The lead author of The Frontier Psychiatrists? Owen? He does not drink alcohol.
I never have. I say lead author like I have other people writing this too. I don't, not much. I’d love to have more. But, alas, much like “not drinking” as a young person, sometimes being a nerd means doing it alone.
That may still be true for my newsletter writing—but it does not have to be true to “not drinking alcohol.” Thank God for Curious Elixirs. This is not a paid advertisement—I love these beverages! The issue with “not drinking” is that booze-free outings are historically sugary. “Oh, have a soda instead.”
Soda suuuuucks. In that, sugar is poison. If you drink an additional soda per day at 150 kcal per can, you add 1 lb to your body weight per month if you change nothing else. It’s 12 lbs per year. Alcohol and mixed drinks are no caloric picnic either…in that they have the calories of a whole picnic:
I know, right? Keep in mind—that the size of the drink matters! 2.5oz for a chocolate martini at 418kcal? That compares poorly to a whole cheeseburger from McDonald's:
Drinking calories is vastly worse, on average, than eating them. This is true even when you are comparing sugary sodas vs the paragon of health food…jelly beans1:
Solid foods promote a feeling of fullness that we, as a species, are used to accounting for in our consumption. Given caloric-liquid is relatively modern, it may be that our satiety sensors are just not appropriately calibrated enough to keep up with Big Sugar Water.
This is a similar story to the one I told with my exploration of “Big Oats” (also owned by PepsiCo) in my Steel Cut Oats article. However, here, we also can reduce the risk from calories and sugar and, at the same time, replace alcohol consumption. That matters because alcohol is, how can I put this mildly, bad for you. Yes, I know, studies say. Except, they really don’t:
The relative risk of death goes up with drinking. Maybe…maybe 1-2 drinks is ok. Anything past one drink is not. If you can find me an alcohol enthusiast who just drinks one drink a day and also wouldn’t appreciate not having to walk three extra miles a day to make up for it, let me know2:
Each mile that a person walks burns roughly 100 calories. If a person was to commit to walking 4,500 extra steps per day, or roughly 3 extra miles, they would be burning an extra 300 calories a day (at least). Burning 300 calories each day leads to a weekly deficit of 2100 calories.
Drinking your calories is bad. It is worse as alcohol. It is worse for your quality of life if it is alcohol and you have a co-occurring anxiety disorder3:
Curious Elixirs are a low-calorie replacement for booze that I enjoy, and you can too. Even if you like drinking, inserting mocktails into the mix….get it…ugh…can improve health in your world.
Want to know more about addiction and its treatment? You Can Tomorrow! I am the Co-Chair for this meeting.
May 15-16, Miami Beach + Virtual
Join me as I proudly co-chair the Summit on Breakthrough Therapies for Addiction, taking place May 15-16 at Mount Sinai Medical Center Miami Beach and live-streamed online. We will share research and expertise on treatments like psychedelics, non-hallucinogenic compounds, interventional brain medicine, neuromodulation, VR, EMDR, GLP-1s, and more!
Use discount code OM15 for 15% off today by visiting https://bit.ly/3vgLlZy.GP
also…
Neurodiversity: A Conference for and About Doctors Who Think Differently (this is an affiliate link)
A Virtual Conference, on June 5-7th!
DiMeglio, D. P., & Mattes, R. D. (2000). Liquid versus solid carbohydrate: effects on food intake and body weight. International journal of obesity, 24(6), 794-800.
Li, T. K. (2008). Quantifying the risk for alcohol‐use and alcohol‐attributable health disorders: present findings and future research needs. Journal of gastroenterology and hepatology, 23, S2-S8
Luoto, K. E., Lindholm, L. H., Koivukangas, A., Lassila, A., Sintonen, H., Leinonen, E., & Kampman, O. (2021). Impact of comorbid alcohol use disorder on health-related quality of life among patients with depressive symptoms. Frontiers in psychiatry, 12, 688136.