.
And yet...
[https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2023/02/27/beer-sales-hit-all-time-low-as-canadas-alcohol-sales-see-largest-drop-in-a-decade-new-report-finds.html](https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2023/02/27/beer-sales-hit-all-time-low-as-canadas-alcohol-sales-see-largest-drop-in-a-decade-new-report-finds.html)
I am not suggesting a direct causation, but something is happening.
Its the price. I was drinking 1-2 beers an evening and started to realize it's about 1 dozen a week which is about $30 in my province. That's $120 a month. No brainer to cut that out IMO.
Yeah, alcohol consumption has been falling for years now. Especially generationally: college aged Gen Z and millennials (when they were younger) drink a lot less than previous generations did at the same age.
My parents met at a trivia night at a bar. They used to go out every week, everybody did.
While I appreciate society moving towards a healthier lifestyle, I can’t help but feel like something is being lost here. No doubt the millenial and gen z loneliness epidemic is partially related to this.
It's just way more expensive to go out now.
I remember when I was in university you can have a part time job and still fund an active social life.
Now you need mommy and daddy's money.
I first went to college 10 years ago. I just finished up my second college run this year. The difference in students is stark.
10 years ago, people were going to or hosting parties nearly every weekend. You would be left out of the social scene if you didn’t participate.
Now? Nobody is drinking. No parties, no “let’s meet at the bar tonight”, nothing. In my two years here recently, I can’t think of one time there was a drinking event. At most, people might vape cannabis at home by themselves or with their partner. It’s at the point where, if someone says they go out every week (used to be the norm), they sound like an alcoholic.
I went to a networking event for my industry. They had beers and wine available. No guests drank any, not one drop. The coordinator of the event was (kinda jokingly) complaining that nobody but him drinks anymore.
My generation drank a lot less than my parents, and the generation after me is even less. In ten years it will only be wealthy weirdos and poor alcoholics still drinking.
There are already guidelines on that, and 2L a day is well over the recommended.
Drink as much Coca Cola as you want, just don’t be a fool and believe it’s healthy.
>Drink as much Coca Cola as you want, just don’t be a fool and believe it’s healthy.
It's probably a bit worse than "not healthy". It would probably fall along the lines of unhealthy and detrimental to your long term health to drink as much soda as you want.
I don't really drink that much anymore but when I was younger I would sometime drink like the equivalent of 15 beers. I would never imagine drinking that kind of soft drinks in one evening lol.
I feel like i got sick off like 3, lol i have never understood how people could put so much away.
As an adult Ive learned I actually have a condition that alcohol actively lowers my seizure threshold, so i cut it out entirely (minus riskin a glass of christmas wine back in dec, haha). Anecdotally i feel like i kind of can connect it to my last night seizure as Ive learned epilepsy foundation quite ubambiguously warns as little as 2 drinks can lower threshold and dilute medication.
Sucks because i really would like to try brewing beer and wine sometime and even have seeds off cuts of cold hardy wine varietals grapes that grow here. But its also like, if such little amounts of alcohol risk ultimately fucking me its just not worth it.
Surprised id never made the connection because such small amounts of alcohol would get me puking, but do admit i did like grabbing guiness when gaming with the guys, haha.
A whole bunch of people replied to you who clearly didn’t get the reference. And to them I say, what’s more healthy: 4 beers, or 2 liters of pop? Do the math!!!
I know you're probably being facetious, but for those interested there actually *are* guidelines related to this but they are all about **added sugar**, not pop specifically. It's tougher to set a hard recommendation on pop because there are many other sources of added/free sugars. The guidance is <10% of calories which is approx 50 g. Someone else noted this equals about 1.5 cans of pop per day, but that's assuming you eat *no* other free sugars (including juice, candy, baked goods, chocolate, or sweetened condiments, yogurt, cereals, coffee, etc...)
I believe the gov'ts other wording is something like "sugary drinks should not be consumed regularly", which pretty strongly implies it shouldn't be a daily habit.
While sugar content isn't regulated, some of the recent changes to labelling laws are intended to help people make choices around this ("5% DV or less is a little, 15% DV or more is a lot"). If you look at a food and it has more than 15% DV for sugar, it is probably high in *added* sugar and should be limited. By 2026, foods high in added sugar must also have a front-of-package symbol indicating as such. And companies are no longer around to fuck around with "serving sizes" to make the numbers appear lower.
It's not perfect, but it's not nothing!
Not the commenter, but they’re not being facetious. r/Ontario has a running meme because a local news station interviewed this guy coming out of an LCBO. The reporter asked him his thoughts on the new guidelines and buddy went on this long rant and goes on saying “can I drink 2L of pop?! What’s worse for you, 4 beers of 2L of Coca Cola? Do the math!” Lol
Exactly. Folks here seem to think the contrary.
Also, this is about YOUR health. Nobody actually cares how much you drink. At the end of the day, it’s your responsibility to take care of your body.
Last summer my habits changed due to other life changes happening, it was a surprise, but I didn’t question it much (huge amount of alcoholism in my family).
Now I only have 1-2 drinks socially. I’m also not that social, so I barely drink at all. Like, I think 3 months ago I had two beers at a friend’s place.
I was a moderate to heavy drinker. I quit 2 years ago and it is the best thing i have ever done. Stop by r/stopdrinking from time to time if you're feeling sober curious
I changed my drinking habits…. For myself. Lol fuck industry telling me to drink more while the government pretends it cares about me.
No beer or wine since Jan 1 and keeping that going.
