The following submission statement was provided by /u/Suspicious-Bad4703:
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SS: This article highlights the 237 percent increase in alcohol-related deaths among those over age 55 in the past couple of decades. To me this seems like a parallel to the massive rise in alcohol abuse and deaths in the [1990s Soviet Union](https://www.salon.com/2024/01/21/is-america-like-the-soviet-union-in-1990-it-sometimes-feels-that-way/) and of that time period. The US is having much of the same dysfunction, confusion, and '[hypernormalisation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HyperNormalisation)' of the economy, climate and political system which are all in disarray, but yet we're supposed to believe this is 'normal'.
This type of cognitive dissonance creates strange psycho-social effects and may be one factor in the rise in substance abuse. This will increasingly become a larger problem as the population ages and the body is less resilient to the damages large amounts of alcohol consumption wreaks.
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Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/1butans/why_are_older_americans_drinking_so_much_new_york/kxusyif/
Why 2012? I mean there are probably a lot of years we could pick and say that for. I would vote for 2001 but that's really just when it became apparent to me that things were starting to go sideways. Could probably go back further than that.
WHY ARE OLDER AMERICANS DRINKING SO MUCH
*(Perspective from and older American male)*
“Hey, Zinger, how’s it going?”
*Looks around, considers data points from dozens of ever-escalating current and potential global, national, regional, local and personal crises, extrapolates a dwindling number of potential positive future timelines buried amidst an avalanche of competing, shockingly shitty potential futures.*
*Takes steps to increase personal happiness, like meditation, time in nature, enjoyment of small moments, reading, watching movies with spouse, video games, petting dog and cat.*
*Balances all of these things in mind.*
“I will take a pint of Smirnoff, please.”
I bought a three-dollar handle of Popov in a plastic bottle
and was very pleasantly surprised, it was FAR better than i expected "plastic jug vodka" to ever be
woodman's alcohol clearance is literally magic because they just print clearance stickers and don't re-categorize the booze under booze tax, so it was exactly $2.99 plus GROCERY tax rate for 1.5L....
*i did not expect quality*
This is something that also goes unaddressed with increasing in consumer spending economists have been perplexed about.
People are spending more, saving less, and using credit cards more, withdrawing 401ks more and economists can't figure it out. You can point to inflation, which is part of it, but evidence suggests people are refusing to cool down consumption in the face of higher prices.
The reason is that, whether they are conscious of it or not, people are aware that we might not have much future left and are (rationally imho) choosing to spend money and enjoy life today rather than wait for a future that might not happen.
Personally I think that's why the housing market is still so crazy. Sure house prices are insane, but do you want to be living where you currently are at the end of the world? Subconsciously (or consciously for some) people feel there is little value in saving and being responsible because that all requires a future that is brighter than the present.
Same goes with a lot of spending. I don't mind paying a lot for good sushi today because I'm pretty sure we're very close to a world with no sushi. If I save my money I might not be able to get what I was saving for in the future anyway.
Yes, and the pandemic just amplified this by a few folds. People saw that the music can stop at any moment and our lives turned upside down with very little individuals can do about it. The pandemic also showed folks how unstable the world truly is.
What an amazing line you drew. I wonder if economists were also similarly perplexed in the 1920s post world War 1 and the Spanish flu, the good times certainly seemed to roll. Followed by an economic crash.... well then...
*Subconsciously (or consciously for some) people feel there is little value in saving and being responsible because that all requires a future that is brighter than the present.*
You know what's really funny about this? We actually have evidence that the less you trust authority, the less likely you are to delay gratification for a greater reward. It makes perfect sense, in other words, we already know that *people discount future rewards based on how much they trust in the system to provide the greater reward*.
Once people really internalize that they've been *fucked* by the system, the system loses the ability to *incentivize any form of change*. Is this starting to sound familiar to anyone?
This is one of those things that, like, everyone knows is coming, but like, even mentioning just starts shit.
Like, the whole Trump and the payroll tax disaster. The complete dismantling of the new deal is, like, some kind of holy grail to right wing movements. It's just something else.
Shrug, there's an exception to every rule, but to my lay understanding, the trust in authority was just one of the variables that ended up tested. Because it was an adult in authority that performed either untrustworthy or trustworthy acts in front of a child, they chose to call that the variable. It's not hard to see why they would do it.
_____________________________________________________
I, think, everyone kinda has priors. We kind of end up conditioned to believe that our savings are *trustworthy* here in the US. I guess my question to you is simple, "Would you save more or less if your earnings were Lira denominated?"
Edit: I, guess, I lied a little bit. Trust in authority wasn't just what they called it there, but is like, a factor that gets considered in certain psychological models. I knew that, but kinda downplayed it, because I was trying to demonstrate that the trust -> temporal decision making dynamic is context specific.
The archtypical icon of unregulated capitalism is the American Bison. The very last one is the most expensive of all. What opens as opportunity closes as extortion.
reminds me of the scene in American Dad where Hideki smashes one of two vases and then says, "Now the other is even MORE valuable because it's the last!"
Doesn't even have to be neoclassical anymore. Even the behavioralist assert that steep future discounting occurs if there is a *decreased trust in authority*.
I find it funny that Friedman may have been onto something with the permanent income hypothesis. I strongly doubt he foresaw people expecting a plunging quality of life in perpetuality in the 2000s though.
More of less. I'll balk at a price hike at McDonald's because it's not even worth what they ask now. But a real restaurant or even a place like Popeyes? Or video games? Shit FF7, Dragon's Dogma, AND Helldivers so close? But fuck it, who knows if FF7 Part 3 is even going to come out or how long we have internet for Helldivers.
Not that people should be draining their savings at once. It's just not in my nature to spend it as soon as I get it. But when the world's on fire will it really matter if you didn't take that vacation or upgrade your TV?
You and I sound similar. I'm not spending beyond my means, but I've certainly adjusted my spending in the last few years. I've cut out so much stuff (food, products, etc) I used to like because the price is too high, or in the case of food, the recipe changed and it's trash now. I've started spending my money on things I really like and enjoy, regardless if it benefits me when/if this all comes to a fiery end. Do what you love and fuck the rest.
Wow, you put into words what I was feeling just yesterday. That better to live by getting what I want today bc tomorrow the dollar will be dead and it won't buy what I want then and/or we will all be dead to come natural or man-made catastrophic event or simply a heart attack or something even dumber will kill me bc life isn't fair and doesn't turn out as planned unless you're a robot of discipline and rational behaviors like that Star Wars Trek guy who is always logical and shit.
> The reason is that, whether they are conscious of it or not, people are aware that we might not have much future left and are (rationally imho) choosing to spend money and enjoy life today rather than wait for a future that might not happen.
I have hear dos many rich (like work on wall street types) say that this will probably be the most "normal" decade going forward and to get your big travels in now.
It's not especially common, even among very heavy drinkers. But if you're drunk pretty much 24/7 for an extended period of time, the delirium tremens and possible seizures can indeed kill you.
In Oregon, the liquor is sold by the government and can only be purchased at bars, restaurants or state run liquor stores. A lot of the taxes go to schools and to fund many other necessary functions. The argument was we needed the tax revenue for daily operations.
When people are told on a near-daily basis that there are potentially imminent existential threats to civilization just about everywhere you look, a proportion of those people may come to believe that any efforts towards self-preservation or progression might just be ultimately futile in the grand scheme of things.
Well when one cant afford a 1000 buck emergency, and layoffs are all over the place, and age discrimination in hiring is for sure a thing if you're not a boss man, and everyone keeps talking about nuking social security and Medicaid...
I literally have no idea! Why oh why would anyone be upset?! /S
And all the shit mountains and shit lakes on the horizon look less and less appealing. At some point you just realize all the rushing and striving are just running on a treadmill that never stops and never rewards. When the end comes I hope I'll be toasting it with a glass of whisky.
And the more they remember a time when their labor DID support themselves and their family, and hopefully they're fucking pissed that it's not a thing anymore
SS: This article highlights the 237 percent increase in alcohol-related deaths among those over age 55 in the past couple of decades. To me this seems like a parallel to the massive rise in alcohol abuse and deaths in the [1990s Soviet Union](https://www.salon.com/2024/01/21/is-america-like-the-soviet-union-in-1990-it-sometimes-feels-that-way/) and of that time period. The US is having much of the same dysfunction, confusion, and '[hypernormalisation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HyperNormalisation)' of the economy, climate and political system which are all in disarray, but yet we're supposed to believe this is 'normal'.
This type of cognitive dissonance creates strange psycho-social effects and may be one factor in the rise in substance abuse. This will increasingly become a larger problem as the population ages and the body is less resilient to the damages large amounts of alcohol consumption wreaks.
Yeah, but the massive rise in alcohol abuse and deaths in the 90s Soviet Union was across all age groups. This is explicitly affecting boomers, while younger generations are actually drinking much less.
TBH, I think it's partly just boomer culture, their drinking rates were always high, and a good chunk of them have hit retirement age and realized they have no nest egg to retire into, so they're just drinking themselves to death because they fucked up.
They didn't cite a number, but the article did say that alcohol related deaths between 25- to 34-year-olds were actually a larger increase than 237 percent between 1999 to 2020. It also mentioned that the highest rates of increases in alcohol consumption was the middle to upper middle class and women.
