> alcohol hasn't just permeated the fabric of society, but is the fabric in many situations

First, congratulations on three years clean. I respect anyone who can cut things out that they find problematic for them. However, the framing of alcohol as a social necessity isn't really true anymore. Alcohol consumption is in a widely publicized decline and alcohol companies (similar to mobile games in this regard) are aware the majority of their revenue comes from anti-social heavy drinkers. Just about the only circles I'm aware of that still run on booze are college greek life.

▲ mmaunder 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> who can cut things out that they find problematic for them

This is worth some examination.

“The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist” —Charles Baudelaire [Although the original is French]

I think the base state of human existence is eating healthy food and drinking for hydration. On top of that we've layered eating candy, drinking alcohol, smoking cigarettes, vaping marijuana, and we've found other fun and sometimes dangerous ways to exploit our biology for our entertainment.

In the West's free market economy the purveyors of alcohol have convinced us that the base state - in other words normalcy - is to drink booze. Hence the term non-drinker. And thus the attitude that if one doesn't drink, they must have a problem of some sort, since drinking is what normal is. If you don't drink in the West, it is worth remarking upon and calling it out: You are a non-drinker. If you do drink, you are not called out as a "drinker" - you are simply unremarkable.

Which is brilliant if you're selling alcohol. The normalization of drinking has sold kiloliters of alcohol every hour of every day globally for decades, and the received wisdom that non-drinking is a pathological state, keeps the drinker drinking, lest they be identified as having a problem, or as alcohol being "problematic for them".

It's amazing that the alcohol industry is in decline, given what they've managed to pull. I'd say once society's values shift enough, they're in for a very rough ride.

That is, once you are a drinker, and I am unremarkable.

▲ woah 3 hours ago | parent [-]

In a broad range of human civilizations, from the Sumerians to the Romans to the Inca, daily drinking was the norm. Has nothing to do with the "West's free market economy"

▲ rrr_oh_man 3 hours ago | parent [-]

  Hemp [κάνναβις / kánnabis] grows in Scythia: it is very like flax; only that it is a much coarser and taller plant: some grows wild about the country, some is produced by cultivation: the Thracians make garments of it which closely resemble linen; so much so, indeed, that if a person has never seen hemp he is sure to think they are linen, and if he has, unless he is very experienced in such matters, he will not know of which material they are.

  The Scythians, as I said, take some of this hemp-seed, and, creeping under the felt coverings, throw it upon the red-hot stones; immediately it smokes, and gives out such a vapour as no Grecian vapour-bath can exceed; the Scyths, delighted, shout for joy, and this vapour serves them instead of a water-bath; for they never by any chance wash their bodies with water.

— Herodotus' "Histories", passage on hotboxing Scythian tribes, written ca. 2,460 years ago

	▲	IAmBroom a minute ago \| parent [-]
		So... the OG dirty hippies? :D

▲ redhed 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I'm not sure what you mean by running on booze (perhaps you mean daily drinkers), but I think this is real consensus bias to think drinking is not still fairly common socially even after college.