Just so this information is out there, particularly for prospective quitters, this is actually a bit nuanced:
https://acsjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002...
As you can see, after 15-20 years of smoking cessation, excess risk for various causes of mortality drops substantially.
You are correct that the risks never truly return to baseline, but for lung cancer, for example, the excess risk drops to between 5 and 13%.
Is drinking bad for you? Yup. Is smoking bad for you? Yup.
Is moderate social drinking bad for you? Likely, but definitely less bad for you than slamming a 6-pack nightly.
Are there other (mainly socially-mediated) health benefits from moderate social drinking? Plausibly? Probably? Occasional social smoking? Probably in some contexts.
If these effects both exist, they can be compared. Do the risk curves intersect? Where? The crossover will land in different places for different people, different circumstances.
It's fundamental creation in nature is a deliberate toxin.
At least one of the chemicals alcohol breaks down into in mammals is known to cause double strand DNA breaks.
Most often "no problem" we have builtin genetic resources to repair those breaks. (unless you have something like Fanconi Anemia).
The reason we have a builtin mechanism to repair this sort of damage is it happens anyway at a lower rate without alcohol.
If the rate of breakage is greater than the ability to repair then stuff stays broken.
Basically the more lottery tickets you buy the more likely you are to win but not buying them doesn't mean you wont be gifted some.
It is a strange thing to reconcile, intellectually I have first hand data there is no safe dosage, but genetically I'm from a line of alcoholics and socially (in the before times) it provides a very comfortable community building fabric.
I have become comfortable with a single drink on rare occasion.
I’d say we should treat alcohol very differently than tobacco. It’s got a much lower addiction liability (under 10% of people who try alcohol become addicted, while 32% of people who try nicotine become addicted). Heavy alcohol use is also way more destructive than heavy nicotine use.
Additionally, users seem to find alcohol somewhat more fun that nicotine. [1] That said, the literature supports the conclusion that alcohol decreases sleep quality and increases stress, despite what users think. Any objective benefits are likely social in nature.
Overall, I think there’s a better case to be made for socially accepting moderate alcohol use compared with the case for nicotine.
That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have warning labels though - most people currently underestimate the risks of alcohol.
Iffy number or definition? In my circles I am sure more than 10% of people abuse alcohol daily, and I would consider them addicts. Then again, New Zealand has a drinking problem.
18.8% of adults had a hazardous drinking pattern in 2021/22.
Hazardous drinkers are those who obtain an Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) score of 8 or more, representing an established pattern of drinking that carries a high risk of future damage to physical or mental health.
Heavy smokers ingest trace amounts of radioactive metals that continue to emit radiation for years to come. The mechanism is certainly not the same with alcohol.
However, it's much easier to fall asleep after you've been drinking, but that's just because alcohol is a nerve depressant anyway.
No but you probably get to die from something else and hopefully much later.
I think it's going to be harder for people to take on board the idea that any amount of alcohol is bad for you as, intuitively, I still believe that, in moderation, it can have some positive affects such as de-stressing and aiding sleep. Mind you, I suppose you could say some of the same about smoking and I can intuitively accept that any amount of that is bad for you.
Well, I've never smoked [tobacco] and [apart from a bit of a 'sociable relapse' over Christmas] haven't drunk for over a year now. So I should live forever!