Read an article a bit ago. Take away: Millennials drink the most but largely kicked the nicotine thing. Gen Z have brought back nicotine in a big way, even causing a resurgence in chewing tobacco. Its all just homosapiens coping, so I say pick your poison and keep doing your best.
And those not doing nicotine are probably doing THC instead. There is a measurable negative impact of legalizing marijuana on alcohol sales
Which is weird, cause I can drop drinking no problem, I’m on the nicotine train for life though, 35yo.
That’s interesting. I do not have any desire to start smoking, but I probably do drink more than I should. I don’t drink daily, but if I have one I’m probably having 2-4. I’m a hair holder than you are fwiw.
Its all just homosapiens coping,
Exactly. Want to actually fight drugs? Give people something to hope for, and opportunities to do better things than constantly numb oneself with various substances to cope with a soulless nightmare society.
I notice it’s a good barometer for society’s health: Once all the jobs start laying off again and the costs go up and up and up and we get into some other war, everybody starts reaching for the stims to get through their jobs and the narcotics to find respite from everything else.
Just constant stress and pressure in the very air. It sucks…
I would assume marketing is also the influence on that decision. Seemingly gen alpha seem focused on vaping instead, so times are changing - not necessarily for the better.
Yeah millennials are like the most alcoholic generation.
That’s something I applaud the younger generations for. I’m just hoping that it’s not due to not socializing in person.
From what I’ve seen in the UK, it’s not that the youth particularly see temperance as a virtue it’s more than unless you’re going to a Spoons pints are £6 if not more these days. Ket is big in Britain too, on account of it being cheap especially compared to pints. They don’t want to be filmed while hammered and immortalised on tiktok either.
I feel it’s a common problem that economic factors are often attributed to moral ones.
I’m honestly so concerned by the amount of energy drinks zoomers drink, plus the vaping. They’re less into downers, but fuck me they love those stimulants.
The vaping is depressing because it feels like all the gains made by anti-smoking have been eroded with more people smoking than ever before.
I personally don’t mind vaping, since many smokers switched to vaping and people who vape don’t emit a passive aura of stench.
I’ve binned off both but personally it’s the cigarettes I miss, especially straights. Vaping just tastes cloying as fuck to me now, it’s so strongly flavoured if you’re vaping a lot you become totally nose-blind to it.
Thing is, the vaping is so much worse for heavy metals, so were going to have to dedicate a huge amount of resources treating people for that since it is actually so unchecked
I personally don’t care whether vaping is worse for the person doing it than smoking. The thing I do care about is that vaping affects other people much less than smoking does.
Right, but how are you measuring that? Vaping is far less addressed than tobacco cigarettes are and whatever health effects there may be could be broad enough in the coming decades to stress healthcare systems, and it has facilitated an entire industry of disposable coils and batteries used to power the things, which then just get chucked wherever. It’s maybe less harmful in terms of second hand smoke, though I haven’t read any study to confirm that, but that isn’t the only way harm is caused.
No it’s not. The articles on that study severely misrepresented the results. Everything was under OSHA levels, significantly lower than what’s in cigarettes, and a few were lower than atmospheric levels.
The formaldehyde study and the glycerin break down study had methodologies so far outside of regular usage that they were designed to produce harmful products.
The popcorn lung scare was full of shit too. Diacetyl and acetyl proponol were only used in tiny amounts in recipes that needed a buttery flavor. Despite the levels being orders of magnitude higher in cigarettes, and the only recorded cases being industrial workers and a guy with a microwave popcorn huffing fetish, the industry dropped it.
The EVALI bullshit was black market THC carts cut with Vitamin E acetate.
The amount of false propaganda against vaping is staggering. It was cutting into tobacco tax revenue, so the FDA killed the industry that was focused on harm reduction.
Oh awesome, do you have any sources on that then?
Edit: I was seriously asking though.
At least with Vaping there’s no second hand smoke iirc, so while it’s still bad for you it doesn’t damage the people around you too thus it’s more of a personal choice
Ngl I have a problem with energy drinks… been trying to ditch them in favour of coffee
I was a heavy coffee drinker until they found my heart defect.
