8 Brutal Truths About Quitting Alcohol

:-(

Rather smoke zol and play guitar.

Sustainable, transcendent, no hangover, no aggression, no car accidents, no families destroyed...and no embarrassing texts to exes at 4am.

and no embarrassing texts to exes at 4am

I knew you were texting Hollie, you bastard.

No embarrassing texts?

You're smoking some weak weed, Plum.

I recently reduced my alcohol intake to a single glass of wine with my dinner. I've since halved that to a glass every second day.

I've lost weight, I sleep better and I'm feeling better about myself.

The alcohol industry has criticized the research, which found that even light drinking increases the risk of premature death.

Listen · 5:56 min

Credit...Cedric Angeles for The New York Times

By Roni Caryn Rabin

June 9, 2026

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A government alcohol study published on Tuesday concluded that the health risks of alcohol start at a single drink a day. The report was caught up in controversy after drawing the ire of the alcohol industry.

At one drink a day, the researchers found, there was an increased risk of premature death from an illness or injury directly attributable to alcohol, though it was small — one in 1,000 people. But the risk of premature death jumped to one in 25 for those who had two drinks a day, a level long considered safe for men, according to the study, which was published in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs.

The Alcohol Intake and Health Study was one of two reports commissioned during the Biden administration to inform an update to the U.S. dietary guidelines.

The second report, from a panel appointed by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, or NASEM, came to very different conclusions. It suggested that moderate drinking (up to two drinks a day for men and one for women) was healthier than not drinking at all, although it noted that moderate drinking was also linked to a higher breast cancer risk. Some of the panelists behind that report had financial ties to the alcohol industry.

The second report’s finding was more palatable to the alcohol industry, which had called the Alcohol Intake and Health Study ideologically driven and scientifically flawed, and said it had communicated its concerns repeatedly to government officials over a period of several years.

When the Trump administration finally issued the new dietary guidelines in January, they advised Americans to drink less for better health but omitted any recommendation for daily limits, in a departure from previous years.

“The new dietary guidelines say that consuming less is better for your health, but don’t say what consuming less means,” said Priscilla Martinez-Matyszczyk, one of the authors of the new paper and the deputy scientific director of the alcohol research group at the nonprofit Public Health Institute. “This paper does, and it says that having no more than one drink a day is best for health, and that drinking above that comes with significant risks.”

A standard drink is defined as 12 fluid ounces of regular beer, 5 ounces of wine or 1.5 ounces of distilled spirits.

In an editorial accompanying the new paper, Robert M. Vincent, the former government official who commissioned the study, said he believed he was fired because the report produced evidence “at odds with commercial interests.” Mr. Vincent lost his job as associate administrator for alcohol prevention and treatment policy at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration during a reduction in force last year.

“It was going to cost the alcohol industry money,” Mr. Vincent said. “They didn’t like going from two to one for men, and they didn’t like the mention of cancer.”

But ultimately, Mr. Vincent wrote, the findings were sidelined and dissemination of the paper was stalled. The authors of the study decided to publish a version of their research independently in a peer-reviewed journal.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Human Services did not respond to a request for comment about Mr. Vincent’s statement about his firing, but said that “any characterization that the study was ‘shelved’ is inaccurate.”

The new study, which relied exclusively on U.S. health data, assessed relationships between average alcohol consumption and the risk of disease or death from causes that were directly attributed to drinking.

Women who had one drink a day were more likely to die of liver cancer or breast cancer than women who did not drink. And at one drink a day, both men and women were at increased risk of dying from liver cirrhosis, oral and esophageal cancers and injuries, the paper found. The risks continued to climb with higher levels of consumption.

Consuming more than one drink per occasion was associated with progressively higher risks of breast cancer, cardiovascular disease and injury.

The report did find that one drink a day was associated with a lower risk of diabetes for women and a lowered risk of stroke for both men and women. However, occasional heavy drinking nullified the protective effects against stroke.

One reason the studies reached such different conclusions is that while the new study examined deaths from causes directly attributable to alcohol, the NASEM report commissioned by Congress looked at overall death rates of moderate drinkers, including deaths not causally related to alcohol.