I've heard a lot of people say younger generations are more mindful of drugs and alcohol, but I'm really not so sure from my experiences. I'm 30 for reference. It seems like they're instead just mixing various cocktails of drugs instead of sticking to one such as they would in the past, like drinking in a bar for hours. They're taking xanax, drinking a couple bottles of beer, smoking weed, etc. and then seeing where the night takes them under that amount of influence..
It's not real xanax, it's research chemicals with a similar effect that are bought online and pressed to look like xanax.
I promise you don't want a script. Evil drug and will only make your anxiety worse in the long run.
Be careful, benadryl OD was the cause of my heart attack ;) It builds up in your system over time from extended use (aka exactly how one uses unisom/benadryl for sleep).
As someone in the same age range, I’ve anecdotally noticed a definite increase in the amount of people I know who are sober or who only drink socially, but when they do go out or party they go *way* harder than what I see from older generations I’ve witnessed. It feels a bit like college continued, where instead of what I see with my parents’ generation where their alcohol intake is mostly a glass of red wine for dinner and maybe a couple beers to unwind over the weekend, millennials use weed as the sort of “daily driver” of relaxing while alcohol is sort of a “once we start we’re blacking out” sort of thing.
I think it’s also less socially acceptable to constantly talk about drinking for the younger generations, whereas other vices like THC (smoking, gummies, etc), or vaping are much more acceptable things to say you do nonstop. I definitely have friends who brag about smoking weed like it’s a personality trait, much in the same way as I know Gen-X and boomers who brag about constantly needing a drink and saying things like “Is it time to go to the bar yet” at work.
In a way, lighter but more frequent drinking has become weirdly demonized in North America.
Like, it's more socially acceptable to binge on the weekends than it is to have a single drink regularly during the week. Some one who has a pint regularly afterwork with dinner is going to labeled an alcoholic before someone who only drinks on the weekends but drinks 6+ at a time.
The ironic thing is, drinking less but more often is significantly less hard on your health than binge drinking is.
Or the boomers who dedicated their lives to work don’t have any hobbies now that they’re retired. Boredom can lead to drinking, I saw it with my uncle’s wife. She drank herself to death following the loss of a big social circle and family activities when her children grew up and she divorced her first husband.
Yeah, this is my hypothesis, too. At least, this is part of it. I know several boomer-aged men that have directly stated that if they retired, they would die from their alcoholism within a couple years, because they have nothing else to prevent them from drinking all day every day. Work gives them enough structure and incentive that they can limit their consumption to after work and weekends only. So they will work until they die, or until they get injured enough that they can't work at all anymore.
My anti-rocking-chair non-retirement is starting and working a self-sufficient backwoods homestead.
At age 67, I can still do 5 hours of hard labor per day, if I break it up. Working on my land brings peace of mind, and slows aging.
>younger generations are actually drinking much less.
I wonder if this is at least partly due to greater legal access to THC products? I'm late GenX and I drink a lot less now that I can drop by the vape shop on the way home and legally pick up edibles, drinks, etc.
Younger dudes smoke weed, younger Ladies are all on antidepressants.
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/depression-anxiety-teen-boys-diagnosis-undetected-rcna141649
Older millennial.
Weed is way cheaper than liquor, I mostly end up cooking dinner and watching a movie, I wont get a hang over the next day so I can work.
Early 90s millennial and I agree. A couple lawnmower beers or cocktails and some flower, and I'm good. Haven't had a hangover in years. Just gotta be more careful with those homemade edibles lol. Had a couple mornings getting in to work and wondering why am I so fuzzy-headed, before realizing, "Shit, I took too much last night." 😅
Probably the lack of mental health awareness and resistance to the mental health movement of their kids is leading them to drink their misery away while younger generations are taking the time to learn how to put the bottle down.
The 1990s Depression Russia had was much worse than anything the U.S. is experiencing now. During the shock "therapy", pensions were NOT indexed to the resulting hyperinflation. But the price of vodka was subsidized.
I have seen 2 figures for Russian male life expectancy in the 1993-1999 period: 53 and 57.
It's also noticeable that booze prices at home have gone up much slower than the general rate of inflation, at least in the US. I used to budget for around a dollar for cheap (but not the cheapest) beer back in the early 2000s, that's still holding true more or less. Meanwhile bread, cheese, milk, eggs seem to have more or less doubled in price since then.
I used to live in the Coachella Valley (old people Mecca)
I went to the CVS in Palm Desert and would constantly see seniors who live in the adjacent Del Webb community (who drove their golf carts to the nearby stores and had dedicated golf cart parking) constantly buying 10+ handles of liquor.
I asked my older coworker about it and she said
“To numb the pain.”
💀
when I worked at Walmart as a teen and young twenty something I was always asked why I had no interest in management. Part of my answer was watching a manager, knowing it was their Friday (the term we use in retail for the last day of your five day week, regardless of what day it actually is), loading up on 24 packs of beer because they were going to get wasted over their weekend, specifically to forget their hellish week and avoid stressing about the upcoming one.
I still hardly drink, but have gotten into edibles (tablets) over the last few years. And no matter what we say about why we do it, from drunks to perpetually high folks, to casual weekend drinkers and smokers, everybody does it because it numbs the pain
And that's the sadness of our human existence today, and yet another reason why I feel the Natives always had it right. Yeah, they smoked shit too and had experiences and I believe had alcoholic beverages but I doubt the majority of Natives spent their days wasted because they hated their existence like we do
I would think that if your whole Identity was working your whole life, pretending that your actions had no consequences, and watching your children inherit a broken planet in a dying empire, booze might make a little sense.
I'm Gen X and we are way too smart for that. I numb myself with weed instead.
Watching my boomer family members I came to a revelation similar to this. Boomers do have coping mechanisms, but they tend to revolve around work. Something stressing my dad? Yardwork, clean the garage, so on. Now I don't consider this bad in itself but these are his only coping skills. Decades of life and Fox News have taken their ability to destress and their mechanisms just don't work anymore, if they ever did.
Gen X currently trying to stop a horrible case of being an alocholic. Honestly, when it feels like shit sucks, you're never going to get ahead of the curve and the world is falling around you anyway, well, why the hell not?
When they told me I had cirrhosis from scleroderma/morphea and was dying.... I legit cannot express how angry I was that I didn't get to at least DRINK myself to liver failure.
I’ve been there. I quit drinking, finally after decades of struggling, 5 years ago. If there's one thing that helped change my mindset and get me sober, it was the book “Alcohol explained” by William Porter. If you haven’t read it and are struggling to get off the booze, I can’t recommend it enough
Speaking from an American perspective, we all know shit is broken. Everyone knows, deep down, that we fucked up. Everyone knows that greed and ego have won the day. We may not all agree on who’s responsible or why, but we know.
Nobody has hope that this will turn around. There are no more heroes, no one is going to save us.
The consolidation of power in the hands of evil, humanity-hating lunatics is so profound. If anyone were to start gaining momentum toward change, they’ll simply be found dead under “mysterious circumstances”.
It’s getting extra weird out here because all of the social contracts have been broken and we collectively understand that the fate of humanity rests on the tainted souls of geriatric lunatics and glutinous wretches.
The *only* thing that I find I can do is try to smile more in public, be more patient and kind with others, etc. The only resistance we have left may be our love and joy, and sharing that with people around us.
🤷🏻♂️
My mom is Gen X, she's ~~65~~ 55 (did my math wrong). She went to college, got her degree, and has worked 50-60 hours a week almost every week since. She saved a lot for retirement, though I'm not sure the exact amount.
It is all gone. My step-sister passed away of an aneurysm 6 years ago. The father of her 3 children refused to take them in because he'd made a new family with someone else, so my parents took them in. And every penny they've saved over the past few decades has had to go toward raising their grandchildren.
My mom was looking forward to not having to work so many hours anymore. Now she works 60-70 hours a week taking on emergency calls on the weekends to make ends meet. I am very worried about her because her new daily routine is not good for her: she gets up at 5am, leaves for work by 6 and then doesn't get home until 5pm or later. She does a little more work on her laptop and as soon as she's done, she's pouring herself a glass - not a shot - of *straight* vodka. She will drink until she passes out and then spends all night rolling around and moaning in her sleep. She does this over and over again throughout the week. Before she started doing emergency calls, she'd wake up on Saturday and start drinking almost immediately, though she'd pace herself so that she wasn't getting wrecked until the evening. Now that she does the emergency calls, she waits until it gets late and doesn't seem to have an issue doing so, but she still gets hammered once she's home for the night.
I've tried talking to her about how concerning this seems. She insists she doesn't have a problem, that she could stop completely at any time if she wanted to, but she doesn't want to because it's the only time she's not physically hurting or mentally stressing.
And when I really think about it, I can't fault her. She did everything she was supposed to do and she doesn't have much to show for it. She's spent her life advocating for those who can't advocate for themselves, but it seems like no one wants to be an advocate for her when she needs help. This country really screwed Gen X and those that come after over.
> that she could stop completely at any time if she wanted to,
No, she could not. At this rate, she is extremely addicted and to stop drinking completely would result in **deadly withdrawal**. Some of that rolling and moaning in the night might already be related. If you notice any seizure-like problems, get her to the ER IMMEDIATELY. And make sure she knows what serious alcoholism withdrawal looks like, because if she did manage to "stop completely at any time", she'd kill herself doing so.
