Why alcohol is still the most dangerous drug

Is there a distinction we are missing here between the addictiveness of something and its overall unhealthiness? Obesity has a variety of factors that cause it. It’s not just eating too much. When I grew up on a dairy farm, I ate like a horse, but stayed thin because I was working it all off. Food was more fuel than enjoyment. But with a more sedentary life style (might also be why we have more fat pastors!) of a combination of IT work and pastoring, it’s been a huge lifestyle change to not eat as much, and not the same things.

In other words, obesity isn’t just about food. It’s also about exercise and possibly other factors. It is not the substance itself that is wrong, but the abuse of it and the totality of lifestyle. I see alcohol and tobacco as in a different category. I can’t “exercise off” smoking or alcohol. Now I would grant you that there are foods that tend toward obesity (sodas, anyone!) and that we can become addicted to them though.

Sad how some Christians seem to want to defend drinking at all costs.

Sad how they deflect attention to smoking, eating, etc.

If you want to have a post about over-eating – fine.

If you want to have a post about smoking - do so.

But don’t make a post about the dangers of drinking alcohol into a thread about other things.

Not drinking will save you and others a world of hurt.

Not drinking has no reasonable negative side effects.

If you do drink, whether you admit it or not, you are influencing others to drink.

Moderate drinking also affects you, slows your reaction time, adversely affects your good judgment. can make it more likely you will drink more. As the government ad says, “Buzzed Driving is Drunk Driving!”

Not drinking is safe and wise.

Good advice for a teenager about drinking –

Stay away from it. Have nothing to do with it or any other recreational, mind-altering drug.

David R. Brumbelow

Just count me perplexed to see so much effort put into something that most of “the tribe” is not doing, let alone doing sinfully, and so little effort put into dealing with the #1 killer in our circles. I guess it’s no worse than when our ancestors were crusading against alcohol but ignoring slavery and the atrocities of Jim Crow, but one would hope we would grow a little.

Yes, because obesity is just like slavery and Jim Crow. Brilliant.

The bottom line is that you made a claim that isn’t true, and then denied you made it. If you think churches are worse about obesity than the general public, then you need to get out more—either to church or to other places.

Bottom line, there aren’t a lot of fatal accidents due to physical conditions. There should be none, but we live in a broken world. But driving with a heart condition (or other medical condition) and driving drunk are two entirely different things. It is illegitimate to pretend they are the same.

[Steve Newman]

Is there a distinction we are missing here between the addictiveness of something and its overall unhealthiness? Obesity has a variety of factors that cause it. It’s not just eating too much. When I grew up on a dairy farm, I ate like a horse, but stayed thin because I was working it all off. Food was more fuel than enjoyment. But with a more sedentary life style (might also be why we have more fat pastors!) of a combination of IT work and pastoring, it’s been a huge lifestyle change to not eat as much, and not the same things.

In other words, obesity isn’t just about food. It’s also about exercise and possibly other factors. It is not the substance itself that is wrong, but the abuse of it and the totality of lifestyle. I see alcohol and tobacco as in a different category. I can’t “exercise off” smoking or alcohol. Now I would grant you that there are foods that tend toward obesity (sodas, anyone!) and that we can become addicted to them though.

Actually, the culture in which alcohol is enjoyed makes a lot of difference, too. If you doubt this, visit a biker bar and a wine bar. Yes, alcohol is being drunk in both places, but it’s a very different mood. The “why” of over-drinking is every bit as important as the “why” of over-eating. And in both cases, it’s not the substance that is wrong—Jesus did indeed make wine in John 2—but rather how it is being used.

[Larry]

Just count me perplexed to see so much effort put into something that most of “the tribe” is not doing, let alone doing sinfully, and so little effort put into dealing with the #1 killer in our circles. I guess it’s no worse than when our ancestors were crusading against alcohol but ignoring slavery and the atrocities of Jim Crow, but one would hope we would grow a little.

Yes, because obesity is just like slavery and Jim Crow. Brilliant.

The bottom line is that you made a claim that isn’t true, and then denied you made it. If you think churches are worse about obesity than the general public, then you need to get out more—either to church or to other places.

Bottom line, there aren’t a lot of fatal accidents due to physical conditions. There should be none, but we live in a broken world. But driving with a heart condition (or other medical condition) and driving drunk are two entirely different things. It is illegitimate to pretend they are the same.