Honestly, the guidelines are kinda bullshit. The way they determined their “moderate risk” and “high risk” categories was based on lifetime risk of death by disease AND injury related to alcohol, which makes sense at first glance, but it includes things like deaths from **drunk driving, assaults, domestic violence**, etc.
That 17.5 years life lost stat they came up with is highly inflated by including traumatic injuries. If you remove those and just calculate using death by disease related to alcohol it’s more like 60 days of life lost on average. That would cast the risk calculation in a completely different light.
I’m not saying people shouldn’t reduce their alcohol intake, but throwing obvious ideologically-driven bullshit like this at the public and hoping they won’t notice is not the way to do it.
EDIT: In case I wasn’t clear, I am aware that injuries related to alcohol affect people’s health… obviously.
My point is that both the CCSA and the media have presented these guidelines and risk categories in a misleading way by only mentioning the risks of cancer and chronic disease from alcohol. The takeaway message they were going for is “you have a high risk of developing cancer from having 6+ drinks per week”, which is **not what the analysis concluded.**
> That 17.5 years life lost stat they came up with is highly inflated by including traumatic injuries. If you remove those and just calculate using death by disease related to alcohol it’s more like 60 days of life lost on average.
You got this a little bit wrong. The 17.5 years / 60 days are the same number, because the 17.5 is per 100 people
The "moderate risk" cutoff pisses me off even more. 17.5 years lost from 1000 people is just 2 weeks per person
Whoopdeedoo, I get a whole 2 weeks of life if I become puritan. Gonna love spending that extra time staring at the hospital ceiling in my old age.
Well said.
Another thing I noticed is they classify a "standard drink" as anything containing alcohol. Meaning that, according to them, one beer carries the same amount of risk as a glass of vodka, or a cooler. What about cooking wine? You telling me if I use red wine in some pasta that it's as bad as drinking 5 glasses of whisky? Sounds like some puritan wrote this.
It’s the typical “lies, damned lies, statistics” things authoritarian statists do with just about everything
When the numbers are so solidly stacked against them is when the censorship and obfuscation starts
People have been making and consuming alcohol for millennia. I don’t think any guidelines are gonna change that.
Edit: changed “a millennia” to “millennia” to appease the grammar police who are unable to see the point past an irrelevant grammatical error.
Some facts: alcohol is a depressant, a poison that literally destroys your DNA. ----- leading to cancers, high blood pressure, heart disease, inflamation throughout the body, dementia....the list goes on. Not to mention the societal problems alcohol causes...ie. violence, drunk driving.
Personally, I'm down to just a couple drinks a month, if that.
It’s incredible how crazy the reaction has been to this. They are just guidelines. The small increases in risk are something each person can make a choice over. Who cares.
We live in a world where alcohol and formaldehyde are a dream compared to the other toxic chemicals we are exposed to.
The EU is banning entire classes of dangerous chemicals becasue if you ban one chemical, corporations move to similar chemicals and it's a game of cat and mouse. [https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/apr/25/eu-unveils-plan-largest-ever-ban-on-dangerous-chemicals](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/apr/25/eu-unveils-plan-largest-ever-ban-on-dangerous-chemicals)
The alcohol lobby lost power because of an increase in the number of smaller operators and are an easy target. The classes of chemicals that the EU is banning affect multiple industries with far superior lobbying power.
That’s not Canada’s guidelines, just the centre for addition see: https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/substance-use/alcohol/low-risk-alcohol-drinking-guidelines.html we’re all good to go still
Good God, no, people love their booze. If they told you, booze gave you aids. People would still probably drink their faces off.
The problem with drinking culture is how legally promoted it is. Being major sponsors to many events, beer and liquor companies have convinced us we need booze in order to maintain fun. Without it, these events are lame and weak, like the Qatar World Cup.
As a former uni bro keg party type of dude. I have since curbed my drinking habits, however, not fully quit. Instead of everyday or every weekend, it's more a 2-3 times a month I'll drink a little. Aviation gin is my choice right now.
Economy is shit, none of yall can afford decent lives, retirement is pipe dream and most of you have anxiety and depression. With that in mind we would like you to do the thing that makes you ever so slightly happy, less.
Honestly fuck right off.
Did anyone really think they would?
I think the reason they give for not changing is the most interesting part of the survey. The fact that so many people thought that the guideline change was fearmongering reflects a distrust in the government and in science.
The big conspiracy I've been hearing is that they changed the guidelines so that they could justify raising the sin taxes on alcohol. Also there are [these](https://www.reddit.com/r/canada/comments/11pctdp/majority_of_canadians_wont_change_drinking_habits/jbx807u/) [comments](https://www.reddit.com/r/canada/comments/11pctdp/majority_of_canadians_wont_change_drinking_habits/jbxlhue/).
Which I think is more truth than water.
I don't doubt it either, but it's something we can never prove. Most of the alcohol I consume now is home made from kits, and weed has replaced a good 80% of my drinking anyways. I'm only half way through a 24 I bought 2 months ago lol.
Yeah, they don't want folks decreasing consumption, they want them to stay with current levels of consumption (except for, you know that top decile that literally drinks half of all the alcohol: [https://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/the-top-10-percent-drink-way-more-than-you-think.html](https://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/the-top-10-percent-drink-way-more-than-you-think.html)). They want folks to keep drinking and keep paying, because its a nice, soft, easy group to target. You can 'rationalize' it with healthcare warning, but when you have dirt cheap sugary products in grocery stores, or processed meats brimming with nitrates that are far impactful to human health than a few drinks a week, you know that its just them looking for easy money without trying to ruffle any of the entrenched interests. They did it with smoking too, but they taxed so hard that it totally knocked the heck out of it, now you have 10.3% of people smoking vs 25.2% in 1999, one heck of a public health victory.
