Talk:Alcohol (drug)

"Abused" in lede

Since there's been some back and forth on whether to characterize alcohol as one of the most commonly used and abused substances in the lede, I figured I'd open a talk page discussion.

I feel it is WP:DUE to include "abused" in the lede. The objection that not all drinkers abuse alcohol is irrelevant, just as articles on cults and other fringe groups don't have to specify that not all people are members. The two statements are distinct; alcohol is one of the most commonly used substances, and alcohol is one of the most commonly abused substances. Both these are highly relevant. We could workshop some rephrasing if others would like, but the mention, supported by sources, should stay in the lede. EducatedRedneck (talk) 11:25, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for starting the talk page discussion. I felt it was an undue mention. Your analogy with fringe groups doesn't make sense to me. "All people" (with respect to fringe groups) is not analogous to "drinkers" (with respect to alcohol consumption); drinkers actively engage with the given thing (drinking alcohol) whereas a generic person would not engage with a fringe group. That the overwhelming majority of people who engage with alcohol by drinking do not abusively consume it is pretty significant. I also think that starting the lead off in a moralizing almost preachy tone by mentioning the abuse issue gives an unencyclopedic and activist vibe. Also note that similar articles about drugs e.g., Cocaine, Heroin, Meth do not do this in the first sentence. JDiala (talk) 12:18, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

I'll allow that the metaphor isn't the best one, so fair point. Though I also point out you write, a generic person would not engage with a fringe group, so it seems similarly assumed that a generic drinker would not abuse alcohol.

Please correct me if I misunderstand, but what I'm hearing is that the construction of the lede implies that use and abuse are very closely associated. (Beyond abusers having to be users, that is.) That is, it could be interpreted as, "Alcohol is the most commonly [used and abused] substance", where a user is implied to be an abuser. I can see that argument. Would a rephrase to, "Alcohol is one of the most commonly used and most frequently abused substances" be an improvement?

The other part I'm hearing from you is about the prominence of its abuse. I feel it's due because of two factors: 1) It being among the three most commonly abused is notable, 2) Unlike the other drugs you mention (which do mention their illegality in the lede), alcohol is legal, so "abuse" is the term which indicates social ills from its use. Illegal drugs are (rightly or wrongly) assumed to have social ills from their use by default.

Finally, I don't really see any moralizing or preachy tone in the lede; it's just describing what is. (Well, except for the fourth paragraph. But we can workshop that later, if desired.) I look forward to hearing more of your thoughts; I think there's definitely room to tweak things so we can all be happy (or all be equally unhappy!) with the article. EducatedRedneck (talk) 12:34, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

I think it is important for the phrasing to determine what proportion of people engage with alcohol by abusively consuming it. If it is not a majority, it probably isn't worth listing in the lead. That being said, there are a lot of games you can play with the fractions. For example, in Long-term_effects_of_alcohol#The_World, there is the calculation that ~2/3 of male drinkers and ~1/3 of female drinkers consume harmful amounts. And drinkers are by no means a 50/50 split by gender, they are heavily biased male, so it seems safe to conclude that at least a majority of current drinkers are consuming harmful amounts, globally. This is also backed up by the estimate that current drinkers consume an average of 40 grams a day. And then of course there is the WHO statement that no amount is safe, and the drugscience chart. So, I would be very comfortable with a lead like "Alcohol is one of the most widely used and most harmful psychoactive substances globally. Even low levels of consumption are now recognized as harmful and often constitute abuse." This does disagree from "popular" sentiment, but this is just because most current drinking guidelines have not been adjusted to reflect the risks of cancer and nobody reads the science. There have been some updates like the Canadian guidelines but they've been suppressed due to alcohol industry influence or whatever. Mathnerd314159 (talk) 02:27, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

Dry Drunk and Citations

Because an IP has twice removed the paragraph on "dry drunk", I figured I'd open a discussion here for it. The passage status-quo reads: Dry drunk is an expression coined by the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous that describes an alcoholic who no longer drinks but otherwise maintains the same behavior patterns of an alcoholic.