Now I have no caffeine, doctor’s orders, for 22 ish years now.
Sometimes I’ll sneak a sip of coffee if I have a migraine, it helps. But God help me I won’t sleep that night.
You don’t realize how much of a tolerance to and a dependence on caffeine that you build up, until you’re off of it for awhile, and try some again.
It really has a powerful effect on you, even if you don’t realize it right now.
If I drank an energy drink right now, after being dry for so long, my heart would definitely race and I doubt I’d sleep for two days.
I don’t miss caffeine though, honestly. I don’t wake up tired anymore, I just, wake up. And drink some water 🤷♂️ then go to work, feeling fine. Not amazingly energized, but not dragging either… Just… Normal 🤷♂️
Caffeine is a drug like anything else. If you can get off the stuff for awhile, say 6 months? I bet you’ll be amazed at how you feel, and you won’t go back.
The difference is incredible! I am not and never was a caffeine addict. I just drink from time to time and I enjoy the taste. But that “from time to time” is like once in 3 months. Or at least when I need energy and my sleep was short that night.
The difference is insane! It keeps me glued and moving the whole day. I come off work and I do things non stop. I can’t shut up. It doesn’t let me fall asleep quicker than usual (10-15min). It feels that it is a some sort of an enhancement drug.
I hope I will never require it most of the days so I won’t build tolerance. And I do not want to get addicted to energy drinks. If coffee is a mild enhancement drug, energy drink is a straight up poison mixed with cocaine.
I have ADHD and dont take the meds and im pretty sure without caffeine id just fall apart.
Is there a reason you don’t take the meds, like cost or something?
If not, you should definitely prioritize the meds, you’re going to build up a resilience to Caffeine faster and it’s like, so bad for you. I get it though, weed and caffeine are super common and effective forms of self-medication fot ADHD.
I can only get generic concerta on the NHS which does NOT work at all, sideeffects are not worth the impact it has. If I want to be in a medicated state I generally just obtain high quality speed paste and dose it at a theraputic level.
Jesus christ, and I thought Canadian healthcare was a shit show. From what I understand, lisdexafetamine (Vyanse) should also be covered by the NHS, though I’m not sure about what the requirements for generic brands are there. It’s much, much easier on you than something like concerts.
I want Vyvanse but cannot get it due to shortages, I know for a fact that amphetamines work well for me even mentioned it to my doctor that I’d tried them but alas. NHS is seemingly in a constant state of meltdown.
Also ADHD here, but perhaps a different blend? At any rate, I function 🤷♂️
Yeah I just about function, failed university and got kicked out but am able to hold down a job and pay rent thank fuck.
The piper is coming. No I’m not defending alcohol, but the level of drug addiction among our young people is shocking. The amount of digital addiction is shocking. I work in youth crisis so I am not talking on my ass, most young people are addicts now. So it’s all fun to talk down about boomers who drank but holy fuck is this generation ever screwed.
While what you seen is definitely real, it may not be as bad as what you see as you work in the field of youth crisis. You see it so often as that is your job and it can skew your findings to be more to the negative side as people that are not having those issues likely aren’t going to a youth crisis center and therefore are not around you. Again, it is very much a thing, but you do have some unintended bias as that is what you do for a living.
You are assuming that my experience is limited to youth crisis.
I have 11 years of experience working in addiction,… My response to your cynicism is this… You can only truly understand the scope of the greater issues on all levels … And with all generations, once you’ve worked in the field. And it helps to have lived experience.
Edit: oh yeah I know, I’ll up vote the uninformed opinion, and I’ll downvote the person who works in the field and is an educated and trained and expert /s
If it helps, I gave you both updoots because the discussion was enlightening and mostly productive. :)
Go to your settings > scroll down to “Show Scores” > uncheck all that shit. You don’t need it. It’s a vestigial dark pattern from commercial social media design to keep you checking how well your comments are “scoring” as if that made any sense.
It should never have been surfaced to frontend of Lemmy.
Having a coping mechanism because we are not hopeful about the future is standard from my experience
Truth.