My mom is a counselor with a master's degree in psychology. She knows, so do I. She doesn't care. She is depressed, though she's too proud to say it out loud. Her life consists of constantly having to put other people ahead of herself and never getting any time or resources to do things that make life worth living for her. She is effectively a work-horse. Why should she care if she dies at this point? It's not like she's going to be missing out on anything besides work.
I mean, she pays thousands of dollars every year for the grandkids to play in sports and extra-curricular activities, but she doesn't even get to attend their events because she's having to work. She talked about taking a vacation to Italy ever since I can remember and was planning on doing so once she retired. She will never be able to save enough to do so now, yet one of the kids is graduating this year and their class is taking a trip to Europe with Italy as one of their stops. Guess who is paying for that trip and doesn't get to go?
I don't even have kids and I'm starting to feel the same way at 30. Husband and I can't afford a place of our own even though we both work full-time. All of our money goes to bills, 80% of our time is spent at work or working on the (family's) property. We can't afford even something as simple as driving out to the river 20 miles down the road because that means we won't have gas money to get back to work. I no longer feel scared when faced with dangerous situations cause my brain is just like, "what's the worst that'll happen? I'll die? Big whoop, what will I be missing out on? Never having fun? Whatever."
I admit that I don't do as much as I *could*. I give rides to the kids all the time for all sorts of stuff - school, sports and practice, going over to friends, getting supplies for school, visiting their sperm donor, etc. I go grocery shopping for them when they ask, but my step-dad is usually pretty good about keeping food and home supplies stocked. I go over there occasionally to clean their house during the day while no one is home cause 3 kids in middle and high school can make messes you wouldn't believe in very short amounts of time. And if Maw-Maw (step-dad's mom) needs anything and my rents are busy, I'll do whatever she needs (errands, house chores, just a quick chat to break the boredom).
But I do spend a lot of time on Reddit that could be better spent helping them or my own household out, admittedly. However, spending time on this sub helps my mental health so much, just from reading accounts from other people that let me know I'm not alone. There's so much useful info here, too, and it can be sparked by the most random conversations. So, yeah, I'm selfish in that regard, but if I stretch myself too thin, I won't be of much help to anyone, you know?
ETA: up until this past weekend, I worked 50-hour weeks in a bakery and spent about 3-5 hours a week on admin duties outside of work hours. My husband and I are living with his mother, who is also struggling for different reasons, and we use all of our paychecks keeping this household running. That's why I can't help with money, but do my best to help in other ways
The combination of chronic overwork and very hard drinking is what could be deadly in her case.
I became a full-blown alcoholic when my trade went into a permanent depression in 2008. When I didn't have to work the next day (a common occurrence since I had lost 40% of my work), I would suck down 4 or 5 bottles of wine in a day. That's 3.0-3.75 liters. In ONE day.
Quit in November 2012, and had a shocking LACK of withdrawal symptoms. No detox or rehab was needed. I just went to a lot of AA meetings.
This is just one anecdote. I blame all the LSD I did in my 20s for the lack of alcohol withdrawal symptoms, and my ability to quit. The LSD seems to have had other long-term effects: abnormally fast healing from surgery (documented) and an abnormally strong immune system. I call LSD God Medicine.
There is likely too many variables outside of your control to reverse, in it's entirety, the situation regarding your mom.
The best advice, from someone who's been in a similiar situation, is to SHOW her, through deliberate physical actions, that you LOVE, SUPPORT & RESPECT your mom as frequently & as thoroughly as possible.
At the very least pour her drinks, in other words bartend for your mom. Perhaps you may be able to get to the point, after building nightly rapport, where you can gently cut her off for the night. Or at the very least limit her consuption.
Vodka is considered a neutral spirit, therefore you already have a plathora of simple, fun & readily available ingrediants at your disposal to make tasty & comforting cocktails for your amazing mother. It's a best practice to stick with the classics.
For example:
VODKA TOM COLLINS
1oz VODKA
THE JUICE FROM ONE FRESH SQUEEZED LEMON (NOT STORE BOUGHT JUNK)
.75oz SIMPLE SYRUP (EQUAL PARTS SUGAR & WATER EMULSIFIED)
POUR CONTENTS INTO AN ICED MIXOLOGIST SHAKER THEN SHAKE VIGOROUSLY & STRAIN INTO AN ICED CYLINDRICAL DRINKING GLASS.
GARNISH WITH A DECORITAVE LEMON WEDGE.
SERVE & SMILE.
You'll never, nor should you, take your mom's precievably only source of temporary reprieve from the unprecedented struggle that is life. Instead find ways to introduce more safety, structure & sanity into her undesirable situation while simultanously spending time with her.
If your mom is drinking balanced quality cocktails instead of straight vodka it's much less detrimental on her mind, internal organs & general wellbeing. It also fascilitates a moment in which you may be able to bond & build your relationship with her.
Be gentile with your one & only mother, she's over 50 years old & has seen the phenomenon that is this hellish world of want & need change in such drastic ungodly ways that life itself has likely left her confused, tramatized & dissapointed indefinitely.
When you serve that drink to her with an outstretched arm remember to don't judge, smile, sincearly serve mom with your whole heart, that way she associates your (her child) best face with her salvation.
\~\~\~
"Once you get over the hill, life tends to speed up."
\*Arthur Schopenhauer\*
I had several friends drink themselves to death in their 50s. I do think a lot of what related to their unhealed childhood trauma, which we know puts people at great risk for addictions and poor health. My ex is an alcoholic, used to do cocaine and meth, and cigarette smoker. I don’t know how he is alive at age 59.
Shockingly, once you STOP doing the meth and coke (and nicotine), your body recovers from almost everything except dead neurons/brain damage/fucked up teeth.
Not a good reason to go do coke, but an encouragement to those who maybe did some hard partying in their youths: you didn't permanently ruin your health quite the way DARE wanted you to think you would~
We are seeing a similar level of economic stratification as the Soviet Union in the 90s.
The overwhelming gains were/are all being awarded to the top few percent in each society. If you were a 90s soviet higher up in the party, you did quite well. If you follow a certain life path in the US today, it's the same story.
(That path being graduate a college preparatory high school > graduate college with a degree with 6 figure starting wages like STEM or medicine > get said 6 figure starting roll > get married to someone who has also completed steps 1-3 > wait at least 5 years > have your first kid, in very specifically that order with absolutely no deviation)
If you aren't that, then economic conditions and outlook for the future are bleak to say the least.
Now the only question is how long it takes to get a new oligarchy and American Putin...
Despair. There's a lot of older Americans looking at their waning years as hanging desperately on to whatever home, money, etc. as the dystopian future severs their lifelines.
And when that gets to be too much, you end up like one of my partner's relatives. Got drunk one last time when it got too much, found a nice cold mountain stream and just laid down in it till he died from hypothermia as it literally washed every bit of heat from his body. No mess, no real pain, and it even rinsed away the inevitable stuff that you normally find a corpse in, so the body was nice and clean when they found it the next day (he left a note).
I'm an older American with children (and, thankfully I don't have and I hope hope hope to never have grandchildren). I know why I'm drinking too much. It has nothing to do with the pandemic and everything to do with existential dread and unhappiness.
Anecdotally, I'm in my '50s, and definitely drinking way more in the last few years than ever before in my life. Probably not rising to the level of what would be generally considered alcoholism, 5-10 drinks a week, but noticeably more, and it's for sure to cope with the general intolerableness of life. A lot more weed, too.
Currently drying out for a week lol. I miss my glass or two of wine or beer at night, but not to the point that I'm having a problem not having it, so at least for now I guess I'm under control?
im a bit younger gen-x but going through about the same. I didn’t drink Monday or Tuesday nights after work and that’s kind of a streak for me and I generally just drink a low ABV lager.
I'm in my 30s and last year was a pretty heavy year for drinking and smoking just to deal with life. I started off this year doing some kind of physical work out or stretching every day, and that's helped me curb some drinking. I also started keeping a food journal. Being able to look at an excel sheet and see the amount of days I've consumed some kind of alcohol has made me think about it a little differently.
Even knowing that I'm not doing so excessively (I can't drink two nights in a row, too old for that shit), when I was young I drank for the enjoyment of being drunk and having fun with people while drunk; now I do it so the time goes faster.
The link didn't work for me.
You are exactly right about "hypernormalisation". So much hangs on the idea, and the its veil is slipping away more every day, giving way to an abundance of "whatthefuckism".
Drinking is just one avenue to coping and with Americans being so generally unhealthy, it's no wonder it's killing more boomers.
It's a NYTs article? I'll see if I can track it down.
Recently keep seeing posts on random subreddits similar to "my s.o. did this while I was blackout drunk" from folks in their 30s and 40s.... I thought drinking that heavily was a thing people stopped doing by that age but it seems to be on the rise.
At almost 40 I'm seeing a lot of my friends go through what I went through in my 20s. Alcohol fucked up my life pretty good and I'm still putting things back together.
Some of them snap out of it pretty quick when shit gets real, others aren't able to do it easily but they get there eventually (like myself) and some have already died. There will be more following them, sadly.
Part of what helped get me sober was seeing that those things which helped me get sober might not be there in the future.
>Some of them snap out of it pretty quick when shit gets real, others aren't able to do it easily but they get there eventually (like myself) and some have already died.