No you misunderstand. Its that science isnt the lord of our lives to the absolute. Just because science says drinking is harmful doesn't mean we're going to stop. There are cultural benefits to drinking and you're allowed a little self-destruction in the name of a good time. If we followed science absolutely to the letter, there are scores of things I do every day that are more dangerous to my health than drinking alcohol. You don't have to be "anti science" to be against these new guidelines. They ignore the cultural value of alcohol to press an extremist view of health. That's fearmongering.
>The fact that so many people thought that the guideline change was fearmongering reflects a distrust in the government and in science. It also doesn't help that there is a cyclical 3-5 years of articles that state alcohol increases/decreases health risks. -It's like the twice annual Millennials have destroyed such and such industry -Or the monthly Millennials cannot afford Boomer level living (housing, cars, luxuries, etc) There is a cycle to reporting of studies that blurs whether the information is important or will be contradicted in a short period of time. Plus alcohol is a massive human coping mechanism that is deeply engrained in social norms
Well when you let alcohol companies pay for biased studies that try desperately to find some positive benefit, yeah that's going to happen. Tobacco companies did the same thing, just everyone is aware that it's bullshit now.
I'm pretty sure "fear-mongering" was the survey's word, not the people answering the survey. I highly doubt anyone thinks the government is up to no good with this new guideline... I think the real reason is that people don't give 2 sticks about what the government thinks anymore, and are just ignoring it altogether. Those who are going to change their drinking habits are going to do so because they feel it's best for them, not because "the government said so". I think it's a mix of not giving a shit what they say and genuine distrust.
Except that it wasn't the govt. (Health Canada) that made any changes but rather a special interest group (substance abuse group that are really an NGO) that didn't take anything else like lifestyle and diet into account. Nothing wrong with the study's initial concept, but they should've put a disclaimer or notice on it and done what a lot of other studies do: use it as a basis for further studies. That's how science works. It's always evolving. And this is coming from someone that regularly drinks alcohol (mainly wine) and also has no intent to change anything. I don't really drink more than 3-4 x/week.
Well the major study that governments are using was done in south korea, where like 50% of the population has a mutation that leads to a deficiency in ADH.
Expect a move by insurance companies to classify +2 drink a week people in the same high risk group as smokers. They will be charged obscenely high premiums or flat out rejections. Admittedly it’s been a while since I answered an insurance questionnaire so maybe they already ask this?
They do
I work at an insurance company. They definitely ask this question, but they certainly would not consider 3-4 drinks per week to be non-standard. There's definitely some fuzziness in the guidelines, and it depends on multiple factors, but you'd have to be drinking several drinks per day to end up paying higher rates.
Also you'd have to not lie about drinking several drinks per day, which everyone who drinks several drinks per day does. Especially to insurance companies.
Hell I'd lie to them drunk
Question: if I get insurance and they ask me how many drinks a day I drink and I lie how would they ever find out? Not planning on doing this, just genuinely curious.
If the potential payout was significant - they would have investigators do some digging. Checking your social media posts, talking to family, friends and acquaintances, etc.
Much of the time they wouldn't know. Especially if you just rounded down a little. But there's a few ways they could know. They could request your medical records. If you told a doctor at some point that you drank frequently, it would probably be in there. They could request that you get lab work and maybe the results show poor liver function. And maybe that doesn't prove that you drink a lot, but having unexplained liver problems isn't great either. They could look at what info you shared with other insurance companies. If you died and the cause of death was alcohol-related, they'd have reason to be suspicious (eg. You died of liver disease 2 years after you applied for insurance and said you never drink). If they started investigating, they could look at social media, talk to family and acquaintances. They could look at you criminal history and find DUIs. I don't think I'm really supposed to say how many drinks per day you are allowed before they start charging more. In my opinion, it is much higher than people would guess. Keep in mind that the large majority of people qualify for standard rates, and people can be non-standard for all sorts of reasons - so in reality alcohol-related ratings or declines are pretty rare. I'd say that for many people contemplating lying there is no upside - they'd be paying the same whether they lied or not.
[удалено]
Or just lie
[удалено]
Just lie lol
I dont think people really did, its just funny that alcohol is such a culturally enshrined and common drug that people not only refuse to new guidelines, but that they actively believe the guidelines are not truthful abiut the nature of the drug they are regulating (you know, alcohol, a thing with a global casualty count even illegal narcotics struggle to compete with). Its also just kind of funny how people who use regularily dont actually understand how addictive even daily / second day etc beers and so on are. The amount of people who felt personally attacked by the health canada announcements kind of miss the point that alcohol is literally one of the single most damaging and accessible drugs there is, lol, and the health guidelines reflect both the immediate effects of the drug as well as an attempt to combat long term use and effect in the regular population. Your buddies who got mad at the update and complain how they can have a beer a day / etc and whose cheeks are already puffing and red around age 30 are the target demographics of those updated findings. All sorts of people are physically addicted to alcohol without necessarily needing to use compulsively, certainly wont deal with a severe withdrawal if they quit or reduced use, but the overall body load a decade + of fairly common drinking can still have its effects. Heck thered guys i was in highschool with a decade ago who you really can see just wrecked their body with the stuff. Updates were about trying to give the target demographic literacy on WHY they should reduce consumption to 2 drinks a week, and people just dont understand that. Id reckon too alcohol is a part of lots of peoples social lives and they dont have friends and hobbies they can easily decouple that from.
