I encountered a quote recently by Winston Churchill that I think fairly adequately expresses my relationship with alcohol, at least to this point: “I have taken more out of alcohol than it has taken out of me.”
There are times, certainly, that we need to remind ourselves that the various liquids that I write about here are the subject of ongoing and vociferous debate. Specifically, a number of very bright doctors and scientists are hard at work in the continued effort to answer this simple question: just how poisonous and harmful is this stuff?
I think on some level, most of us intuitively know that alcohol doesn’t exactly compete neck-and-neck with a wheatgrass milkshake. It’d be hard to claim that complete abstention from the stuff isn’t a healthy choice, and alcohol abuse has been linked with more than a few maladies.
Of course, we’re all adults around these parts. Most of us are probably aware that a diet of too much red meat increases the risk of cardiovascular disease. But what are you going to do, never have a hamburger? I love a good slice of cheesecake more than just about everything, but I know if I made it a daily treat, I’d probably be putting myself at risk for obesity or diabetes. Hell, even a purely healthy activity like hiking could theoretically put you at risk for falling down the side of a mountain. There are trade-offs to everything.
When we talk about enjoying alcohol, words like “responsibility” and “moderation” inevitably come into play. For the entire time I’ve been writing this site, I’ve considered myself in like-minded company of people who can pour themselves a drink, enjoy the nuances of what that cocktail or spirit has to offer, and then get on with their lives.
Let me tell you, however: I’ve been thinking a lot about this chart:
For most of my life, I’ve been probably an eighth or ninth decile guy. (And have cut back quite a bit from where I was in my thirties.) Probably most of us are around these parts; it’s unlikely that the fifth decile and lower are going to be spending their time reading long-form articles about alcohol.
Boy, that top decile, though.
Let’s put these habits into context. There are about 15 “shots” in your average 750ml bottle of whisky (i.e., a “fifth”), so that’s about five whole bottles of spirits a week. That’s about 7,500 extra calories coming from alcohol each week, and supposing each fifth costs you about twenty bucks, that’s about $100 a week spent on booze. Over the course of a month, that’s essentially the equivalent of a car payment and adding 8 pounds of fat to one’s waistline. Both in terms of physical and financial health, that all isn’t great.
And remember, “decile” means that we’re talking about 10 percent of the population.
Supposing we take the results of the chart as true (though there are reasonable concerns about its veracity), the implication is that the most problematic segment of the drinking population is outspending the moderate (and even some “heavy” drinkers, if we use the CDC’s definition of 14 drinks per week) by a factor of 3 to 1.
This is the part where I pause, because frankly, I don’t quite know what to do with this information. I’m not about to claim that I—and other people like me—shouldn’t have the freedom to accept some level of personal risk in order to enjoy a good spirit or cocktail at the end of the day. But, at the same time, guys like me may not be what moves the alcohol industry forward.
The chart above begs the question: what would actually happen if the most problematic drinkers actually stopped? Or at least, if they curtailed their habits to the maximum “acceptable” values put out by health experts? The alcohol industry isn’t shy about using the phrase, “Drink responsibly,” but that sure sounds like a platitude when—if heeded—such advice would cause sales to crater.
“Son of a bitch… they’re actually enjoying this stuff responsibly.”
I think there are two places I want to land. The first is something of an “inconvenient truth” in that the quality and affordability of alcohol, at least in part, is being subsidized by those who probably shouldn’t be around the stuff at all.
The counterargument I and many of Spirit Animal’s readers might initially make is that we’re a bit outside of the products in question: are people really slamming back bottle after bottle of something like Bunnahabhain 12 or Pierre Ferrand 10 Generations? Is the stuff we’re drinking the same hooch that’s sending people into an early grave?
In truth, I think we’re still the beneficiaries of bad behavior. The amount of Jack Daniels “Old No. 7” consumed at high school parties and college campuses has a secondary effect of allowing the JD Single Barrel Select to hit such a competitive price point. We’d all be spending more on our favorites if it weren’t for the problematic tenth decile.
The second point I wanted to make, though, is this: be careful with this stuff. This year, I had something of a health scare, which caused me to integrate more than a few “dry days” into the week and cut back on the drinks I have on the days that remained “wet.” Spirit Animal hasn’t been around for that long, but the eight or so years that I’ve been updating and writing for the site is long enough for the me of 2024 to have internal conversations about my own longevity and mortality that hadn’t (yet) interested the me of 2016.
On top of that, I found that a good friend of our family defined drinking in a way that was foreign to me: if you’re around alcohol, he reasoned, it was reasonable to drink and drink and drink and drink until you passed out. After being told (firmly) that he was cut off from the open bar of a wedding, I personally pulled another four Modelos, White Claws, and 50ml “minis” of vodka out of his hands. That night, belligerent and blackout drunk, he would confide in a mutual friend that I probably shouldn’t be writing this site if I “didn’t like when people drink.” (For the record: I certainly don’t like it when people drink themselves to the point where they are reasonably likely to suffer harm or cause harm to others.)
In any case, that episode and the WaPo graphic helped to teach me a lesson: for a troubling number of people, drinking without limit appears to be the default setting when it comes to alcohol.
If you think it might help to get a second, professional opinion about how much you’re drinking, it’s probably the correct course of action. You don’t want to wait to find out if you’re currently being harmed by your present level of alcohol consumption.
If you’re reading this currently and you know in your heart of hearts that you’re in the tenth decile, please take care of yourself. There’s a lot of road between drinking yourself into oblivion and entering into a twelve-step program that requires you to never let another drop of alcohol touch your lips again. Certainly, some people might benefit from total abstention. If their relationship with alcohol is wholly problematic, this might be the only option.
However, there’s a good chance that, like me, you might welcome an opportunity for some introspection into your general habits and consumption volume. I don’t want to be preachy, but I found a few articles and resources that were entirely worthy of consideration when it came to establishing my own happy place, setting healthy habits, and putting some of the increased drinking trends into context. Naturally, this list is by no means exclusive or exhaustive, and anyone worried that they might actually have a physical dependency should probably enlist the help of a doctor and/or psychologist to find a solution that will work for them.
So that’s my pitch: if you’re a reader of mine, I’d like you to continue to have fun with booze and the culture that surrounds it. But, if you have a suspicion that it’d be a good idea to cut back, I’d absolutely encourage you to follow your instincts.