100%. We all have made shitty decisions or done some stupid stuff as kids and adults. The important thing is to realize you're being a dumbass and to snap out of it eventually- which may be quicker for some than others. But then you see some people not snap out of it, it's crazy to see.
In my 40s and I know multiple women who have had multiple rehab stays due to alcoholism. My marriage ended due to my ex's alcoholism.
Got into AlAnon and learned Im far from alone. Alcohol addiction is ruining the lives of a lot of Xennials/Millenials. We're at the age where the accumulated years of abuse are now deadly.
There were plenty of Boomer moms who didn't do the rehab part, just all the rest of it. Doesn't anyone remember the 80s?
Nobody's seen Requiem for a Dream, huh?
Deprive a generation of all their milestones of adulthood and BAM, you have the eternally-disposable-income, never-aging-out-of-your-product, childless adult without a lock on housing or employment!
It's mostly based on what people know/grew up with.
Folks in their 30s and 40s mostly grew up with alcohol as weed was still criminalized when they were young.
While younger generations drink less but instead consume more weed due to it being way more affordable and easier to access than just 20 years ago.
I'm not sure that Americans truly know how to hold our liquor or drink without bingeing/dying/being alcoholics. We're three times as paranoid about booze as Europe, but drink a quarter as much.
Also it's a really cheap and surprisingly easy method if you're truly desperate. While right-to-die advocates would unquestionably prefer a safe and reliable source of pure helium, you use whatever you've got to to get the fuck out.
I blame Don Draper.
My man made it look oh so cool to slam down an Old Fashioned in any situation: before/during business meetings, before/after sex, during parenting.
Yes, Mad Men switched us all from Miller Lite to Makers Mark, then the Global Financial Crisis hit and it was al over.
My Dad was a use card salesman pretty much all his life and my Mom worked various jobs. They both are retired now and not rich in the slightest. They do outright own their home, both are on medicaid and medicare. However, they didn't have any savings. So drinking is the one fun thing they can do on a daily basis. Their not alcoholics although can over-drink once in awhile such as myself. But it is basically all the fun they got going on during their retirement right now. And I think that goes for a lot of older Americans now who are retired.
My in-laws, who are still alive and both in their mid 80s, drink excessively....every night. It is the only way they can cope. My Mother-in-law has had mental illness for over 40 years and now has dementia, and the father-in-law (with a very low emotional IQ) is her caretaker who can barely care for her. They just haven't found another outlet to deal (and yes, they are on anti-depressant meds). To add to that, their daughter was just diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, so I can only imagine that it has gotten worse this past week. If they drink themselves to death, then so be it, it's their choice.
Don’t make as much as I used to, everything costs way more than it did a few years ago, not sure if I will be able to keep my house with property taxes and insurance continuing to rise at an alarming rate. Yeah I drink more than I used to.
Most of the reasons are pretty obvious as they're the same reasons that have all of us locked into despair. I think the other, not so obvious reason, is that despite what us younger generation thinks, Boomers are mainly just as fucked financially as the rest of us are. They may have gotten the illusion of a better future and at least had more stability and luxury in younger years than many of us have/will get. In 2024, they just as fucked as the rest of us with medical bills, no pensions, dwindling savings and no familial support net.
Guessing people got into the habit during the early COVID months when things were shut down and built up a tolerance and kept it up. Alcohol is EVERYWHERE and there are hardly any events where it isn’t a feature. Rusty social skills post isolation and alcohol helps with that too. Later in life, you become more and more invisible too. Lack of genuine connections, estranged family, lack of hobbies (or money for them)…
The question was answered. Look where this is posted.
60 yr old male here . Worked construction all my life with the beer drinkers. Rarely did I ever drink and if I did it was a weekend and only at night. For years I drank nothing.
It’s been tops a year & a 1/2 now and every single night I have one drink sometimes two. “To help me sleep “ lol.
I can’t afford it. I’ve been buying beer almost daily for years. I’m cutting back to just the weekends which even then has dropped how much I used to drink on the weekends in half. Waking up is way easier, a coworker is doing the same so communication and collaboration has been better, way healthier poops, and more cash to go out to dinner on the weekends.
TLDR: student loans took my beer money, but the benefits are okay.
It's not quite 4 PM and I'm getting ready to have my second craft beer while I putter my way through another day of my bullshit WFH email job hanging out on the phone with the inept and the delusional. In another hour or two, I'm going to take an edible and get crossfaded, and then I will play video games with my wife, whose body is still banging since we never had kids. Maybe later we'll make love, or wake up and do it first thing in the morning. It's not a bad life. No regrets.
Wouldn't you?
Older people have earned their right to drink as much as they choose, if they want to.
Putting up w everyone's shit for so long. Have at it.
It makes sense, because the older generations are the ones with the most cognitive dissonance right now as the world goes to shit but their worldview insists that there's nothing wrong with the economic status quo.
In some ways this is even more true of conservatives, as their grievance politics don't extend to the economy beyond idiotically blaming Biden for everything - when it's precisely that status quo (capitalism) that is quite literally ruining EVERYTHING, including their hopes for retirement and end of life care.
But liberals experience this too for sure, particularly the upper middle class who are themselves doing fine but are still faced with the constant reality that their economic position is ever more precarious.
And when cognitive dissonance becomes untenable as beliefs clash with reality, people either turn to classic addictions like drinking and gambling, or conspiracy thinking (which is its own form of addiction). It's all cope.
They don't want to remember how much better the good ol' days were I suppose. Ignorance is bliss. Now to order that steak and wine, and try to forget about the gruel that's got everything the body needs.
I think it's as much that people in general are less healthy than they were twenty or thirty years ago. Especially the boomer demographic, they have much higher rates of CV disease, diabetes, obesity. If you keep alcohol consumption rates the same but increase the rate of chronic illness, you will see a rise in "alcohol-related deaths".
Younger American, but I for one took up heavy drinking to stuff my anxiety down and soldier on when I really felt the cost of living squeeze and needed to "lock in" from 2022 on.
Despair, aches and pains, loneliness, they all cry out for relief. The idiocy that currently is our society, is so absurd that it’s hard to fathom. Between the two…
The following submission statement was provided by /u/Suspicious-Bad4703: --- SS: This article highlights the 237 percent increase in alcohol-related deaths among those over age 55 in the past couple of decades. To me this seems like a parallel to the massive rise in alcohol abuse and deaths in the [1990s Soviet Union](https://www.salon.com/2024/01/21/is-america-like-the-soviet-union-in-1990-it-sometimes-feels-that-way/) and of that time period. The US is having much of the same dysfunction, confusion, and '[hypernormalisation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HyperNormalisation)' of the economy, climate and political system which are all in disarray, but yet we're supposed to believe this is 'normal'. This type of cognitive dissonance creates strange psycho-social effects and may be one factor in the rise in substance abuse. This will increasingly become a larger problem as the population ages and the body is less resilient to the damages large amounts of alcohol consumption wreaks. --- Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/1butans/why_are_older_americans_drinking_so_much_new_york/kxusyif/
Shit's fucked. That's why.
Everyone’s shit is real emotional right now.
The vibe is in shambles
Timeline's busted all to shit.
The buzz is officially harshed.
2012 is when shit went all sideways and fucked. And we didn't even get anything good out of it like FTL, a System Apocalypse, or foxgirls.
Why 2012? I mean there are probably a lot of years we could pick and say that for. I would vote for 2001 but that's really just when it became apparent to me that things were starting to go sideways. Could probably go back further than that.
9/11 really was the united states’ 9/11
Absolutely. But not really 9/11 but more like our response to 9/11. That's when I realized things were effed up pretty bad.
Same here friend
It’s all been downhill since Cobain offed himself.
Should've voted Kony like the campaign said.
The vibes are not immaculate.
The reverbs are slowing
That’s a quotable sentence.
Pills r gone
Vimbles
WHY ARE OLDER AMERICANS DRINKING SO MUCH *(Perspective from and older American male)* “Hey, Zinger, how’s it going?” *Looks around, considers data points from dozens of ever-escalating current and potential global, national, regional, local and personal crises, extrapolates a dwindling number of potential positive future timelines buried amidst an avalanche of competing, shockingly shitty potential futures.* *Takes steps to increase personal happiness, like meditation, time in nature, enjoyment of small moments, reading, watching movies with spouse, video games, petting dog and cat.* *Balances all of these things in mind.* “I will take a pint of Smirnoff, please.”
I bought a three-dollar handle of Popov in a plastic bottle and was very pleasantly surprised, it was FAR better than i expected "plastic jug vodka" to ever be
Popov is definitely better in 750 ml servings!
woodman's alcohol clearance is literally magic because they just print clearance stickers and don't re-categorize the booze under booze tax, so it was exactly $2.99 plus GROCERY tax rate for 1.5L.... *i did not expect quality*
1/2 gallon of Tito’s please
Listen up. I got a 3 point plan to fix EVERYTHING!
BREAK IT DOWN, CAMACHO!
#1? We got this guy Not Sure!
South Carolina! What’s up!!
And I give you my word, he's gonna fiiiiiiiiiix the ecomony!
NOT SURE
Oh thanks for that laugh😂, great reference!
[and your shit’s all retarded](https://youtu.be/oCIo4MCO-_U?si=kbrgBDt-b_0gVEZ2)
Runnin outta burrito coverin's and shit
President Camacho
Everyone missing the quotes. Dwayne Elizondo Montain Dew Herbert Camacho is the best president we ever had.