Yes, Larry, because Jesus NEVER rebuked people by saying they strained at a gnat while swallowing a camel. Sorry, brother, but there is ample Biblical precedent—consult the Prophets, who rebuked offerings born of grievous sin as well—for pointing out that our “tribe” has a strong history of ignoring the big sins we’re committing while straining out the gnat of things most of us aren’t doing. Yes, both gluttony and institutionalized racism qualify, plain and simple.

Bottom line, as I demonstrated with evidence, is that yes, a lot of innocents do die due to others’ physical maladies, and a whole lot more suffer because their loved ones dig an early grave with a knife and fork, as Mike Huckabee noted in his book. Really, if we’re willing to say that one shouldn’t enjoy wine at all because there is a non-zero chance that the drinker will start getting drunk and harm the body that way—the old Temple argument—how much more should we do so when the odds are about 22% that we’ll dig an early grave through our eating and lack of exercise, with each early death having a whole family of victims?

As we would guess from the Biblical treatment of gluttony—it is addressed together with the proscriptions of drunkenness—we ought to treat over-eating exactly the same as over-drinking. We do not proscribe food; neither should we proscribe wine if we want to be Biblically faithful. That noted, in both cases, we ought to pay careful attention to the signs that either over-indulgence is occurring.

“Pinch an inch” is one good sign, really. One inch pinched is a half inch layer of fat, or about the same as this description of a steer ready for market. Got more than an inch? You grade out as prime. Now contemplate that in light of James 5:5. Here’s your chart for your body fat percentage vs. fold measurement in mm. Pinch an inch is about 30% fat, healthy is (for a man) 8-19%.

Many have remarked here how vehemently those who enjoy wine respond to articles like this. Well, yes, we get testy when people want to ban lawful, Biblical enjoyments based on statistics that don’t differentiate how Jesus drank (John 2, Matthew 11:19, etc..) from drunkenness. On the flip side, I’m seeing a huge amount of defensiveness on the part of those who don’t want, for whatever reason, to discuss gluttony and its consequences, either.

Much is made of the real and sad cases where a drunk kills or maims others due to his drunkenness. Well, think of the habitual over-eater; he does the same thing, only it’s a “time release” method that doesn’t make the papers. Doubt this? Well, what do we say of the man who makes sure every AWANA reward is candy? The man who takes his family always to a buffet, McDonald’s, and the like? The one who teaches those around him that sugar and fat are the “first line” rewards in any situation? The man who discourages those around him from walking or bicycling to a destination in favor of driving? (I’m an avid cyclist and have experienced this a lot)

He’s teaching those around him disfunctional attitudes towards food and physical activity and is setting the stage for obesity, heart disease, and the like. And the scarier thing is that it’s socially acceptable in a way that taking your kids to the local biker bar to get them their first boilermaker is not. It takes more time to wreak its havoc, and it doesn’t make the papers, but it’s every bit as real an effect as the drunk who careens down the road and takes out Grandma and the kids going to church.

http://theconversation.com/alcohols-health-benefits-hard-to-prove-but-h…

This is from a secular source.

[Steve Newman]

http://theconversation.com/alcohols-health-benefits-hard-to-prove-but-ha…

This is from a secular source.

But Steve, you’re ignoring the Bible! It makes my heart merry! That combined with the fact that Jesus drank wine clearly means that if we don’t drink it, we are ignoring the greatest benefits of all: Christ-likeness, and a merriment that is condoned in scripture. Those two truths will never be included in any secular sourced article.

*sigh*

Again, nobody here is doubting the perils of drunkenness. To that point, what the article does is (like too many other “anti-drug” papers and articles) conflates serious intoxication with the ordinary use of wine, and posits without evidence a “sick quitter effect” in the data. Now that last bit deserves to be researched to make sure we get good results, but to simply state the hypothesis without evidence adds nothing to the conversation that we didn’t know already. In the same way, if we’re going to conflate moderate drinking with drunkenness, we need to provide some actual evidence of that crossover between drinking responsibly and getting drunk. She does not provide that, either.

It’s also worth noting, per Jason’s last comment, that nobody is saying that one MUST drink alcohol. Scripture allows for people not to use it—perhaps excluding Timothy at one point, but as a general rule, teetotaling is allowed in the same way that Christians are allowed to abstain from good gifts like meat and marriage.

