the state of the economy as measured in alcohol-related liver-damage deaths by 1kiki

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the state of the economy as measured in alcohol-related liver-damage deaths

POSTED BY: 1KIKI
UPDATED: Tuesday, July 24, 2018 01:16
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Monday, July 23, 2018 6:09 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

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Monday, July 23, 2018 9:58 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK

That's certainly interesting, but was there more information provided with that graph? I'm a little confused about the meaning of the numbers themselves. It says "average annual percent change", but those numbers don't seem to be in percentages with the commas.

I can appreciate the general idea, but without any meaningful numbers I can't tell if this is just a meme or not.

I just woke up. Maybe I still have cobwebs in my brain or something.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Monday, July 23, 2018 11:29 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

no extra info

I just thought this was a unique metric.

When we look at other countries, one of the common metrics to use for general social functionality is lifespan. Lifespan is easy to move down with widespread disruption, and hard to move up without serious investment in lots of people.

I know when the USSR fell, lifespan dropped considerably - in large measure due to poverty, despair - and alcoholism.
[img] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Russian_male_and_female_life_e
xpectancy.PNG[/img]

Here in the US, we have our own issues, with lifespan dropping over the last two measurement cycles, due to opioids.

It looks like alcohol is also part of the picture.

SECOND is a troll because it constantly misrepresents what people post, fails to address their actual positions, and resorts to personal attacks when its brain isn't working (which is most of the time).

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Monday, July 23, 2018 11:40 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
no extra info

I just thought this was a unique metric.

When we look at other countries, one of the common metrics to use for general social functionality is lifespan. Lifespan is easy to move down with widespread disruption, and hard to move up without serious investment in lots of people.

I know when the USSR fell, lifespan dropped considerably - in large measure due to poverty, despair - and alcoholism.
[img] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Russian_male_and_female_life_e
xpectancy.PNG[/img]

Here in the US, we have our own issues, with lifespan dropping over the last two measurement cycles, due to opioids.

It looks like alcohol is also part of the picture.

I flirted with death with my relationship with alcohol, and right in the middle of those years, so it does strike a chord with me.

I think at the end of the day the only productive way to look at things is to take personal ownership of your decisions, but it is hard to deny scientific data when it is presented on a large scale such as this graph suggests. I'd like to see where they got the data from, instead of just some numbers that don't seem to mean all that much except for the general trend.

It is an interesting concept.

I'm glad that opioids were not a problem when I was younger, at least in the circles I ran in. I could have always gotten my hands on heroin easily, but I knew better than to ever try it. I wasn't able to resist cocaine forever though and indulged for my first of 6 or 7 times on my 24th birthday. Truly lucky I never let that drug get a hold on me. It eventually destroyed the lives of a few people I used to know.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Monday, July 23, 2018 11:52 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

Hey Jack

Thanks for the reply. I hope this didn't strike too serious a note with you.

I've been careful of my indulgences since I got hooked on nicotine in less than 20 cigarettes - spread out over a month. One can start something for the most trivial of reasons, but have an unfortunate biochemistry that makes you a super-responder. And then, well, it becomes its own additional problem.

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Tuesday, July 24, 2018 1:16 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
Hey Jack

Thanks for the reply. I hope this didn't strike too serious a note with you.

I've been careful of my indulgences since I got hooked on nicotine in less than 20 cigarettes - spread out over a month. One can start something for the most trivial of reasons, but have an unfortunate biochemistry that makes you a super-responder. And then, well, it becomes its own additional problem.

No worries. I'm not ashamed of my past anymore. Shame and regret are actions/emotions that can either be like a warm blanket that you can surround yourself in when you're taking comfort in the "fact" that you're not in control of your actions because you can't help it, or it can be a catalyst to induce major lifestyle changes. If it's the latter you need to be able to separate yourself from the shame of your past. Hanging on to that is not healthy and does not allow you to truly grow and make the changes that you need to.

That's not to say that I'm ever going to forget about what I did or how I behaved. That would be foolish. My past behavior will always serve as a reminder of what I could become again if I ever let it get a hold of me again.

I can't change the past. All I can do now is look toward the future and try to enjoy the present as much as I can while I'm at it.

Also, blaming outside stimuli for your own poor choices is not productive either. That's not to say that they don't have any effect. Quite the opposite for many of us, actually... and different individuals will have a higher and lower threshold for how much they can bear before they cave.

Surviving something like this, even though it was entirely self-inflicted, does open your eyes to a lot of things and provides you with a perspective that I don't think many people will ever benefit from. It's instilled a sense of empathy for other people facing similar struggles that I never would have otherwise had, for one. It's also made me appreciate stories and really respect others who have overcome their addictions and improved themselves. Not just famous people everybody's heard of, but just your average schmo's that managed to put a semblance of a life back together and can once again find a bit of happiness and meaning in their lives without needing drugs or alcohol to provide it.

It certainly has put a lot of things in perspective about what in the world holds meaning and what is trivial.

Maybe I'm still wrong about what those things are and are not, but my new outlook seems to be working well enough for me so far.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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