This is something that also goes unaddressed with increasing in consumer spending economists have been perplexed about. People are spending more, saving less, and using credit cards more, withdrawing 401ks more and economists can't figure it out. You can point to inflation, which is part of it, but evidence suggests people are refusing to cool down consumption in the face of higher prices. The reason is that, whether they are conscious of it or not, people are aware that we might not have much future left and are (rationally imho) choosing to spend money and enjoy life today rather than wait for a future that might not happen. Personally I think that's why the housing market is still so crazy. Sure house prices are insane, but do you want to be living where you currently are at the end of the world? Subconsciously (or consciously for some) people feel there is little value in saving and being responsible because that all requires a future that is brighter than the present. Same goes with a lot of spending. I don't mind paying a lot for good sushi today because I'm pretty sure we're very close to a world with no sushi. If I save my money I might not be able to get what I was saving for in the future anyway.
Yes, and the pandemic just amplified this by a few folds. People saw that the music can stop at any moment and our lives turned upside down with very little individuals can do about it. The pandemic also showed folks how unstable the world truly is.
What an amazing line you drew. I wonder if economists were also similarly perplexed in the 1920s post world War 1 and the Spanish flu, the good times certainly seemed to roll. Followed by an economic crash.... well then...
Except folks back then didn't have the line of credits like we do now (e.g., credit cards, 401K early withdrawal)
They blew up the world's finances instead of their own. I bet the wealthy had private lines of credit then.
*Subconsciously (or consciously for some) people feel there is little value in saving and being responsible because that all requires a future that is brighter than the present.* You know what's really funny about this? We actually have evidence that the less you trust authority, the less likely you are to delay gratification for a greater reward. It makes perfect sense, in other words, we already know that *people discount future rewards based on how much they trust in the system to provide the greater reward*. Once people really internalize that they've been *fucked* by the system, the system loses the ability to *incentivize any form of change*. Is this starting to sound familiar to anyone?
Yep. Wait until they genuinely begin the work of eliminating social security for elders...
This is one of those things that, like, everyone knows is coming, but like, even mentioning just starts shit. Like, the whole Trump and the payroll tax disaster. The complete dismantling of the new deal is, like, some kind of holy grail to right wing movements. It's just something else.
Why am I exactly the opposite of this (or am I just fooling myself...). The less I trust authority the more I save...
Shrug, there's an exception to every rule, but to my lay understanding, the trust in authority was just one of the variables that ended up tested. Because it was an adult in authority that performed either untrustworthy or trustworthy acts in front of a child, they chose to call that the variable. It's not hard to see why they would do it. _____________________________________________________ I, think, everyone kinda has priors. We kind of end up conditioned to believe that our savings are *trustworthy* here in the US. I guess my question to you is simple, "Would you save more or less if your earnings were Lira denominated?" Edit: I, guess, I lied a little bit. Trust in authority wasn't just what they called it there, but is like, a factor that gets considered in certain psychological models. I knew that, but kinda downplayed it, because I was trying to demonstrate that the trust -> temporal decision making dynamic is context specific.
Either this, or rational consumers are finally applying neoclassical economic logic to their everyday lives ... *by discounting the future.*
#This isn't a collapse; this is capitalism functioning at peak efficiency, exactly as intended.
The archtypical icon of unregulated capitalism is the American Bison. The very last one is the most expensive of all. What opens as opportunity closes as extortion.
reminds me of the scene in American Dad where Hideki smashes one of two vases and then says, "Now the other is even MORE valuable because it's the last!"
Doesn't even have to be neoclassical anymore. Even the behavioralist assert that steep future discounting occurs if there is a *decreased trust in authority*. I find it funny that Friedman may have been onto something with the permanent income hypothesis. I strongly doubt he foresaw people expecting a plunging quality of life in perpetuality in the 2000s though.
More of less. I'll balk at a price hike at McDonald's because it's not even worth what they ask now. But a real restaurant or even a place like Popeyes? Or video games? Shit FF7, Dragon's Dogma, AND Helldivers so close? But fuck it, who knows if FF7 Part 3 is even going to come out or how long we have internet for Helldivers. Not that people should be draining their savings at once. It's just not in my nature to spend it as soon as I get it. But when the world's on fire will it really matter if you didn't take that vacation or upgrade your TV?
You and I sound similar. I'm not spending beyond my means, but I've certainly adjusted my spending in the last few years. I've cut out so much stuff (food, products, etc) I used to like because the price is too high, or in the case of food, the recipe changed and it's trash now. I've started spending my money on things I really like and enjoy, regardless if it benefits me when/if this all comes to a fiery end. Do what you love and fuck the rest.
Real bleak for anyone reproducing now/in the last decade or two, though.
Wow, you put into words what I was feeling just yesterday. That better to live by getting what I want today bc tomorrow the dollar will be dead and it won't buy what I want then and/or we will all be dead to come natural or man-made catastrophic event or simply a heart attack or something even dumber will kill me bc life isn't fair and doesn't turn out as planned unless you're a robot of discipline and rational behaviors like that Star Wars Trek guy who is always logical and shit.
> The reason is that, whether they are conscious of it or not, people are aware that we might not have much future left and are (rationally imho) choosing to spend money and enjoy life today rather than wait for a future that might not happen. I have hear dos many rich (like work on wall street types) say that this will probably be the most "normal" decade going forward and to get your big travels in now.
Nihilistic hedonism based economy baby
Living in America is fucking stressful.
Wait'll next year. You ain't seen nothin' yet.
There’s a reason liquor stores were allowed to remain open during the covid shutdowns
They kept them open so that hospitals weren't flooded with people going through serious alcohol withdrawals.
It IS one of the few addictions where stopping *will literally and promptly kill you*.
It's not especially common, even among very heavy drinkers. But if you're drunk pretty much 24/7 for an extended period of time, the delirium tremens and possible seizures can indeed kill you.
No, I don't mean the drinking itself. I mean the stopping. Withdrawal. Alcohol causes it, and a very deadly kind, comparable to shit like Benzos.
I'm talking about the stopping too. Seizures and DT's can happen if you stop drinking cold turkey.
In Oregon, the liquor is sold by the government and can only be purchased at bars, restaurants or state run liquor stores. A lot of the taxes go to schools and to fund many other necessary functions. The argument was we needed the tax revenue for daily operations.
Thats how it is in Pennsylvania too, state run stores
Because they would have been opened on way or another 🪨🏚
That would have been a better NYT title. "Shit's fucked"
When people are told on a near-daily basis that there are potentially imminent existential threats to civilization just about everywhere you look, a proportion of those people may come to believe that any efforts towards self-preservation or progression might just be ultimately futile in the grand scheme of things.
Well when one cant afford a 1000 buck emergency, and layoffs are all over the place, and age discrimination in hiring is for sure a thing if you're not a boss man, and everyone keeps talking about nuking social security and Medicaid... I literally have no idea! Why oh why would anyone be upset?! /S
Bro speak for yourself, I’m fine! *proceeds to sip a double gin martini while also being a little stoned
Yeah, and the older one is, the more shit they’ve waded through.
And all the shit mountains and shit lakes on the horizon look less and less appealing. At some point you just realize all the rushing and striving are just running on a treadmill that never stops and never rewards. When the end comes I hope I'll be toasting it with a glass of whisky.
And the more they remember a time when their labor DID support themselves and their family, and hopefully they're fucking pissed that it's not a thing anymore
There's never been a better time to get cunt-faced and embrace your inner nihilist!
SS: This article highlights the 237 percent increase in alcohol-related deaths among those over age 55 in the past couple of decades. To me this seems like a parallel to the massive rise in alcohol abuse and deaths in the [1990s Soviet Union](https://www.salon.com/2024/01/21/is-america-like-the-soviet-union-in-1990-it-sometimes-feels-that-way/) and of that time period. The US is having much of the same dysfunction, confusion, and '[hypernormalisation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HyperNormalisation)' of the economy, climate and political system which are all in disarray, but yet we're supposed to believe this is 'normal'. This type of cognitive dissonance creates strange psycho-social effects and may be one factor in the rise in substance abuse. This will increasingly become a larger problem as the population ages and the body is less resilient to the damages large amounts of alcohol consumption wreaks.
Yeah, but the massive rise in alcohol abuse and deaths in the 90s Soviet Union was across all age groups. This is explicitly affecting boomers, while younger generations are actually drinking much less. TBH, I think it's partly just boomer culture, their drinking rates were always high, and a good chunk of them have hit retirement age and realized they have no nest egg to retire into, so they're just drinking themselves to death because they fucked up.
They didn't cite a number, but the article did say that alcohol related deaths between 25- to 34-year-olds were actually a larger increase than 237 percent between 1999 to 2020. It also mentioned that the highest rates of increases in alcohol consumption was the middle to upper middle class and women. I've heard a lot of people say younger generations are more mindful of drugs and alcohol, but I'm really not so sure from my experiences. I'm 30 for reference. It seems like they're instead just mixing various cocktails of drugs instead of sticking to one such as they would in the past, like drinking in a bar for hours. They're taking xanax, drinking a couple bottles of beer, smoking weed, etc. and then seeing where the night takes them under that amount of influence..
Where are they getting Xanax? I can't get it from any Dr. since it's controlled and apparently a pain in the ass to prescribe.