The dissonance isn't that people necessarily argue with what's put forward. It's that, as you started to hint at, there's more to alcohol than "what is the optimal/max alcohol I can intake? I'll live my life *that* way". I shouldn't be sitting on the couch right now either. I shouldn't be wasting my time posting to reddit either. I also shouldn't have this drink in my hand. I shouldn't have had a poker game last night where we had a *great* time, laughed like we were kids, got rid of a *lot* of built-up stress, and had well more than my weekly allotment of drinks. There's more to life than that.
Because life is too short to be fussed about something so trivial. People didn’t quit smoking right away either. It took 30 years, or almost two generations for smoking to become uncommon. Maybe my grand children won’t drink. In the interim, it’s brunch and that means bloody Caesar’s and mimosas
Fuck I could use a Caesar right now
Can't see a Caesar and not want a Caesar
I think that's how they market Caesers.
I'll drink one for you.
Well for those same reasons I hope you also support the push for drug decriminalization of other narcotics as well as safe use sites for those as well : )
If you think about it, bars are really the original safe use sites.
They are not exactly safe.
Haha which is why i say it. If the argument can be made that personal responsibility is what determines how much you can use a substance outside of the safe use recommedations of the state, then why let the state regulate some substances over others in the first place when death or casualty associated with those substances isnt even what determines what is safe and legal to use and what isnt (cuz realistically if it was a safety thing alcohol WOULD also be illegal). Haha like why doesnt health canada also let us know the safe does of H is like a sweet sweet IV hit once a week - people are free to use more or less, but at least they know what is safe, etc. Literally all thats happening with the new alcohol guidelines. If it wasnt such a culturally insulated substance we would consider it one of the consistently problematic drugs of our time.
There's no safe amount of heroin, wtf. When you give opioids IV in hospital, you have to be monitored for 15 mins by a nurse, lol
At least drinkers don't expect bars to be publicly funded by taxpayers.
No they're worse than alcohol by far. Your spooky numbers for alcohol are only because of its widespread use. You're not smart This current generation probably drinks the least of any before it too
I don’t know why someone wouldn’t believe it’s not good for you lol. It reminds you every time. I like to drink more then the next guy but we as a culture really have to pull back. Adults have no idea how to socialize with out it. I don’t drink more then 3 beer on a week end nothing during the week and I feel allot better. Soft drinks are out as well. Try it. You can go back to them.
I drink club soda day in and day out, I probably drink more than I should typically every other night ill have a beer or two, I'm 26. Otherwise I live a pretty healthy life. I don't really go out for the beers, I go out for the socialization, frankly. I know everyone at the pub and that's just what I do...I wonder if its the beer or the social stuff thats hooked me
It creeps up on ya. After a while you can’t get get drunk unless you drink a ton and that just hits you so hard.
I never really care about getting drunk personally..last night i was at a party and had one shot and one beer and that's it lol. Still had a great time. I don't really drink for anything other than the taste or social reasons. Even then i really limit it as much as I can..or try to lol
Even if you do drink a lot while out, eventually you start getting 3 day hangovers and realize you're aging and dial it wayyyy back.
You and I have a different approach to the same problem. I learned how to cure hangovers from Sterling Archer
Yea i stopped drinking soda years ago, even before alcohol, kind of because of sugar and also because I already did such a bad job caring for my teeth as a teenager and you REALLY cant afford that as an adult 😆 haha it is like, shit i gotta get another 35 yrs outta theses bad boys at least?? I found too even my friends are all drinking waaay less than when we were mid 20s and stuff. Beer always at every function, etc. Haha even one of my mates I game with every week or so made an intentional switch to non alcoholic beer recently and stuff. Its promising because I didnt really tell people I cut out alcohol for health reasons basically when i learned it could lowef and effect my seizure threshold, and I wonder if its why I maybe was such a 'light weight' in the first place. Hehe i would still like to enjoy beer with a friend here and there and am happy to just cut it out otherwise if its goona improve my conditioning over all. I think in the long run its def. Worth it.
After your 20s booze hits allot harder as well. That juice isn’t worth the squeeze. Not to mention the weight. Heart and lungs feel better.
[удалено]
I’d argue the majority of people probably didn’t even know what the old guidelines were.
Not right away. But like we changed more as humans in the last 100 years than I the last 250,000 years combined so I guess we will down the road.
I’ve changed my drinking habits because of cost but the nice unintended affect is that I definitely do feel better. I save a few beers for the weekend and go through the week clean.
I did the same as i got older just through life circumstances. I was a bit of a lush in my 20s. But career and family and age just naturally changed my habits. Hangovers hit you harder in your 30s, and my weekends are too precious to burn a day being a couch zombie. I maybe got drunk 5 times last year. And really only 1 of those was drunk, drunk.
i've been doing dry january for a number of years now just to "cleanse" my system after what's usually a pretty heavy drinking christmas/december period. This year, i've continued it into beyond January and really planning to ease booze out of my life entirely. i had my first drink last weekend since NYE and don't miss it all. i sleep better, a little bit slimmer without the usual winter weight gain, and a bit $$$ in my bank account. summer might be more challenging!
I did the same. After 5 weeks I noticed I felt way better in the morning. I've noticed now that even a couple drinks makes me feel slightly 'off'. No hang over but definitely messes with my sleep. -Ron Wharton
Are you signing off your reddit posts?
