What is this Wine Overhype?
I cannot be the only one that thinks social media overhypes wine consumption. I am an adult, in the age that I can legally drink, and wine IS my to go to drink if I decide I want to have something with a little bit of alcohol in it. So I do appreciate wine, but there is just so many memes about drinking it that I feel like we are promoting alcoholism.
Because opening a bottle of wine and consuming the whole thing alone at 2 p.m. is kind of a sign of alcoholism in my opinion. There is nothing wrong with having a glass or two at dinner, especially if you have something to celebrate. Just reading these kind of made me think of the whole thing.
And of course Buzzfeed is the biggest advocate of the movement by posting memes, tweets, comparisons (which are the only appropriate articles in the matter in my opinion), "cheat sheets"(this one is actually useful), wine facts, wine tests, wine "exercises" (featuring the biggest wine fan who has influential voice in buzzfeed and is using it to advertise her love of alcohol) and actually have their own customised wine just to name a few.
Obviously this social media platform is not the only thing that advertises the consumption of unhealthy amount of alcohol. We have everything that has wine in it: Christmas calendars, gummies, box wine - (because a bottle can never be enough, right), socks and all those other products that I have seen over the years but refuse to research all of them just to show how big of a problem this is becoming.
My home country is a place where people have always struggled with alcoholism, and we have our own signature alcoholic beverage (way stronger than wine - palinka). We are 8th on the chart of the "World's Most Alcohol Dependent Countries".
But this wine craze has gone way beyond the alcohol dependent countries, even if the biggest wine consumers are still European. But two years ago the statistics showed that Americans consume as much as the French. But when we research these statistics, it is hard to know whom to trust, because all sites have different point of view of the actual consumption. For example Forbes totally disagrees with my previous link in the matter of who drinks more.
I think that is not the most burning question. What counts as an alcohol problem? And what health risks are we taking by going down on that road? According to CDC, binge drinking and heavy drinking are the ones that cause the problems. I disagree that we need to make a difference between women and men when it comes to problematic alcohol consumption.
The short term risks include:
Because opening a bottle of wine and consuming the whole thing alone at 2 p.m. is kind of a sign of alcoholism in my opinion. There is nothing wrong with having a glass or two at dinner, especially if you have something to celebrate. Just reading these kind of made me think of the whole thing.
And of course Buzzfeed is the biggest advocate of the movement by posting memes, tweets, comparisons (which are the only appropriate articles in the matter in my opinion), "cheat sheets"(this one is actually useful), wine facts, wine tests, wine "exercises" (featuring the biggest wine fan who has influential voice in buzzfeed and is using it to advertise her love of alcohol) and actually have their own customised wine just to name a few.
Obviously this social media platform is not the only thing that advertises the consumption of unhealthy amount of alcohol. We have everything that has wine in it: Christmas calendars, gummies, box wine - (because a bottle can never be enough, right), socks and all those other products that I have seen over the years but refuse to research all of them just to show how big of a problem this is becoming.
My home country is a place where people have always struggled with alcoholism, and we have our own signature alcoholic beverage (way stronger than wine - palinka). We are 8th on the chart of the "World's Most Alcohol Dependent Countries".
But this wine craze has gone way beyond the alcohol dependent countries, even if the biggest wine consumers are still European. But two years ago the statistics showed that Americans consume as much as the French. But when we research these statistics, it is hard to know whom to trust, because all sites have different point of view of the actual consumption. For example Forbes totally disagrees with my previous link in the matter of who drinks more.
I think that is not the most burning question. What counts as an alcohol problem? And what health risks are we taking by going down on that road? According to CDC, binge drinking and heavy drinking are the ones that cause the problems. I disagree that we need to make a difference between women and men when it comes to problematic alcohol consumption.
The short term risks include:
- "Risky sexual behaviour" that may lead to unwanted pregnancies or in catching STDs such as HIV
- Violent behaviour that can lead to homicide, suicide, physical assault, sexual assault etc
- Alcohol poisoning
- Injuries
- Miscarriage - reasons why it is important that people don't drink while being pregnant
The long term risks are:
- High blood pressure
- Heart disease -> stroke
- Liver disease
- Digestive problems
- Cancer in breast, liver, mouth, throat, esophagus and colon
- Memory problems -> dementia
- Learning problems (e.g. school performance)
- Alcohol dependence = alcoholism
We look at people who smoke like they are making the biggest mistake of their lives, while consuming alcohol is not even that far from smoking... Over 100,000 people die annually from alcohol related problems from poisoning to drunk driving accidents. Alcohol kills more teens annually than all the other drugs combined. In the US, in 2005 out of the 4 million rehabilitated patients 2.5 million were having alcohol problems. Youth that start drinking at an early age are seven times more likely to be in a drunk driving accident.
"Alcoholism has a profound impact on the entire body, especially the brain, heart, pancreas, mouth, liver and immune system. There is no question that heavy, long-term drinking is harmful to the body and makes evident to the dangers of alcoholism. There is also no question that alcoholism affects Americans in more ways than one"
So then why are we here, advertising drinking? One glass is not harmful but starting to drink at 2 p.m. and not really finishing it until passing out is not considered in the area of not harmful drinking. Especially in Europe, people start drinking at a very early age. Most people become dependent on alcohol in their lifetime, even if just for a short period of time.
It is addicting. It is harmful. It causes problems. So, why is it legal again?
Maybe it is because I do not like to get wasted that I do think that people would not suffer if we had no alcohol. If a person cannot have fun without a behaviour altering substance then it was a shitty time to begin with...
Drugs, including alcohol, fashion neutral habits. These habits narrow the brain's focus to a singular goal in the expense of everything else basically. The striatum - a reward system in the brain - is responsible for desire. It is not "fun" unless the person gets what it wants. Then the brain releases dopamine, and that makes a person feel good. However the striatum gets tuned with every alcohol consumption, rewiring the synaptic system until the goal doesn't matter that much. This leads to alcoholism. (To put it in a very simple way.)
To conclude I believe we need to tone it down with the alcohol overhype, because it is TOXIC. It is very toxic and we shouldn't make it such a trend. We shouldn't advertise this and think this is okay.
To conclude I believe we need to tone it down with the alcohol overhype, because it is TOXIC. It is very toxic and we shouldn't make it such a trend. We shouldn't advertise this and think this is okay.
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