Posts
The New York Times has a great article entitled "Alcohol’s Good for You? Some Scientists Doubt It" on whether alcohol in moderation is good for you or not.
A few sweeping generalizations about why this connects to us: as queers, research shows we drink more. Our community tends to be based around events, not geography (hence the "we are everywhere" t-shirts back in the 90's). That's one of the reasons our community has so many damn galas and fundraisers. As well as social gatherings. So, we're not drinking home, alone (well, I'm sure some of us do, but I couldn't find anything sweeping on that). We're doing it out in community.
So that's why I am really interested in all of this back and forth about whether its OK or not OK to drink (cause we do it a lot). And how much. And how it benefits your heart. But not your breasts. Or whatever.
What I like about this article is that it allows for nuance. And how things affect each other. Rather than isolating alcohol use, they suggest that context matters:
“The moderate drinkers tend to do everything right — they exercise, they don’t smoke, they eat right and they drink moderately,” said Kaye Middleton Fillmore, a retired sociologist from the University of California, San Francisco, who has criticized the research. “It’s very hard to disentangle all of that, and that’s a real problem.”
Do you find that when your alcohol consumption is more moderate the rest of your life is more balanced? Or does one not affect the other?
2 Comments:
What a great question, Paps. For me, I would say that this is true...but in general, I drink modestly. I usually only get off track when I'm spending a lot of time socializing like over the holidays or a vacation.
I think it's a big part of it that spending time out in the community seems to invariably involve drinking. It's not that I don't like a good time, but it definitely affects how I make decisions about going out and about drinking.
Its a timely question given that we are in the thick of Pride Month.
In Chicago, ANY parade is an opportunity to drink. Its how we do. So a month of events and socializing and being proud usually translates into a pickled July for me. :-)
Post a Comment