Yes, let me try this rephrase. The average American who currently drinks casually in social settings may be behaving so because they think everyone else is drinking and this would be considered normal behavior. Sharing a statistic that nearly half of American do not drink regularly (as defined by the CDC) shows that it is also normal behavior to go out and not drink.
I think this is a positive reinforcement for not drinking. On the other hand, I would say warning people they should not drink because there is a 14% chance they may become an alcoholic is negative reinforcement, which could lead to backlash or otherwise be questioned. It could be questioned if occasional drinking is the sole and direct cause for alcoholism. Rather, most cases probably arise from a combination of drinking and genetic prevalence, family influence, social norms, body type, stress triggers, and other factors. This could open the door to people deciding such scenarios don’t apply to them.
Thanks, I see what you’re saying now. I can see value in positive reinforcement at least, but I guess I have a few reactions to some of the more specific points here:
Insofar as people can find reference classes they don’t fit that predict alcoholism, they can do the same for not drinking. Muslims, some other conservative theists, people with physical health conditions, people who are recovering alcoholics, people who rarely hang out with friends. I think you are at high risk if you are say a young atheist socialite in somewhere like NYC, and you can also count on very few of your friends being teetotalers. Given this I think the bigger difference the half non-drinker stat makes is to the risk of alcoholism if you do drink, which it doesn’t quite double, but probably something close to doubles (base rate I would guess is nearly a quarter of American who drink qualify as alcoholics at some point in their lives).
If there are sufficiently reliable things about someone’s situation/history that they can reference that it brings their risk down very significantly, then good! I would still probably disagree that it’s worth the personal risk, and think “drinking culture” is sufficiently bad that even if you fall in that bucket there are morally irresponsible ways to promote drinking, but if I can only convince people who do not have strongly mitigating factors not to drink (or heck, even just the people who have strong risk factors), then I think that would do a lot of good.
Honestly as I’ve mentioned here I don’t trust people that much to judge their own risk factors off of reasonable criteria. Too many people I run into spend literal decades in denial when they actually are already alcoholics by their own later admission. Heck, I have a close friend with a personal history of an addiction-like disorder, co-occurring mental health problems, and family history of alcoholism who I haven’t been able to convince not to use cocaine because they “don’t have an addictive personality”. I think the best heuristic in these cases is usually to just not assume you’re special and go with the averages, which don’t look great.
Yes, let me try this rephrase. The average American who currently drinks casually in social settings may be behaving so because they think everyone else is drinking and this would be considered normal behavior. Sharing a statistic that nearly half of American do not drink regularly (as defined by the CDC) shows that it is also normal behavior to go out and not drink.
I think this is a positive reinforcement for not drinking. On the other hand, I would say warning people they should not drink because there is a 14% chance they may become an alcoholic is negative reinforcement, which could lead to backlash or otherwise be questioned. It could be questioned if occasional drinking is the sole and direct cause for alcoholism. Rather, most cases probably arise from a combination of drinking and genetic prevalence, family influence, social norms, body type, stress triggers, and other factors. This could open the door to people deciding such scenarios don’t apply to them.
Thanks, I see what you’re saying now. I can see value in positive reinforcement at least, but I guess I have a few reactions to some of the more specific points here:
Insofar as people can find reference classes they don’t fit that predict alcoholism, they can do the same for not drinking. Muslims, some other conservative theists, people with physical health conditions, people who are recovering alcoholics, people who rarely hang out with friends. I think you are at high risk if you are say a young atheist socialite in somewhere like NYC, and you can also count on very few of your friends being teetotalers. Given this I think the bigger difference the half non-drinker stat makes is to the risk of alcoholism if you do drink, which it doesn’t quite double, but probably something close to doubles (base rate I would guess is nearly a quarter of American who drink qualify as alcoholics at some point in their lives).
If there are sufficiently reliable things about someone’s situation/history that they can reference that it brings their risk down very significantly, then good! I would still probably disagree that it’s worth the personal risk, and think “drinking culture” is sufficiently bad that even if you fall in that bucket there are morally irresponsible ways to promote drinking, but if I can only convince people who do not have strongly mitigating factors not to drink (or heck, even just the people who have strong risk factors), then I think that would do a lot of good.
Honestly as I’ve mentioned here I don’t trust people that much to judge their own risk factors off of reasonable criteria. Too many people I run into spend literal decades in denial when they actually are already alcoholics by their own later admission. Heck, I have a close friend with a personal history of an addiction-like disorder, co-occurring mental health problems, and family history of alcoholism who I haven’t been able to convince not to use cocaine because they “don’t have an addictive personality”. I think the best heuristic in these cases is usually to just not assume you’re special and go with the averages, which don’t look great.