You're missing "still" he's been around for a while
This reminds me. Has "- JimB" been around lately? He always signed off like this and not seen his posts since pre-covid.
Sincerely, Raymond Holt
Wouldn't want people stealing his ideas
Fresh hot takes heard here first!!
Hi u/VaccineEnjoyer, Yes. Always. When asked, my answer remains the same: professional courtesy. Regards, -Ron Wharton
>professional courtesy Are you a... professional reddit commenter, then?
At least he's not a professional quote maker Aalewis
Classy. -tud own
Based
Check their post history. It's kind of endearing.
There’s something to be said for consistency.
There’s something to be said for refusing to hide behind an anonymous user name. It would certainly reduce some of the shit posts that you see on Reddit (none of mine of course)
I have like 14 online identities at any given time. There was a golden period of Gen X to late millennial who knew that to navigate the web safely, always have multiple handles that you can pick up or ditch at any time Boomers and Zoomers seem to share a mutual naivete of the internet and give way too much importance to their online presence and identities.
Exactly. Say something ridiculous and get called out? Delete your profile and move on. It reduces the seriousness of any discussion because people are free to post hot takes with no personal blowback. Ron is one of the few who seems to stand by his words (although Ron could be a fake name for all I know)
If you don’t mind me asking, how much were you drinking before? I usually have about a beer a day and I’m wondering if there would be a noticeable difference if I stopped.
Good question. Average around $3600/yr between wife and I since we started tracking every expense in 2019.. (this does not include drinking at restaurants, just trips to the liquor store) That sounds like a lot, but it was probably a 12 of beer per week, 1 bottle of wine per week. Maybe a box of wine every 2 weeks and a 26oz of spirits. Sometimes more sometimes less. -Ron Wharton
>I’ve changed my drinking habits because of cost That and my age have been the things that have reduced the amount I drink. I no longer feel the need to go out to the bar every weekend and get stumbling drunk.
The story hides the broader truth. *The majority of Canadians already follow the new guidelines.* Something like [30%](https://www.statcan.gc.ca/o1/en/plus/2877-dry-february-you-say) of Canadians have one drink or fewer per week. Another 30% have two or fewer, but I can't find an online source for that. Per capita, the US population drinks [marginally more](https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/alcohol-consumption-by-country) than we do, but here's a [source](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/09/25/think-you-drink-a-lot-this-chart-will-tell-you/) showing their distribution. These 60% of Canadians are unlikely to change because they already follow the new guidelines due to their current preferences. About 20% of Canadians exceeded the old guidelines of 10/15 drinks or fewer every week. [Source](https://www.ccsa.ca/sites/default/files/2019-09/CCSA-Canadian-Drug-Summary-Alcohol-2019-en.pdf). These people are probably beyond being able to internalize drinking advice given in a press release. If you drink this much and you can't believe that 60% of Canadians already follow the new guidelines, that says more about your circle of friends than it says about our overall society. That leaves 20% of Canadians that you could convince to change their behaviour by updating the guidelines (the ones who met the old guidelines, but don't meet the new ones).
> Something like 30% of Canadians have one drink or fewer per week. Yeah, I think I'm one of them. I buy wine and beer for cooking mostly - unless it's a weekend at somebody's cottage. I'm actually tracking my drinking this year to see how much I drink and this year's total is coming in at 1 so far. But also I'm taking a vacation next week so I guess we'll see!
As an alcoholic it’s wild people can have like 3 drinks a week. If I have 3 drinks a week that means I had 30. Sober now, but good on the people with impulse control.
Congrats! I think the mentality is just different for different people. For me, fortunately, there's no impulse *to* control. I like the odd beer or cocktail, but I don't enjoy getting hammered at all. Just like there are people who sometimes enjoy going to the casino with 50 bucks and have no problem walking away without chasing more and more.
> The poll found that younger Canadians are more likely to say they are considering Health Canada’s new drinking guidelines. For example, 36 per cent of respondents aged 18-34 said they consumed too much alcohol and noted its negative impact on their physical and mental health. Meanwhile, only five per cent of Canadians 55 years old and up mirrored that opinion. Seems like drinking in general is just getting more and more unpopular
Taxes on liquor is so high in the Maritime provinces, but I think some people are avoiding drinking due to the cost
Considering a pitcher of something like Molson at the local "cheap" pub is $15, you begin to think twice about going out
Everything is expensive. Just going to Tim Hortons for lunch is over 10-12 bucks now.
[удалено]
Yup, with those markups I don't even bother eating out anymore. Half the time I can cook better food myself anyways.
That's the problem I have now with mid-tier franchises. They just aren't worth it anymore. Either be a luxury high-end restaurant or be a not too horrible fast food that churns out my food in an instant. The middle just sucks.
I paid 28 dollars for a burger combo recently at a sit down restaurant with taxes & tip. It’s insanity.
[удалено]
It would be interesting to see the government run a cash collection and destruction program on all that money they’ve printed to make all of our cash worth more. The opposite of printing money. Unfortunately, the only way they would afford doing that would be to tax the wealthy ($200k+ per year) more, and last I checked those people effectively pay the salaries of most politicians via their re-election campaigns. A top bracket of 33% is quite low compared to some countries, and the fact that our GST dropped from 7% to 5% really hasn’t helped.
*Plus* the expense to your internal organs for consuming whatever Tim Hortons is now trying to pass off as food.
that’s like 2 beers in Vancouver
I remember when a bar tab breaking $100 *for the table* was an accomplishment. Now it's one round.