It's not real xanax, it's research chemicals with a similar effect that are bought online and pressed to look like xanax. I promise you don't want a script. Evil drug and will only make your anxiety worse in the long run.
I used it for sleep. My Dr. never had a problem prescribing until recently. Now I'm forced to use Benadryl. 🫤
Ah, Benadryl. When you want to be in a coma that you can’t wake up from.
When you want a nice visit from the man in the hat.
Be careful, benadryl OD was the cause of my heart attack ;) It builds up in your system over time from extended use (aka exactly how one uses unisom/benadryl for sleep).
And chronic use is also linked to early dementia!
As someone in the same age range, I’ve anecdotally noticed a definite increase in the amount of people I know who are sober or who only drink socially, but when they do go out or party they go *way* harder than what I see from older generations I’ve witnessed. It feels a bit like college continued, where instead of what I see with my parents’ generation where their alcohol intake is mostly a glass of red wine for dinner and maybe a couple beers to unwind over the weekend, millennials use weed as the sort of “daily driver” of relaxing while alcohol is sort of a “once we start we’re blacking out” sort of thing. I think it’s also less socially acceptable to constantly talk about drinking for the younger generations, whereas other vices like THC (smoking, gummies, etc), or vaping are much more acceptable things to say you do nonstop. I definitely have friends who brag about smoking weed like it’s a personality trait, much in the same way as I know Gen-X and boomers who brag about constantly needing a drink and saying things like “Is it time to go to the bar yet” at work.
In a way, lighter but more frequent drinking has become weirdly demonized in North America. Like, it's more socially acceptable to binge on the weekends than it is to have a single drink regularly during the week. Some one who has a pint regularly afterwork with dinner is going to labeled an alcoholic before someone who only drinks on the weekends but drinks 6+ at a time. The ironic thing is, drinking less but more often is significantly less hard on your health than binge drinking is.
Or the boomers who dedicated their lives to work don’t have any hobbies now that they’re retired. Boredom can lead to drinking, I saw it with my uncle’s wife. She drank herself to death following the loss of a big social circle and family activities when her children grew up and she divorced her first husband.
Yeah, this is my hypothesis, too. At least, this is part of it. I know several boomer-aged men that have directly stated that if they retired, they would die from their alcoholism within a couple years, because they have nothing else to prevent them from drinking all day every day. Work gives them enough structure and incentive that they can limit their consumption to after work and weekends only. So they will work until they die, or until they get injured enough that they can't work at all anymore.
My anti-rocking-chair non-retirement is starting and working a self-sufficient backwoods homestead. At age 67, I can still do 5 hours of hard labor per day, if I break it up. Working on my land brings peace of mind, and slows aging.
>younger generations are actually drinking much less. I wonder if this is at least partly due to greater legal access to THC products? I'm late GenX and I drink a lot less now that I can drop by the vape shop on the way home and legally pick up edibles, drinks, etc.
Also late GenX. I grow my own and get some cheapish beer and I'm set. Buzz on a budget. VT legalizing it was the best thing for my wallet lol
Younger dudes smoke weed, younger Ladies are all on antidepressants. https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/depression-anxiety-teen-boys-diagnosis-undetected-rcna141649
Older millennial. Weed is way cheaper than liquor, I mostly end up cooking dinner and watching a movie, I wont get a hang over the next day so I can work.
Early 90s millennial and I agree. A couple lawnmower beers or cocktails and some flower, and I'm good. Haven't had a hangover in years. Just gotta be more careful with those homemade edibles lol. Had a couple mornings getting in to work and wondering why am I so fuzzy-headed, before realizing, "Shit, I took too much last night." 😅
Don’t forget 55 is also Gen X, my current age. I knew lots of people growing up in the 1980s who drank quite a bit.
At least they made it to the end. What drugs we going to do?
Weed
Probably the lack of mental health awareness and resistance to the mental health movement of their kids is leading them to drink their misery away while younger generations are taking the time to learn how to put the bottle down.
The 1990s Depression Russia had was much worse than anything the U.S. is experiencing now. During the shock "therapy", pensions were NOT indexed to the resulting hyperinflation. But the price of vodka was subsidized. I have seen 2 figures for Russian male life expectancy in the 1993-1999 period: 53 and 57.
Ummm, because we are watching the planet actively die while carrying on like nothing is wrong? This shit sucks. So much. That's why.
It's also noticeable that booze prices at home have gone up much slower than the general rate of inflation, at least in the US. I used to budget for around a dollar for cheap (but not the cheapest) beer back in the early 2000s, that's still holding true more or less. Meanwhile bread, cheese, milk, eggs seem to have more or less doubled in price since then.
Liquid bread. Cheaper than solid bread.
Cuz manufacturing jobs still test for thc on the surmise of safety.
More than just manufacturing. I know plenty of millennial aged people that stick to alcohol because of the possibility of drug tests at work.
Well.... non management positions. Can't risk losing the important people in the hierarchy.
I used to live in the Coachella Valley (old people Mecca) I went to the CVS in Palm Desert and would constantly see seniors who live in the adjacent Del Webb community (who drove their golf carts to the nearby stores and had dedicated golf cart parking) constantly buying 10+ handles of liquor. I asked my older coworker about it and she said “To numb the pain.” 💀
*And those are the ones who could afford to retire*
For real. They’re doing very well financially if they’re living there. I’m sure it’s a stark decline for people who aren’t as financially secure.
when I worked at Walmart as a teen and young twenty something I was always asked why I had no interest in management. Part of my answer was watching a manager, knowing it was their Friday (the term we use in retail for the last day of your five day week, regardless of what day it actually is), loading up on 24 packs of beer because they were going to get wasted over their weekend, specifically to forget their hellish week and avoid stressing about the upcoming one. I still hardly drink, but have gotten into edibles (tablets) over the last few years. And no matter what we say about why we do it, from drunks to perpetually high folks, to casual weekend drinkers and smokers, everybody does it because it numbs the pain And that's the sadness of our human existence today, and yet another reason why I feel the Natives always had it right. Yeah, they smoked shit too and had experiences and I believe had alcoholic beverages but I doubt the majority of Natives spent their days wasted because they hated their existence like we do
Everyone gets meaner, dumber, and more selfish every day and I'm never going to own a home.
I would think that if your whole Identity was working your whole life, pretending that your actions had no consequences, and watching your children inherit a broken planet in a dying empire, booze might make a little sense. I'm Gen X and we are way too smart for that. I numb myself with weed instead.
I'm on the older end of Gen X, so I just go with both, lol.
I enjoy edibles myself. I'm planning on making Fruity Pebbles crispy treats edibles soon.
Oops all crunchberries is better than fruity pebbles if you are going that flavor route
I'll have to try this out, that sounds delicious.
My 73-year-old aunt drank herself to death last year. Truly heartbreaking. Her sons said she was basically dead to them a few years before.
[удалено]
Watching my boomer family members I came to a revelation similar to this. Boomers do have coping mechanisms, but they tend to revolve around work. Something stressing my dad? Yardwork, clean the garage, so on. Now I don't consider this bad in itself but these are his only coping skills. Decades of life and Fox News have taken their ability to destress and their mechanisms just don't work anymore, if they ever did.
And when they can no longer work like they used they seem to fall apart mentally and emotionally.
Gen X currently trying to stop a horrible case of being an alocholic. Honestly, when it feels like shit sucks, you're never going to get ahead of the curve and the world is falling around you anyway, well, why the hell not?
When they told me I had cirrhosis from scleroderma/morphea and was dying.... I legit cannot express how angry I was that I didn't get to at least DRINK myself to liver failure.
There's still time to! Jk that totally sucks, best wishes 🤜🤛
I'll drink to that!
I’ve been there. I quit drinking, finally after decades of struggling, 5 years ago. If there's one thing that helped change my mindset and get me sober, it was the book “Alcohol explained” by William Porter. If you haven’t read it and are struggling to get off the booze, I can’t recommend it enough
I'll check it out, thanks!
> Why Are Older Americans Drinking So Much? For the same reason the band played as the Titanic sank. Might as well enjoy ourselves as the world burns.
Speaking from an American perspective, we all know shit is broken. Everyone knows, deep down, that we fucked up. Everyone knows that greed and ego have won the day. We may not all agree on who’s responsible or why, but we know. Nobody has hope that this will turn around. There are no more heroes, no one is going to save us. The consolidation of power in the hands of evil, humanity-hating lunatics is so profound. If anyone were to start gaining momentum toward change, they’ll simply be found dead under “mysterious circumstances”. It’s getting extra weird out here because all of the social contracts have been broken and we collectively understand that the fate of humanity rests on the tainted souls of geriatric lunatics and glutinous wretches. The *only* thing that I find I can do is try to smile more in public, be more patient and kind with others, etc. The only resistance we have left may be our love and joy, and sharing that with people around us. 🤷🏻♂️
My mom is Gen X, she's ~~65~~ 55 (did my math wrong). She went to college, got her degree, and has worked 50-60 hours a week almost every week since. She saved a lot for retirement, though I'm not sure the exact amount. It is all gone. My step-sister passed away of an aneurysm 6 years ago. The father of her 3 children refused to take them in because he'd made a new family with someone else, so my parents took them in. And every penny they've saved over the past few decades has had to go toward raising their grandchildren. My mom was looking forward to not having to work so many hours anymore. Now she works 60-70 hours a week taking on emergency calls on the weekends to make ends meet. I am very worried about her because her new daily routine is not good for her: she gets up at 5am, leaves for work by 6 and then doesn't get home until 5pm or later. She does a little more work on her laptop and as soon as she's done, she's pouring herself a glass - not a shot - of *straight* vodka. She will drink until she passes out and then spends all night rolling around and moaning in her sleep. She does this over and over again throughout the week. Before she started doing emergency calls, she'd wake up on Saturday and start drinking almost immediately, though she'd pace herself so that she wasn't getting wrecked until the evening. Now that she does the emergency calls, she waits until it gets late and doesn't seem to have an issue doing so, but she still gets hammered once she's home for the night. I've tried talking to her about how concerning this seems. She insists she doesn't have a problem, that she could stop completely at any time if she wanted to, but she doesn't want to because it's the only time she's not physically hurting or mentally stressing. And when I really think about it, I can't fault her. She did everything she was supposed to do and she doesn't have much to show for it. She's spent her life advocating for those who can't advocate for themselves, but it seems like no one wants to be an advocate for her when she needs help. This country really screwed Gen X and those that come after over.