The IP has posted on one of their talk pages, The dry-drunk language of AA and the citations are fundamentally religious in nature and inappropriate for an encyclopedia. The citations used are from weak sources that have low bars to entry for their websites. Separately, they perpetuate harm by insinuating that quitting alcohol without AA is inappropriate.

The two references are WebMD, a notably secular source, and a published book. Neither of these appear to have any religious connection, and are completely appropriate. WebMD also seems like a decent source to me. I also don't see any way in which the wikitext insinuates that quitting alcohol without AA is inappropriate. I feel we should keep the passage as-written. EducatedRedneck (talk) 14:50, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

Seeing as it is an AA term, I think it is more appropriate to the alcoholism article. The issue is that the alcoholism section in this article has grown organically and is not properly summary-style. Mathnerd314159 (talk) 02:50, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

References

Bargirls

@94.255.152.53 is attempting to add a paragraph on bargirls to the section on alcohol risks. I feel this is not needed, as the only relevance is that proximity to alcohol increases risk in sexual encounters, which is already discussed elsewhere in the article. If anything, that's more about the connection between prostitution and health; the presence of alcohol seems to be only incidental. It may be worth adding a wikilink under the "Risky Sexual Behavior" setting which notes that prostitution is sometimes facilitated by settings which serve alcohol such as bars or nightclubs. This would allow a reader to go find out more without further bloating the article. What do others think? EducatedRedneck (talk) 00:06, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

In particular, the passage which was added about bars reads: These settings can contribute to increased risky sexual behaviors due to the influence of alcohol strikes me as WP:SYNTH. EducatedRedneck (talk) 00:10, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

This seems resolved. There is the quote "Studies suggest that the degree of alcoholic intoxication in young people directly correlates with the level of risky behavior, such as engaging in multiple sex partners." in the section and then the bar discussion later.

Probably the bar discussion would fit better under "Society and culture" than "Adverse effects" though - I would recommend moving it to the new article if you do the split. Mathnerd314159 (talk) 03:03, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback. I just want to point out that this is added under #Sexually_transmitted_infections_and_unintended_pregnancy which is a sub-section of #Social_issues, not #Adverse_effects. So it's part of: Draft:Alcohol and society --94.255.152.53 (talk) 01:13, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Moved the section on bargirls from #Sexually_transmitted_infections_and_unintended_pregnancy to #Occupational_risks because of its broader context. --94.255.152.53 (talk) 15:50, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

Proposed Split

The prose of the article is, by my count, 15,489 words, well over the 10,000 word recommended maximum in WP:SIZE. An IP has been very prolific in adding to the article with good content, so I don't feel a trim would solve the issue without hurting the encyclopedia. Per WP:SPLIT, splitting seems like a good option. I propose the Social Issues and Society and Culture be split into a new article, perhaps called "Alcohol and Society" or the like. EducatedRedneck (talk) 17:57, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

• Support as proposer. EducatedRedneck (talk) 17:57, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

Tentative Support There are already an astonishing number of articles on alcohol on Wikipedia, see Index of alcohol-related articles and Template:Alcohol and health (which that same IP has helpfully expanded). Not to mention the confusion about which article is the overview of the overviews - this page? Ethanol? Alcohol (chemistry)? Alcoholic beverage? I really think some tree shaking is needed to consolidate the articles along lines that make more sense. Probably some renames too, like I think at this point I would just rename Template:Alcohol and health to Template:Alcohol. That being said, I don't think the split you propose would make the situation significantly worse, and it would fill in a link for the "Social issues" item of the template, so I have no objections to it. Mathnerd314159 (talk) 01:55, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

I merged the "I think at this point I would just rename Template:Alcohol and health to Template:Alcohol..." discussion to Template_talk:Alcohol_and_health#rename. --94.255.152.53 (talk) 01:15, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Support: I have contributed 60% of the content for the current article, dedicating hundreds of hours to this effort, including the addition of all unique sub-sections. To better manage and track my contributions, I have created the proposed article: Draft:Alcohol and society. --94.255.152.53 (talk) 22:49, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Outstanding! Thank you, .53! I'll poke around in the draft, see if I can come up with an interim lede. Once it's in article space, I'll put some summaries in this main article with links to the new one. EducatedRedneck (talk) 14:55, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