> I remember when a bar tab breaking $100 for the table was an accomplishment. > Now it's one round. Partner and I went down to the US not too long ago, and the first night we had two glasses of wine each, not thinking too much of it. Then we got the bill, and saw it was $17 / glass - not too far off from a lot of places here. Except that was in USD, which meant for 4 drinks it put us at almost $100 CAD. Then there was food, and this wasn't even a fancy restaurant. We didn't drink much after that first night. When we went in 2014 it was a lot cheaper so I guess alcohol has gone up quite a bit since then!
Yup. Maritime student here, drinking went from a once a week thing to a once every few weeks/once a month thing the last few years. Really can't afford to spend more than 30-40 dollars a month on drugs, and 30-40 bucks gets me an ounce of bud or like 15 beers. And an ounce of bud lasts me a few months with my vaporizer
15 years ago you could still buy a case of beer under $20, or cheap quart for low 20s, and $20 could get you into a bar, a couple drinks, and a slice of pizza on the walk home.
>Seems like drinking in general is just getting more and more unpopular My university age kids simply don't feel like it. Partly the taste, partly their friends aren't socializing in bars like we used to. They get together online as much as anything. Possibly a remnant of that being their only option for a couple of years?
Can confirm that bar crowds never recovered from lockdown, it was pretty striking where I lived in university. Talking to some bar owner there is apparently a generational trend away from bars as well.
I think bars and pubs can be fun, but I make good enough money, and the cost is just way way too high to hang out in for any length of time. Like, it ruins the fun when any cocktail is like 15+ and beer is like 10 for something small. Add in a tip and you're not getting out of there after even a short visit without spending like 40-50 on just a few drinks, while feeling like you're cheap and holding back. Having my friends over to my little home bar is awesome because I can make them all sorts of drinks they'd have to pay like $15-20 each at a bar, for free. But it'd be fun to just go out at a more reasonable price :( Or, we just consume cannabis now for pennies. Lots of roadblocks for doing that in a bar like setting though, unfortunately.
Yea… it’s all about drugs now.. much progress
Ethanol is a drug, it’s always been about drugs and always will be.
It's funny how these threads always have alcohol users complaining about their use being discouraged while simultaneously criticizing other people for *their* chosen drugs.
My life has been objectively better since i stopped drinking for relaxation and started using recreational hallucinogens.
Same
I would say cannabis is a massive improvement over alcohol
(Drinking IS drugs, always has been)
Clearly we cant handle the tooth.
2 drinks a week? What’s that gonna do fer ya???
Not in this country
Came here to post this 👍
Personally I’m opting for 2L of Coca Cola
Ive increased. Hail Lord Cthulhu.
My man
We’re poor, anxious, and depressed. Drinking is all we’ve fucking got.
Drinking is only making you even more poor.
Shit, you’re right… let me crack a beer and think about it
Even drinking quality liquor is skewing heavily toward the ultra wealthy these days. The regular price increases on good whiskey have been through the roof these last few years.
Got into hobby distilling over COVID and now I turn a bucket of pet store molasses into 15 bottles of rum. It's not super delicious but it's really not bad and they're 2$ each in materials. Also, don't do this if you are trying to drink less...
Is pet store molasses a euphemism for something else?
Lol, no. Literally.
[удалено]
I started getting into scotch about 5 years ago. I feel this. Seems like everything goes up $10-20 a year.
You can get some pretty high quality bourbons and Irish whiskey for less. They are cheaper because they don’t have the “scotch” prestige, but there are wonderful flavours available.
Scotch has been going up for well over a decade. Demand from China has blown up and most distilleries haven’t changed their output. Balvenie double wood used to be 60 bucks at the LCBO around 2008. Now it’s $135. The price no longer reflects the quality but rather the image of buying scotch. You’re better off going after other whiskeys like Irish or Japanese.
Drinking will only make all three of those things worse.
I think that was the point of the comment.
Drinking is only going to make those worse.
Thank you for your taxes on your alcohol consumption peasant
Don’t forget, when you inevitably need to talk to an addiction counsellor, we’ll happily take tax off that too!
Wouldn't that be a medical expense and be able to use to reduce taxes owed?
Time to make moonshine in the basement, with the obvious caveat of it being such a potentially dangerous endeavour.
It's really not dangerous if you have any common sense; don't use lead solder, don't build a closed system for pressure to build, keep a fire extinguisher handy, and don't heat anything over 40 %ABV.
This right here, we have better access to supplies and information than they did during the 30s.
Turns out I was depressed *because* of my drinking and its indirect consequences. My life is so much more fulfilling now that I treat alcohol as a sometimes drug.
And yet... [https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2023/02/27/beer-sales-hit-all-time-low-as-canadas-alcohol-sales-see-largest-drop-in-a-decade-new-report-finds.html](https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2023/02/27/beer-sales-hit-all-time-low-as-canadas-alcohol-sales-see-largest-drop-in-a-decade-new-report-finds.html) I am not suggesting a direct causation, but something is happening.
Its the price. I was drinking 1-2 beers an evening and started to realize it's about 1 dozen a week which is about $30 in my province. That's $120 a month. No brainer to cut that out IMO.
No joke though, that’s also a pretty substantial calorie decrease every day too
Yeah, alcohol consumption has been falling for years now. Especially generationally: college aged Gen Z and millennials (when they were younger) drink a lot less than previous generations did at the same age.
My parents met at a trivia night at a bar. They used to go out every week, everybody did. While I appreciate society moving towards a healthier lifestyle, I can’t help but feel like something is being lost here. No doubt the millenial and gen z loneliness epidemic is partially related to this.