And that’s why it’s really not a contest, and we must forgive our parents’ generation and a few going back from there.
Right? At least I can drink and work.
Wait…
I don’t want to have an automatic yeah no yeah no back and forth with you but… I suspect I’m much older than you and I can attest here that most people, even in professional roles, were hammered all day. They were as “functional” as this current generation is on ridiculous amounts of weed, psychedelics, and uppers… That is to say, not as functional as they could be. There’s no “what’s worse” contest here; the choice of drug doesn’t change the underlying issue. I’m a recovered addict and I work in the field of addiction so I’m speaking from the heart.
I just injected another marijuana in your honor good sir /s
And yet it didn’t make you funny, weird 🤷
Nope, everything else was though
Not all of them are even old enough to buy it yet.
That never stopped me, when I was a teenager.
You know what else we also didn’t poison ourselves with at anywhere NEARLY as high a level as boomers did? Lead.
Now we just consume lead trough plant based protein supplements
https://www.npr.org/2025/10/16/nx-s1-5576294/protein-powder-lead-consumer-reports
But that’s mostly because the US supplements industry is an unregulated disaster.
“trough”? That’s a new one to add to this thing:
English is a tough language. It can be mastered through thorough thought though, while you sit next to a trough.
That is still a very worrying sentence when the only safe level is 0
Safe level is zero but there’s a gradient of severity
of course. I’m alluding to the fact that while theres been a significant improvement, we still in many places consume worrying amounts of lead.
originally i wanted to write that we didn’t have lead exposure, but …
Flint Michigan. and that’s actually not even the worst municipal water system by far. That’s merely the one that got a little more publicity than most.
It’s nice that we don’t have fumes from leaded gasoline, generally speaking–that it’s no longer the standard and most household sector products that use fuel don’t take leaded gasoline.
Yep. I don’t hear many folks talk about Jackson, Mississippi’s lead water problem. You’d think that being the capital of Mississippi that it would be talked about more.
Older Millennial here, they are right, too bad people my age didn’t get the memo. Never understood, even back in school, why getting plastered is celebrated.
Because… well… points around in multiple directions
That’s not going to make anything better though. You’ll just go down a path of addiction and self-destruction. Plus it’s expensive.
Love a pint, personally. Drinking with friends trumps most other activities. Currently on my way to see The Prodigy with some old friends I’m meeting in Edinburgh. Looking forward to the pubs and merry laughs as much as the gig, in fact more so.
The main reason I’ve decided to abstain from alcohol is because I’ve seen first-hand what alcoholism does to a person. I’ve don’t want to end like my dad.
Same! I’m Gen-X and promised myself at age 4 when I witnessed my dad was always stumbling into the house drunk & ill & scary, I have no desire to put any poison into my body. Still never have and never will.
If alcohol guarantees death at 60 like my alcoholic narcissistic pos dad, I think I’ll just keep drinking. Other drugs too because I’m not a fucking square like he was :). If you have someone (even if it’s just you) to protect from yourself, I completely understand. edit: shit, if you have another good reason, that’s cool too. I’m drunk.
Yeah. I’m not a Boomer I’m GenX, but as I get older I come to realize - poisoning myself with alcohol is becoming more & more appealing. Life sucks.
Sadly, found out my niece has been getting blacked out drunk in college repeatedly. In one of the videos she showed me, she probably consumed more alcohol in a 5-second clip than I have in 2 years. Just a bottle of Tito’s, and she just chugged it.
We found better poisons.
Tide pods?
Too awful tasting.
Well… you would know
Sleep aids work but suck if you fail. That’s what I tried doing.
I stopped drinking against my will, and every day I open the news I wish to god I could pick it back up.
Not sure if boomers includes late forties but I quit drinking 4 or 5 years ago & went vegetarian.
Best decisions of my life after marriage & having kids.
Late forties is late gen x, a firm decade between you and the boomwrs
Damn, even gen X forgot about gen X
I’m gonna say it, alcohol and smoking is shit. Especially those who smoke you even smell like shit
As a millennial enjoying a cocktail right now, hey, you do you.