Critics of the NASEM report say that people who drink in moderation often have other healthy lifestyle habits that contribute to their longevity. The moderate drinking group also included many people who consumed less than two drinks a day. Both of these factors could make the health effects of moderate drinking look less significant than they might be.

Dr. Ned Calonge, an epidemiologist at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus who led the NASEM study, said he stood by its conclusions.

“Alcohol research is complex and I am not surprised by different methods producing different results,” Dr. Calonge said, adding that modeling studies like the Alcohol Intake and Health Study, which use data to estimate the lifetime risk of diseases and deaths caused by alcohol, also come with potential biases.

At the same time, he added “I don’t believe anyone should start drinking for health reasons.”

From the comments

1. C
2. Christi Terry
3. Salt Lake City
4. For health reasons I try not to drink during the week and will have a drink or two on the weekends. I’d like to know how much sporadic light drinking impacts risk. Maybe it’s worse? The enzymes that metabolize alcohol are induced with regular consumption. Maybe drinking when enzyme levels are low makes it worse?
5. Roni Rabin
6. Health reporter
7. @Christi Terry This study looked at number of drinks per week and found risks increased with the number per week. But the number of drinks per-occasion also increases risk (so don't make up for your alcohol-free weekdays on the weekend, in other words)
8. D
9. dave
10. nc
11. Been traveling around Spain the past two weeks and, like most Europeans, they drink beer and wine often but I have yet to see anyone inebriated. I saw the same thing in Japan. I have seen more NA beer offerings than in years past but overall alcohol consumption and its potential effects on longevity are something that do not seem to be on their radar.
12. Roni Rabin
13. Health reporter

Smoking weed on a regular basis is not good for you either. It holds you back and is mind-altering.

Sooner rather than later, it turns into a strong addiction.

You teetotaling Bob?

..., no hangover, no aggression, no car accidents, no families destroyed...and no embarrassing texts to exes at 4am.

Most alcohol users don't have any of these issues...too much af anything is bad for you...

I'll watch the vid the weekend.

Great stuff, Rooi. You appear to be on a good trajectory, and I'm happy for you.

"I knew you were texting Hollie, you bastard."

Text her. You know you want to. Break the bro code. See if I care. Just don't come crying to me when you catch her in the sack with the hunchback of no-true-shame.

I never drink anymore. Long ago, it became a habit. 1 beer often leads to 2 and so on. Better not to drink at all. In the last 10 years, I dont even keep alcohol in my house.

I drink only low calorie light beer these days...and less so as time goes by, but IDK if I would like to quit altogether... it's good for you in moderation... we'll see...

Well, people drink alcohol or smoke a joint after work or whenever to relax. That's the idea. But then it becomes a habit.

Then after that, it can slip over into addiction, before you realize it. You get used to the substance. It turns into a crutch.

So when you finish work or come home from a outing, you can't wait to have that beer or that joint.

I think it becomes a way to negate things inside yourself, like frustration, emotions etc...without dealing with them naturally.

Instead of just working it out in your own mind, or going for a walk, or watching some sport or movie etc...

Never drink alone, never drink because you feel defeated…..rarely have more than one drink, have weeks where you don’t drink at all, don’t have the habit of drinking every day….drink when the moment is right.

Then it’s part of the great ritual of life… a Dover sole with a Cloudy Bay white….a wagyu steak with an Amerone, the red that never misses, a Vin de Constance with your panna cotta. Or hell, all three, but rarely.

If booze tasted like chocolate milkshake I'd be in serious trouble.

Better…..a Talisker 25 vs a chocolate milkshake….no contest. Especially if you have a chocolate Neapolitan between sips.

haha i don't even know what that is, Moz!

The elixir of the gods Plum!

"If booze tasted like chocolate milkshake I'd be in serious trouble."

I only have an occasional chocolate or ice cream (like a king cone)... that's the only sugar I consume...It was difficult to kick the sugar habit, but now I'll gag if I have to drink coffee with sugar in it ...

I'm pretty sure sugar consumption is way worse for you than moderate alcohol consumption....and don't get me going on energy drinks ...

I wish I could quit sugar.

...and vaping!

"...and vaping!"

Try nicotine pouches, like Zyn or XQS.

I found vaping harsher on my lungs than cigarettes. The pouches work for me.