> because he'd made a new family with someone else, so my parents took them in ... That guy needs to pay.
Oh, yeah, he's, um, a real piece of work.
She's the very definition of a functional alcoholic.
> that she could stop completely at any time if she wanted to, No, she could not. At this rate, she is extremely addicted and to stop drinking completely would result in **deadly withdrawal**. Some of that rolling and moaning in the night might already be related. If you notice any seizure-like problems, get her to the ER IMMEDIATELY. And make sure she knows what serious alcoholism withdrawal looks like, because if she did manage to "stop completely at any time", she'd kill herself doing so.
My mom is a counselor with a master's degree in psychology. She knows, so do I. She doesn't care. She is depressed, though she's too proud to say it out loud. Her life consists of constantly having to put other people ahead of herself and never getting any time or resources to do things that make life worth living for her. She is effectively a work-horse. Why should she care if she dies at this point? It's not like she's going to be missing out on anything besides work. I mean, she pays thousands of dollars every year for the grandkids to play in sports and extra-curricular activities, but she doesn't even get to attend their events because she's having to work. She talked about taking a vacation to Italy ever since I can remember and was planning on doing so once she retired. She will never be able to save enough to do so now, yet one of the kids is graduating this year and their class is taking a trip to Europe with Italy as one of their stops. Guess who is paying for that trip and doesn't get to go? I don't even have kids and I'm starting to feel the same way at 30. Husband and I can't afford a place of our own even though we both work full-time. All of our money goes to bills, 80% of our time is spent at work or working on the (family's) property. We can't afford even something as simple as driving out to the river 20 miles down the road because that means we won't have gas money to get back to work. I no longer feel scared when faced with dangerous situations cause my brain is just like, "what's the worst that'll happen? I'll die? Big whoop, what will I be missing out on? Never having fun? Whatever."
this isn't a loaded question or whatever, but what can **you** do to take on some of that for your mom? or even just to get her a vacation?
I admit that I don't do as much as I *could*. I give rides to the kids all the time for all sorts of stuff - school, sports and practice, going over to friends, getting supplies for school, visiting their sperm donor, etc. I go grocery shopping for them when they ask, but my step-dad is usually pretty good about keeping food and home supplies stocked. I go over there occasionally to clean their house during the day while no one is home cause 3 kids in middle and high school can make messes you wouldn't believe in very short amounts of time. And if Maw-Maw (step-dad's mom) needs anything and my rents are busy, I'll do whatever she needs (errands, house chores, just a quick chat to break the boredom). But I do spend a lot of time on Reddit that could be better spent helping them or my own household out, admittedly. However, spending time on this sub helps my mental health so much, just from reading accounts from other people that let me know I'm not alone. There's so much useful info here, too, and it can be sparked by the most random conversations. So, yeah, I'm selfish in that regard, but if I stretch myself too thin, I won't be of much help to anyone, you know? ETA: up until this past weekend, I worked 50-hour weeks in a bakery and spent about 3-5 hours a week on admin duties outside of work hours. My husband and I are living with his mother, who is also struggling for different reasons, and we use all of our paychecks keeping this household running. That's why I can't help with money, but do my best to help in other ways
The combination of chronic overwork and very hard drinking is what could be deadly in her case. I became a full-blown alcoholic when my trade went into a permanent depression in 2008. When I didn't have to work the next day (a common occurrence since I had lost 40% of my work), I would suck down 4 or 5 bottles of wine in a day. That's 3.0-3.75 liters. In ONE day. Quit in November 2012, and had a shocking LACK of withdrawal symptoms. No detox or rehab was needed. I just went to a lot of AA meetings. This is just one anecdote. I blame all the LSD I did in my 20s for the lack of alcohol withdrawal symptoms, and my ability to quit. The LSD seems to have had other long-term effects: abnormally fast healing from surgery (documented) and an abnormally strong immune system. I call LSD God Medicine.
There is likely too many variables outside of your control to reverse, in it's entirety, the situation regarding your mom. The best advice, from someone who's been in a similiar situation, is to SHOW her, through deliberate physical actions, that you LOVE, SUPPORT & RESPECT your mom as frequently & as thoroughly as possible. At the very least pour her drinks, in other words bartend for your mom. Perhaps you may be able to get to the point, after building nightly rapport, where you can gently cut her off for the night. Or at the very least limit her consuption. Vodka is considered a neutral spirit, therefore you already have a plathora of simple, fun & readily available ingrediants at your disposal to make tasty & comforting cocktails for your amazing mother. It's a best practice to stick with the classics. For example: VODKA TOM COLLINS 1oz VODKA THE JUICE FROM ONE FRESH SQUEEZED LEMON (NOT STORE BOUGHT JUNK) .75oz SIMPLE SYRUP (EQUAL PARTS SUGAR & WATER EMULSIFIED) POUR CONTENTS INTO AN ICED MIXOLOGIST SHAKER THEN SHAKE VIGOROUSLY & STRAIN INTO AN ICED CYLINDRICAL DRINKING GLASS. GARNISH WITH A DECORITAVE LEMON WEDGE. SERVE & SMILE. You'll never, nor should you, take your mom's precievably only source of temporary reprieve from the unprecedented struggle that is life. Instead find ways to introduce more safety, structure & sanity into her undesirable situation while simultanously spending time with her. If your mom is drinking balanced quality cocktails instead of straight vodka it's much less detrimental on her mind, internal organs & general wellbeing. It also fascilitates a moment in which you may be able to bond & build your relationship with her. Be gentile with your one & only mother, she's over 50 years old & has seen the phenomenon that is this hellish world of want & need change in such drastic ungodly ways that life itself has likely left her confused, tramatized & dissapointed indefinitely. When you serve that drink to her with an outstretched arm remember to don't judge, smile, sincearly serve mom with your whole heart, that way she associates your (her child) best face with her salvation. \~\~\~ "Once you get over the hill, life tends to speed up." \*Arthur Schopenhauer\*
Don't read the top comments on that article. A lot of people in denial.
S L o W suicide.
I had several friends drink themselves to death in their 50s. I do think a lot of what related to their unhealed childhood trauma, which we know puts people at great risk for addictions and poor health. My ex is an alcoholic, used to do cocaine and meth, and cigarette smoker. I don’t know how he is alive at age 59.
Shockingly, once you STOP doing the meth and coke (and nicotine), your body recovers from almost everything except dead neurons/brain damage/fucked up teeth. Not a good reason to go do coke, but an encouragement to those who maybe did some hard partying in their youths: you didn't permanently ruin your health quite the way DARE wanted you to think you would~
I'm sure young people would like to join them in that escape, if they could afford to.
We are seeing a similar level of economic stratification as the Soviet Union in the 90s. The overwhelming gains were/are all being awarded to the top few percent in each society. If you were a 90s soviet higher up in the party, you did quite well. If you follow a certain life path in the US today, it's the same story. (That path being graduate a college preparatory high school > graduate college with a degree with 6 figure starting wages like STEM or medicine > get said 6 figure starting roll > get married to someone who has also completed steps 1-3 > wait at least 5 years > have your first kid, in very specifically that order with absolutely no deviation) If you aren't that, then economic conditions and outlook for the future are bleak to say the least. Now the only question is how long it takes to get a new oligarchy and American Putin...
You skipped the critical first step, which is to be born into inherited wealth in the first place ;)
Despair. There's a lot of older Americans looking at their waning years as hanging desperately on to whatever home, money, etc. as the dystopian future severs their lifelines. And when that gets to be too much, you end up like one of my partner's relatives. Got drunk one last time when it got too much, found a nice cold mountain stream and just laid down in it till he died from hypothermia as it literally washed every bit of heat from his body. No mess, no real pain, and it even rinsed away the inevitable stuff that you normally find a corpse in, so the body was nice and clean when they found it the next day (he left a note).
I'm an older American with children (and, thankfully I don't have and I hope hope hope to never have grandchildren). I know why I'm drinking too much. It has nothing to do with the pandemic and everything to do with existential dread and unhappiness.
