HOW TO AVOID RISK AND DIE UNHAPPY

or How To Order A Second Pint And Stop Worrying

I bristled at the news.

“If you must drink at all, two drinks maximum each week is deemed low-risk.”

Two drinks a what now?

The Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction (CCSA) released a new report this past week that laid out in painful detail how drinking alcohol is not good for us. For lots of reasons.

I bristled but I understood. I want public health agencies to be killjoys.
That’s their job.

I appreciated the new information on how to reduce our health risks much more than I would have appreciated them saying something like, “Fuck it! Let’s all get honkered!”
No, that would be not what I want from a public health agency.

But I’m not going to lie to you… it stressed me out.

I like a pint. A glass of wine. A tipple. Sometimes all in the same evening.
I have rarely in my life gotten superduper drunk but it has happened.

Had I been secretly and slowly killing myself this whole time?

Well, yeah… maybe.

I’ve certainly regretted too many drinks the morning after a big night… but I’ve never regretted the companionship, laughter and joy that came with that same big night.

Do you need to drink alcohol to get that companionship, laughter, and joy?
No, of course not, but sometimes for some people they arrive together.

It deserves mentioning here that when talking about alcohol, for some people the risk far far outweighs the reward and it just ain’t worth it.
I respect that.
That’s a decision made after calculating the risk. Smart.

Living is a risk.

That’s not me saying “Fuck it! Let’s all get honkered!”
Absolutely not.
That’s me saying, everything in life is a risk, the best you can do is try to only take calculated risks.

Calculate risks are, I think, our best choice for living a life that has reward.

Crossing the street is a risk…
so we don’t cross it all willy nilly. We look out for cars, cross at crosswalks, and wait for the lights to change.
Otherwise we never get across the street.

Going to the grocery store is a risk….
most fatal traffic accidents happen within 40km (25 miles) of your home.
So we wear seatbelts, obey traffic signs and laws, and drive defensively.
Otherwise we never get those cursed and delicious peanut butter pretzels that are probably killing us as well.

Applying for a job.
Asking someone out on a date.
Posting your latest pic on social media.

Living is a risk.

We cannot avoid risk entirely.
Doing nothing in an attempt to remove risk from life leads to atrophy of muscle and mind.
I mean, even if we tried to do nothing and entirely avoid risk, time would laugh at us and we’d still die anyway.

We choose to take risks we feel have a worthwhile reward.
If we’re smart, we try to stick to calculated risks.
Those risks that we’ve thought through and entered into with our eyes wide open.

I’m thankful for the CCSA’s new report.
Will it stop me from ordering a second pint?
Maybe… and that’s probably a good thing.
But I’m not going to overthink it.
I’ve got the knowledge from them now to hopefully make better choices and take better calculated risks, but I won’t stress over it.
Stress is a health risk too.
I’d like to live to enjoy many more pints.

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(Pictured: Author enjoys pint number unknown at Charles Dickens’ local - note: Dickens was not there and rumoured to be dead)