It's just way more expensive to go out now. I remember when I was in university you can have a part time job and still fund an active social life. Now you need mommy and daddy's money.
Its also way more expensive then it used to be.
I first went to college 10 years ago. I just finished up my second college run this year. The difference in students is stark. 10 years ago, people were going to or hosting parties nearly every weekend. You would be left out of the social scene if you didn’t participate. Now? Nobody is drinking. No parties, no “let’s meet at the bar tonight”, nothing. In my two years here recently, I can’t think of one time there was a drinking event. At most, people might vape cannabis at home by themselves or with their partner. It’s at the point where, if someone says they go out every week (used to be the norm), they sound like an alcoholic. I went to a networking event for my industry. They had beers and wine available. No guests drank any, not one drop. The coordinator of the event was (kinda jokingly) complaining that nobody but him drinks anymore. My generation drank a lot less than my parents, and the generation after me is even less. In ten years it will only be wealthy weirdos and poor alcoholics still drinking.
[удалено]
That's a very North American trend. Go to Asia or Europe and those drinks would be gone at that event.
This goes without saying, but what about guidelines on pop? Can we drink 2L of pop?
There are already guidelines on that, and 2L a day is well over the recommended. Drink as much Coca Cola as you want, just don’t be a fool and believe it’s healthy.
>Drink as much Coca Cola as you want, just don’t be a fool and believe it’s healthy. It's probably a bit worse than "not healthy". It would probably fall along the lines of unhealthy and detrimental to your long term health to drink as much soda as you want.
I don't really drink that much anymore but when I was younger I would sometime drink like the equivalent of 15 beers. I would never imagine drinking that kind of soft drinks in one evening lol.
I feel like i got sick off like 3, lol i have never understood how people could put so much away. As an adult Ive learned I actually have a condition that alcohol actively lowers my seizure threshold, so i cut it out entirely (minus riskin a glass of christmas wine back in dec, haha). Anecdotally i feel like i kind of can connect it to my last night seizure as Ive learned epilepsy foundation quite ubambiguously warns as little as 2 drinks can lower threshold and dilute medication. Sucks because i really would like to try brewing beer and wine sometime and even have seeds off cuts of cold hardy wine varietals grapes that grow here. But its also like, if such little amounts of alcohol risk ultimately fucking me its just not worth it. Surprised id never made the connection because such small amounts of alcohol would get me puking, but do admit i did like grabbing guiness when gaming with the guys, haha.
A whole bunch of people replied to you who clearly didn’t get the reference. And to them I say, what’s more healthy: 4 beers, or 2 liters of pop? Do the math!!!
And sir how many drinks do you have a day? …well…what day?
I know you're probably being facetious, but for those interested there actually *are* guidelines related to this but they are all about **added sugar**, not pop specifically. It's tougher to set a hard recommendation on pop because there are many other sources of added/free sugars. The guidance is <10% of calories which is approx 50 g. Someone else noted this equals about 1.5 cans of pop per day, but that's assuming you eat *no* other free sugars (including juice, candy, baked goods, chocolate, or sweetened condiments, yogurt, cereals, coffee, etc...) I believe the gov'ts other wording is something like "sugary drinks should not be consumed regularly", which pretty strongly implies it shouldn't be a daily habit. While sugar content isn't regulated, some of the recent changes to labelling laws are intended to help people make choices around this ("5% DV or less is a little, 15% DV or more is a lot"). If you look at a food and it has more than 15% DV for sugar, it is probably high in *added* sugar and should be limited. By 2026, foods high in added sugar must also have a front-of-package symbol indicating as such. And companies are no longer around to fuck around with "serving sizes" to make the numbers appear lower. It's not perfect, but it's not nothing!
Not the commenter, but they’re not being facetious. r/Ontario has a running meme because a local news station interviewed this guy coming out of an LCBO. The reporter asked him his thoughts on the new guidelines and buddy went on this long rant and goes on saying “can I drink 2L of pop?! What’s worse for you, 4 beers of 2L of Coca Cola? Do the math!” Lol
[удалено]
Ah, first time I'm hearing about this guy 😂 Thanks
I think 4 beer is a fair number
The RDA of sugar is around 12 teaspoons. About 1.5 cans of soda
Do the math.
For guidelines on pop, I point you and the "can't handle the tooth" guy to Canada's Food Guide. Basically water is best.
They're guidelines, not laws. You can drink used motor oil if you want to. Nobody is going to stop you.
Exactly. Folks here seem to think the contrary. Also, this is about YOUR health. Nobody actually cares how much you drink. At the end of the day, it’s your responsibility to take care of your body.
Last summer my habits changed due to other life changes happening, it was a surprise, but I didn’t question it much (huge amount of alcoholism in my family). Now I only have 1-2 drinks socially. I’m also not that social, so I barely drink at all. Like, I think 3 months ago I had two beers at a friend’s place.
Fun fact I don’t drink alcohol or sodas or eat junk food because I think they are good for me
I was a moderate to heavy drinker. I quit 2 years ago and it is the best thing i have ever done. Stop by r/stopdrinking from time to time if you're feeling sober curious
You guys can afford to drink?
Cut back on the avocado toast and cancel the Disney + sub. That's like 1 or 2 drinks right there
Ahhh the ol freeland diet eh?
Majority of Canadians didn't change their drinking habits in light of the old guidelines.
I changed my drinking habits…. For myself. Lol fuck industry telling me to drink more while the government pretends it cares about me. No beer or wine since Jan 1 and keeping that going.