Weak support it may be better to try to handle these topics together and in the same article as much as we can and that might mean doing a better job with a concise summary. But I also WP:AGF with the people working on this article that there is sufficient reliable material that this is really two topics and that the second topic can be presented neutrally without turning into some type of personal essay or WP:OR. Jorahm (talk) 20:26, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

Strong support to split out the Social Issues section and Strong oppose to split out Society and Culture per WP:PHARMOS. The social issues section is starting to overwhelm the rest of the article. The focus should be returned to issues directly relating to the drug. A lot of recently added content is off-topic to this article. Boghog (talk) 16:34, 7 November 2024 (UTC) The new article could be entitled Social impacts of alcohol use. Boghog (talk) 16:44, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

@Boghog May I ask for clarification on the oppose part? My guess is that Society and Culture is a heading listed in WP:PHARMOS, so a section with that title and content should be in the article. Would it not be acceptable to continue the split of both parts, and have a summary section here linking to that part in the new split article? Apologies if I've misunderstood you. EducatedRedneck (talk) 16:44, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

Yes, I think we are in agreement. I would support a merger of the two sections and splitting out most it to new article entitled Social impacts of alcohol use" or something similar with a {{main}} link left at the top of the Society and culture section. Boghog (talk) 16:57, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

@Boghog: We have started Draft:Alcohol and society (see above). It can modified/moved later. --94.255.152.53 (talk) 20:22, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

Support Certainly alcohol and society is notable enough to have an article covering it. Society and culture section should stay, and add template for main article. Slothwizard (talk) 05:23, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

Weak support articles of the form "X and Y" feel really close to WP:OR and personal essays to me but this is one exceptional case where there is clearly a lot of research about the social impact of alcohol. Jorahm (talk) 19:19, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

Off topic material

Hi 94.255.152.53. Thank you for your contributions. However I removed the material discussing the supportive function of gay bars from the article on alcohol because it veers off-topic. While it’s true that gay bars serve alcohol and often provide a supportive space for LGBTQ+ individuals, this aspect is more relevant in the context of articles on LGBTQ+ community spaces, gay bars specifically, or bar culture in general. Including details on the supportive environment of gay bars in an article about alcohol could mislead readers, implying that the primary focus of these bars is support rather than their role in alcohol service.

The article on alcohol is intended to cover topics like its cultural, economic, and physiological impacts, rather than delve into specific functions of establishments that serve alcohol unless these functions are directly tied to the consumption of alcohol itself. Detailing the supportive role of gay bars doesn’t contribute directly to an understanding of alcohol as a substance or its broader societal impact.

For these reasons, I suggest that material on the supportive aspects of gay bars be developed or discussed in articles where it’s more pertinent and meaningful to the subject matter, rather than in an article solely focused on alcohol. Cheers Boghog (talk) 16:01, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

@Boghog: I respect your concern so I added "Society and culture -> Usage -> LGBTQ culture": Alcohol_(drug)#LGBTQ_culture. The "Observers within the gay and medical..." paragraph mentions the term "alcohol" twice, so please do not remove it. --94.255.152.53 (talk) 21:06, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

I had not seen this message before reverting, but I don't think this was constructive. I think the content you added was still not about alcohol but more about gay bars. The content would be better fitted for this article. win8x (talking | spying) 21:10, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

@94.255.152.53 There were two edits. The first was to remove a paragraph that did not mention alcohol at all. That paragraph clearly does not belong in this article. The second edit removed material that only mentioned alcohol in passing and then goes off on tangents of other behavior not directly related to alcohol consumption. Please do not reinsert off-topic material. Thanks. Boghog (talk) 21:26, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

Solved. --94.255.152.53 (talk) 00:21, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

@94.255.152.53 The material you re-added remains somewhat off-topic and includes a medical claim lacking support from a reliable secondary source (such as a review article). As a result, I have replaced it with two paragraphs that discuss the relationship between alcohol consumption and HIV/AIDS, using WP:MEDRS-compliant secondary sources. This revision keeps the focus specifically on alcohol and removes mention of other risky behaviors. Boghog (talk) 04:13, 8 November 2024 (UTC)