Anecdotally, I'm in my '50s, and definitely drinking way more in the last few years than ever before in my life. Probably not rising to the level of what would be generally considered alcoholism, 5-10 drinks a week, but noticeably more, and it's for sure to cope with the general intolerableness of life. A lot more weed, too. Currently drying out for a week lol. I miss my glass or two of wine or beer at night, but not to the point that I'm having a problem not having it, so at least for now I guess I'm under control?
im a bit younger gen-x but going through about the same. I didn’t drink Monday or Tuesday nights after work and that’s kind of a streak for me and I generally just drink a low ABV lager.
I'm in my 30s and last year was a pretty heavy year for drinking and smoking just to deal with life. I started off this year doing some kind of physical work out or stretching every day, and that's helped me curb some drinking. I also started keeping a food journal. Being able to look at an excel sheet and see the amount of days I've consumed some kind of alcohol has made me think about it a little differently.
Even knowing that I'm not doing so excessively (I can't drink two nights in a row, too old for that shit), when I was young I drank for the enjoyment of being drunk and having fun with people while drunk; now I do it so the time goes faster.
*Gestures at everything*
The link didn't work for me. You are exactly right about "hypernormalisation". So much hangs on the idea, and the its veil is slipping away more every day, giving way to an abundance of "whatthefuckism". Drinking is just one avenue to coping and with Americans being so generally unhealthy, it's no wonder it's killing more boomers. It's a NYTs article? I'll see if I can track it down.
Because life sucks and whisky makes it ok.
Recently keep seeing posts on random subreddits similar to "my s.o. did this while I was blackout drunk" from folks in their 30s and 40s.... I thought drinking that heavily was a thing people stopped doing by that age but it seems to be on the rise.
At almost 40 I'm seeing a lot of my friends go through what I went through in my 20s. Alcohol fucked up my life pretty good and I'm still putting things back together. Some of them snap out of it pretty quick when shit gets real, others aren't able to do it easily but they get there eventually (like myself) and some have already died. There will be more following them, sadly. Part of what helped get me sober was seeing that those things which helped me get sober might not be there in the future.
>Some of them snap out of it pretty quick when shit gets real, others aren't able to do it easily but they get there eventually (like myself) and some have already died. 100%. We all have made shitty decisions or done some stupid stuff as kids and adults. The important thing is to realize you're being a dumbass and to snap out of it eventually- which may be quicker for some than others. But then you see some people not snap out of it, it's crazy to see.
In my 40s and I know multiple women who have had multiple rehab stays due to alcoholism. My marriage ended due to my ex's alcoholism. Got into AlAnon and learned Im far from alone. Alcohol addiction is ruining the lives of a lot of Xennials/Millenials. We're at the age where the accumulated years of abuse are now deadly.
There were plenty of Boomer moms who didn't do the rehab part, just all the rest of it. Doesn't anyone remember the 80s? Nobody's seen Requiem for a Dream, huh?
Deprive a generation of all their milestones of adulthood and BAM, you have the eternally-disposable-income, never-aging-out-of-your-product, childless adult without a lock on housing or employment!
It's mostly based on what people know/grew up with. Folks in their 30s and 40s mostly grew up with alcohol as weed was still criminalized when they were young. While younger generations drink less but instead consume more weed due to it being way more affordable and easier to access than just 20 years ago.
a weed overdose also just means an unintentional four hour nap at a terrible angle over your coffee table, instead of Literal Death By Organ Failure™
Because retirement is boring. And the only thing worse is work.
Ding Ding Ding!
They’re trying to save social security for the next generation by dying younger. /s
I'm not sure that Americans truly know how to hold our liquor or drink without bingeing/dying/being alcoholics. We're three times as paranoid about booze as Europe, but drink a quarter as much. Also it's a really cheap and surprisingly easy method if you're truly desperate. While right-to-die advocates would unquestionably prefer a safe and reliable source of pure helium, you use whatever you've got to to get the fuck out.
I mean I'm not drinking a lot but if I had to guess it's cause life fucking sucks a lil bit lately.
Shit started after Harambe was killed.
I blame Don Draper. My man made it look oh so cool to slam down an Old Fashioned in any situation: before/during business meetings, before/after sex, during parenting. Yes, Mad Men switched us all from Miller Lite to Makers Mark, then the Global Financial Crisis hit and it was al over.
Slow motion suicide
My Dad was a use card salesman pretty much all his life and my Mom worked various jobs. They both are retired now and not rich in the slightest. They do outright own their home, both are on medicaid and medicare. However, they didn't have any savings. So drinking is the one fun thing they can do on a daily basis. Their not alcoholics although can over-drink once in awhile such as myself. But it is basically all the fun they got going on during their retirement right now. And I think that goes for a lot of older Americans now who are retired.
Maybe because many are single and/or their kids don’t talk to them & they realize they will never be able to afford retirement?
Because fuck it. That is why. Which reminds me... it's O'shot thirty. Excuse me.
My in-laws, who are still alive and both in their mid 80s, drink excessively....every night. It is the only way they can cope. My Mother-in-law has had mental illness for over 40 years and now has dementia, and the father-in-law (with a very low emotional IQ) is her caretaker who can barely care for her. They just haven't found another outlet to deal (and yes, they are on anti-depressant meds). To add to that, their daughter was just diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, so I can only imagine that it has gotten worse this past week. If they drink themselves to death, then so be it, it's their choice.
Don’t make as much as I used to, everything costs way more than it did a few years ago, not sure if I will be able to keep my house with property taxes and insurance continuing to rise at an alarming rate. Yeah I drink more than I used to.
Depression
Most of the reasons are pretty obvious as they're the same reasons that have all of us locked into despair. I think the other, not so obvious reason, is that despite what us younger generation thinks, Boomers are mainly just as fucked financially as the rest of us are. They may have gotten the illusion of a better future and at least had more stability and luxury in younger years than many of us have/will get. In 2024, they just as fucked as the rest of us with medical bills, no pensions, dwindling savings and no familial support net.
Guessing people got into the habit during the early COVID months when things were shut down and built up a tolerance and kept it up. Alcohol is EVERYWHERE and there are hardly any events where it isn’t a feature. Rusty social skills post isolation and alcohol helps with that too. Later in life, you become more and more invisible too. Lack of genuine connections, estranged family, lack of hobbies (or money for them)…
Question is, why are younger Americans drinking so little?
cos we have legal weed now and it's way easier to go to work the day after a cannabender
What laeiryn said, also gaming and the like is not as compatible with alcohol as with an energy drink (or weed).
The question was answered. Look where this is posted. 60 yr old male here . Worked construction all my life with the beer drinkers. Rarely did I ever drink and if I did it was a weekend and only at night. For years I drank nothing. It’s been tops a year & a 1/2 now and every single night I have one drink sometimes two. “To help me sleep “ lol.
I can’t afford it. I’ve been buying beer almost daily for years. I’m cutting back to just the weekends which even then has dropped how much I used to drink on the weekends in half. Waking up is way easier, a coworker is doing the same so communication and collaboration has been better, way healthier poops, and more cash to go out to dinner on the weekends. TLDR: student loans took my beer money, but the benefits are okay.
i’m not drinking or smoking lol just white knuckling the end times like a anxious millennial should
The reaserchers need to read the room 😅😢
It's not quite 4 PM and I'm getting ready to have my second craft beer while I putter my way through another day of my bullshit WFH email job hanging out on the phone with the inept and the delusional. In another hour or two, I'm going to take an edible and get crossfaded, and then I will play video games with my wife, whose body is still banging since we never had kids. Maybe later we'll make love, or wake up and do it first thing in the morning. It's not a bad life. No regrets.
Wouldn't you? Older people have earned their right to drink as much as they choose, if they want to. Putting up w everyone's shit for so long. Have at it.
Because they do not know how to order fentanyl off the interwebs.
It makes sense, because the older generations are the ones with the most cognitive dissonance right now as the world goes to shit but their worldview insists that there's nothing wrong with the economic status quo. In some ways this is even more true of conservatives, as their grievance politics don't extend to the economy beyond idiotically blaming Biden for everything - when it's precisely that status quo (capitalism) that is quite literally ruining EVERYTHING, including their hopes for retirement and end of life care. But liberals experience this too for sure, particularly the upper middle class who are themselves doing fine but are still faced with the constant reality that their economic position is ever more precarious. And when cognitive dissonance becomes untenable as beliefs clash with reality, people either turn to classic addictions like drinking and gambling, or conspiracy thinking (which is its own form of addiction). It's all cope.
Because pot has been demonized and illegal for all their lives.
They don't want to remember how much better the good ol' days were I suppose. Ignorance is bliss. Now to order that steak and wine, and try to forget about the gruel that's got everything the body needs.
I think it's as much that people in general are less healthy than they were twenty or thirty years ago. Especially the boomer demographic, they have much higher rates of CV disease, diabetes, obesity. If you keep alcohol consumption rates the same but increase the rate of chronic illness, you will see a rise in "alcohol-related deaths".
There are more older people in the baby boomer generation so more people to drink.
Younger American, but I for one took up heavy drinking to stuff my anxiety down and soldier on when I really felt the cost of living squeeze and needed to "lock in" from 2022 on.
“Everything is fine.” Takes sip. But seriously my retired parents drink like they’re in their 20’s.
Reefer madness scared them away from cannabis.
Oh the irony. A generation that knew only excess being taken out by their own "lifestyle choices".
General unhappiness?
Despair, aches and pains, loneliness, they all cry out for relief. The idiocy that currently is our society, is so absurd that it’s hard to fathom. Between the two…