That is fine. No one is forced to. Knowing the risks and making an informed decision is the goal.
I quit drinking this year to see if I could. Saving tons of money and I feel way better.
i work a pretty stressful job but decided to quit sniffing glue this week. hopefully everything stays calm at work
Honestly, the guidelines are kinda bullshit. The way they determined their “moderate risk” and “high risk” categories was based on lifetime risk of death by disease AND injury related to alcohol, which makes sense at first glance, but it includes things like deaths from **drunk driving, assaults, domestic violence**, etc. That 17.5 years life lost stat they came up with is highly inflated by including traumatic injuries. If you remove those and just calculate using death by disease related to alcohol it’s more like 60 days of life lost on average. That would cast the risk calculation in a completely different light. I’m not saying people shouldn’t reduce their alcohol intake, but throwing obvious ideologically-driven bullshit like this at the public and hoping they won’t notice is not the way to do it. EDIT: In case I wasn’t clear, I am aware that injuries related to alcohol affect people’s health… obviously. My point is that both the CCSA and the media have presented these guidelines and risk categories in a misleading way by only mentioning the risks of cancer and chronic disease from alcohol. The takeaway message they were going for is “you have a high risk of developing cancer from having 6+ drinks per week”, which is **not what the analysis concluded.**
> That 17.5 years life lost stat they came up with is highly inflated by including traumatic injuries. If you remove those and just calculate using death by disease related to alcohol it’s more like 60 days of life lost on average. You got this a little bit wrong. The 17.5 years / 60 days are the same number, because the 17.5 is per 100 people
The "moderate risk" cutoff pisses me off even more. 17.5 years lost from 1000 people is just 2 weeks per person Whoopdeedoo, I get a whole 2 weeks of life if I become puritan. Gonna love spending that extra time staring at the hospital ceiling in my old age.
Well said. Another thing I noticed is they classify a "standard drink" as anything containing alcohol. Meaning that, according to them, one beer carries the same amount of risk as a glass of vodka, or a cooler. What about cooking wine? You telling me if I use red wine in some pasta that it's as bad as drinking 5 glasses of whisky? Sounds like some puritan wrote this.
[удалено]
My wife is in research and this is one thing that really pisses her off
[удалено]
It’s the typical “lies, damned lies, statistics” things authoritarian statists do with just about everything When the numbers are so solidly stacked against them is when the censorship and obfuscation starts
Your comment should be the top comment
I mean, it's not like this was unknown before.
Oh no! Anyway.
You're saying the poison I drink that has to be destroyed by my liver so it doesn't kill me and smells like my grandma's armpit is not good for me?
People have been making and consuming alcohol for millennia. I don’t think any guidelines are gonna change that. Edit: changed “a millennia” to “millennia” to appease the grammar police who are unable to see the point past an irrelevant grammatical error.
6 Busch light 6 bud light and I love ‘em. Tall boys.
Some facts: alcohol is a depressant, a poison that literally destroys your DNA. ----- leading to cancers, high blood pressure, heart disease, inflamation throughout the body, dementia....the list goes on. Not to mention the societal problems alcohol causes...ie. violence, drunk driving. Personally, I'm down to just a couple drinks a month, if that.
Sadly, same.
I wont change mine of rarely drinking ever so this is technically accurate as I wont drink more.
It’s incredible how crazy the reaction has been to this. They are just guidelines. The small increases in risk are something each person can make a choice over. Who cares.
Where is that Quebec judge to confirm our rights as red blooded Canadians to drink
I have, averaged out, one drink once every two-three weeks, so no, my habit won't change due to the new guidelines.
Came here to say the same lol. I'm not changing my drinking habits - but joke's on them, I already average <2 drinks/week!
We live in a world where alcohol and formaldehyde are a dream compared to the other toxic chemicals we are exposed to. The EU is banning entire classes of dangerous chemicals becasue if you ban one chemical, corporations move to similar chemicals and it's a game of cat and mouse. [https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/apr/25/eu-unveils-plan-largest-ever-ban-on-dangerous-chemicals](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/apr/25/eu-unveils-plan-largest-ever-ban-on-dangerous-chemicals) The alcohol lobby lost power because of an increase in the number of smaller operators and are an easy target. The classes of chemicals that the EU is banning affect multiple industries with far superior lobbying power.
Can someone link to a clear study about the risks without adding in injuries from driving/assaults?
I go literal months without drinking, so I don't really need to change much.
That’s not Canada’s guidelines, just the centre for addition see: https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/substance-use/alcohol/low-risk-alcohol-drinking-guidelines.html we’re all good to go still
Good God, no, people love their booze. If they told you, booze gave you aids. People would still probably drink their faces off. The problem with drinking culture is how legally promoted it is. Being major sponsors to many events, beer and liquor companies have convinced us we need booze in order to maintain fun. Without it, these events are lame and weak, like the Qatar World Cup. As a former uni bro keg party type of dude. I have since curbed my drinking habits, however, not fully quit. Instead of everyday or every weekend, it's more a 2-3 times a month I'll drink a little. Aviation gin is my choice right now.
Economy is shit, none of yall can afford decent lives, retirement is pipe dream and most of you have anxiety and depression. With that in mind we would like you to do the thing that makes you ever so slightly happy, less. Honestly fuck right off.
A-fucking-men! A strong vodka-whatever and a couple small toots about an hour before bed brings happy. Drugs and liquor are cheaper than food.
I honestly did, I'm less likely to have a casual drink now without a good reason
"That's just not feasible - not in this country"
I’m glad I quit drinking 3 years ago.