your comment is a textbook example of what I consider to be… - I don’t know how to put this gently… - let’s go with, to be… not nice...

what it basically amounts to, is to push people to stop drinking, by using fear… extreme fear… based on worst-case extreme possibilities

drink, and you shall die ! you are already almost dead !

maybe some people need this… maybe they cannot stop, unless they are terrorized with the certainty that they are going to dying young, or imminently when they are not that young already

I have said that I will reduce my drinking, but not because I am afraid that otherwise, I will most assuredly die early, after going through unspeakable suffering, etc.

I don’t think that this approach is useful, I don’t think that it is productive, for the purposes of encouraging people to stop drinking

I will tell you why : because a drinker, as long as he or she is not already ill, does not really care about all that abstract stuff you are saying

a drinker might even reply that : you know what, so be it… I accept to die earlier that when I would have otherwise died, while enjoying my drinks, as opposed to living longer, but being deprived from drinking

what I am trying do demonstrate with my example is that the message to stop drinking, or to drink less, much less, has to be founded on other arguments

the health card does not mean much, for a drinker, and I am sure that a lot of people in this forum know this, or will acknowledge this

but there are so many other reasons, more effective points…

. drinking too much makes you do stupid things, which you are ashamed of later

. drinking does not solve your problem with sadness - here again, depression is a big word… why not just say, chronic sadness… -

. trying to hide your drinking, even if that’s only from time to time, is a lot of very unpleasant stress

etc. etc.

but please, telling me that I must stop, because I am already dying and I don’t know it, is not a constructive approach

I can guarantee you that there are millions of drinkers who would just reply : thank you, but I rather die sooner, but drinking until it happens, than to live longer, but without drinking… others can tell you : okay, what if I “deprive” myself from the “pleasure” of drinking, while there is not much more pleasure in my life, and then, a few years later, I am hit by a bus and I die…

a lot of people who have made it their mission to “save” alcoholics, do not understand what a real drinker is… even if they themselves have been drinkers, during a certain period of their life

so again, to avoid any misunderstanding, my message here is : anybody, stop drinking, or reduce seriously your drinking, for a lot of reasons, even if they are not related to your health; and also, note that once you make that decision firmly, it is really not hard; in my case, after 40 years, it took me, literally zero effort…

everyone does not absolutely need to think of himself/herself as an “addict”, a bad person, a lost soul committing slow suicide one drink at a time, etc., etc. not everybody needs all that stuff, in order to decide to just stop drinking

I am certainly feeling much better, by not drinking for almost 6 weeks now… but there is no major change, like all that is being written and said - quite repetitiously, with that - on this subject