Your Alcohol Use

Please consider if your alcohol use (including moderate alcohol use) could be influencing you and/or your impact on others in the direction of some of the following

• Slower reflexes / reduced skill increasing the risk of injury to yourself and others if driving, etc.
• Risk of underestimating the impact your level of alcohol consumption could have, including on your ability to drive well.
• Harmful interaction of alcohol with some medications (interactions which you might not know about or remember).
• Influencing habits of drinking that can persist and be difficult to overcome including when driving is anticipated, if pregnant, and/or if taking medication that could harmfully interact with alcohol.
• If/when an unexpected need for transportation arises, inconvenience/expense (forgoing transportation or the delay and expense of a taxi) or creating the risk of injury to yourself and others if you drive.
• Somewhat impaired decision making, increasing the likelihood of making harmful decisions (including to drive, to continue drinking, to be less respectful, and others).
• After taking your first drink, sometimes continued drinking and drunkenness.
• The risk of it later leading to occasions of heavy drinking and/or regular heavy drinking – with the influences of that including on families and children.
• Being an influence towards other people drinking due to other people feeling more awkward about not drinking because you are drinking (instead of being someone who isn’t drinking prompting others to feel more comfortable about not drinking), some of whom might be driving, pregnant, under legal age, taking medication with harmful interaction with alcohol, disrespectful to family members and others under the influence of alcohol, in a situation in which even slightly compromised decision making could be harmful to them/others, prone to eventually having occasions of heavy drinking and/or regular heavy drinking, or currently prone to continued drinking till drunkenness after taking their first drink.
• Becoming accustomed to alcohol as a way to relax or have fun making it harder to relax or have fun without it.
• Risk of a child drinking alcohol if alcohol is present in the home.
• Wasting money (on alcohol as well as on spending while influenced by it).
• Diverting society’s resources into alcohol production and distribution away from other possible uses.
• Possibly modeling to an extent something that some people could apply to taking street drugs (taking a substance to make one feel better for a short time, to fit in with a group, etc.).
• Supporting an attitude and approach of doing what is most comfortable/etc. for you in the moment as long as it wouldn’t be terrible, rather than working to maximize positive changes within you and to maximize your positive impact/influence.
• Cancer and other health risks.
  From Stanford University
  "Alcohol consumption and your health: What the science says." Standford Medicine, https://med.stanford.edu/news/insights/2025/08/alcohol-consumption-and-your-health--what-the-science-says.html, 19 Aug. 2025
  From Johns Hopkins Bloomburg School of Public Health
  "For Better Health, Drink Less Alcohol." Johns Hopkins Bloomburg School of Public Health, https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2025/the-health-risks-of-drinking-alcohol, 18 Nov. 2025
  From the Office of the U.S. Surgeon General
  "Alcohol and Cancer Risk: The U.S. Surgeon General Advisory." Office of the U.S. Surgeon General, https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/oash-alcohol-cancer-risk.pdf, 2025

Regarding some studies that might indicate that people who drink in moderation have, on average, better heart health than people who don't drink at all,

• Some people who don’t currently drink at all stopped drinking due to health problems, in some cases health problems caused by previous drinking. That situation could account for correlation between not currently drinking at all and increased health problems.
• Due to social/culture related reasons people with laid-back personalities might on average be more likely to drink moderately than to be non-drinkers, with it being the laid-back personality that influences both good hearth health and, in the current culture, moderate alcohol consumption.
• In the current culture some people could tend to drink alcohol while “kicking back and relaxing” and/or socializing (having a beer at a BBQ). It could be “kicking back and relaxing” and socializing (the BBQ, not the beer) that influences good heart health.
• Due to social/culture related reasons construction workers might on average be more likely to drink moderately than to be non-drinkers. Construction workers get a lot of exercise from their occupations influencing good heart health.
• The health benefits of substances in grapes (especially purple grapes) and products made from them. While they are present in wine, they are also present in grapes and grape juice. (National Library of Medicine articles:
  https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8567006/
  https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4553113/
  https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4690071/)
  The health benefits of substances in grapes (especially purple grapes) and products made from them. While they are present in wine, they are also present in grapes and grape juice. (National Library of Medicine articles:
  https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/​articles/​PMC8567006/
  https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/​articles/​PMC4553113/
  https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/​articles/​PMC4690071/)
• Other possibilities related to details of the study / how it was done.

To emphasize one effect of moderate alcohol consumption, it can influence other people to drink,