[Bert Perry]

Again, nobody here is doubting the perils of drunkenness.

There are dangers and negative effects of alcohol without being drunk. Obviously the worst ones come when someone is drunk, but there are negative health impacts in consuming alcohol even if the person does not become intoxicated each particular time. One could drink a couple of glasses of wine without being reasonably considered either “drunk” (one time) or being a “drunkard” (questionable; I might call someone who drinks every day a drunkard even if they aren’t actually getting intoxicated when they drink, but that’s a different subject). Consuming alcoholic beverages provide highly questionable benefits while yet introducing significant health risks even if the drinker does not get drunk.

Jason, as I noted above, the overall relative risk due to moderate drinking is around 1.04, and even that is strongly influenced by whether the drinker smokes as well. A lot of researchers don’t even bother when the ratio is 2.0 or less because you get a lot of false positives with such low risk ratios.

And again, if one desires to point out things with a far more significant risk, red meat comes to mind, especially when cured. Or driving everywhere, for that matter, instead of two feet or two non-motor-powered wheels. I am not going to hold my breath, however, waiting on a sermon against bacon or driving, but that is precisely where we need to go if we deem a relative risk of 1.04 worth action.

To help the conversation, we really need to come to agreement on some terms. My thoughts:

1) Drunk - having consumed enough alcohol to be mentally impaired. The degree of impairment is complicated to determine. At what point does a person cross over into being “drunk”? I defy anyone to give a clear definition of when the Sin of Drunkenness has been committed.

2) Drunkard - possibilities include someone who frequently / habitually consumes alcohol to the extent which renders him drunk (see above), -OR- someone who frequently / habitually consumes alcohol but does not necessarily frequently actually drink enough to be considered drunk. Also, it does not even necessarily need to apply to alcohol, as there are plenty of times the word is used describing the feeling someone gets when doing any activity which impacts a person in such a way that he is described as being intoxicated by it. Fill in the blanks as applicable.

3) Glutton - this term is completely up for grabs. Evidence supports a variety of definitions, and it seems only context can reasonably help us determine the actual intended definition. I used to think it specifically referred to a person whose god was his belly - in the food/drink appetite since - who ate far more than his body actually needs. But I’m not so sure that’s all it means, even in the context of what (little) is said about it in the Bible. Standing by…

4) Obese - definitions lean on cultural norms and medical opinions. There is no clear definition, and even medical experts range in their definition of obese, calling some people obese because they happen to be heavy for their height without taking into account other factors like muscle mass, bone structure, etc. Something tells me a “heap of wheat” for a belly isn’t describing the figure of an hourglass-shaped, thin-waisted woman. According to Bert, she quite possibly was obese, and Solomon didn’t seem to mind.

Actually, Proverbs 23 gives a good hint—as I’ve noted before, feeling no pain, red eyes, and the like happen when one gets to about .15% BAC. Given the contribution of Henry Ford and Romans 13 deference to the king, we might say that inasmuch as driving and power tools are concerned (and the like), we ought to be below .08%. Also, for the past 30 years or so, the government has defined “binge drinking” as an amount of alcohol equivalent to 4 drinks for an average sized—say 150-180 lbs—adult. That gets that person to about .1%.

It might also be noted that when one does this, he’s getting about 25% of daily caloric needs in liquid form in less than an hour, much like the drinker of a Super Big Gulp. You get drunk, I’d argue you’re a glutton, too.

Gluttony? James 5:5 gives us a hint as to what “waste” shows up as at the waist, no? If you’re as fatty as a prime steer (or worse), James says you’ve got something to be concerned about. Worth noting as well is that carrying all that extra fat is a big heat stroke issue in hot climates—any Vikings fans out there remember Korey Stringer? It’s not an accident that heatstroke downs more linemen than receivers, brothers. Going from a quarter inch of fat to half an inch around your torso increases thermal resistance to the air (how you cool off) by 50% while increasing your thermal mass by another 15% or so.

We can also note the amount of food necessary to create and maintain that fat. Isn’t that wasteful? What about all the medical care needed to deal with it—joint trouble, back trouble, heart trouble, diabetes, etc..? Or bigger clothes, wider cars and chairs, etc..?

And that “mound of wheat”? Could be fat, though if she were really obese, the husband might praise her “collops of fat”, no? More likely, I’d argue it’s her uterus creating that bump.