1351: Alcohol | Skeptical Sunday

1351: Alcohol | Skeptical Sunday

This transcript is yet untouched by human hands. Please proceed with caution as we sort through what the robots have given us. We appreciate your patience!

Jordan Harbinger: [00:00:00] Welcome to Skeptical Sunday. I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger. Today I'm here with Skeptical Sunday co-host, writer, and researcher Jessica Wynn. On The Jordan Harbinger Show, we decode the stories, secrets, and skills of the world's most fascinating people and turn their wisdom into practical advice that you can use to impact your own life and those around you.

Our mission is to help you become a better informed, more critical thinker. During the week, we have long-form conversations with a variety of amazing folks, from spies to CEOs, athletes, authors, thinkers, performers. On Sundays, it's Skeptical Sunday. A rotating guest co-host and I are going to break down a topic you may have never thought about and debunk common misconceptions about that topic, such as the death industry, astrology, recycling, hypnosis, Reiki healing, the lottery, and more.

And if you're new to the show or you want to tell your friends about the show, I suggest our episode starter packs. These are collections of some of our favorite episodes on persuasion, negotiation, psychology, disinformation, junk science, crime and cults, and more. That'll help new listeners get a taste of everything we do here on the [00:01:00] show.

Just visit jordanharbinger.com/start or search for us in your Spotify app to get started. Now, t- t- before we get started today, Jess, you got stung by a stingray? I mean, are y- I, I don't even... I only know one very well-known instance of that happening, and it was horrible, right? Steve Irwin. So this is not that because you're alive and well.

Jessica Wynn: I'm alive and well. It was in my heel. So I stepped on the guy, and he, rightfully so, attacked me, I guess. I will say if- I don't recommend it. Right. Wow. Um, it's really the most painful thing, and there's just-

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah ...

Jessica Wynn: nothing you can do for hours. Like, that venom, it goes all over your body, and it's this, like, really intense pain.

And it's scary because I was surfing, so you, you just fall in the water.

Oh, so you just, like, collapsed. He's- so he wasn't on the beach and you're just walking. He was in the water. You stepped on it.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, I was out surfing and just, uh, yeah. Who, who know? I never saw it, but it's been so warm this year that there's...

I've seen a lot of stingrays out. I [00:02:00] definitely try to avoid them, but he got me, and then you have to get out of the water, get your surfboard out of the water. The only thing you can really do is soak it in hot water, but you're on the beach. So- Right.

Jessica Wynn: So good luck finding hot water ...

the lifeguard was like, "It'll take me about 45 minutes to bring boiling water."

I said, "Well, that's not going to help."

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. "Thanks. I'll just sit here and writhing in agony until then."

Yeah, I mean, there's really nothing else you can do but writhe in agony and try not to embarrass yourself in front of all the hot surfers in Southern California. People were really concerned. People knew.

Jessica Wynn: Yeah.

And yeah, so I guess there's still barb in my heel. I have to go to the doctor after this.

Jordan Harbinger: Sheesh. Okay, so when they sting you, it's not like a jellyfish, right, where it just delivers venom to your skin and there's nothing... So you're saying there's a what, like a, a bone barb?

Jessica Wynn: Yes. There's a huge puncture wound in my heel.

Jordan Harbinger: Like, it was really deep.

Jessica Wynn: Ooh, ouch.

Yes. So getting a wetsuit off, never [00:03:00] comfortable, but very uncomfortable when you're-

Jordan Harbinger: Oh my God, I didn't even think about that. It's like, "Depending on your budget, slice this thing off of me- ... and I'll get another one."

Jessica Wynn: And I, I've been sober so long, but now I really would like some alcohol too.

I don't blame you. Yeah. Hey, like, "Hey, it'll take me 45 minutes to get boiling water to you. How long until you can get me some whiskey, though?"

Jordan Harbinger: Every- Everybody's just handing you a shot.

Jessica Wynn: Yeah. Yeah. What's in that tower there, bucko? Yeah, that's, um, that's kind of terrifying. So was it... Well, you didn't see it. I, I don't know.

Jordan Harbinger: Was it a big one or a small one?

Jessica Wynn: I'm going to guess it was A pretty big one based on the look of the puncture. But the weird thing, I mean, they're in sandy beaches, you see them, but I was at this beach in SoCal called San Onofre, which is very rocky. And so you don't really think of stingrays being there. So I think, you know, he was just camouflaged in the rocks.

Jordan Harbinger: I know you're not a marine biologist or whatever, but w- how come I ... I can't remember where I went. I think it was Cayman Islands or something.

Jessica Wynn: I've been there. Stingray City.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, and you jump off the boat onto, like, [00:04:00] this big sandbar, and they're floating around, and they're, they're touching you, and they're like, "Pick one up."

And you're like, "Okay, this seems like a bad i-" I didn't want to do that. One, I'm scared to do that, but two, I'm like, I'm pretty sure they don't like that even if it's, quote-unquote, "safe." I feel like that's just a dick move. It's like those people who ride elephants. They're like, "It's fine." I'm like, "Eh, I don't think so."

You know? So I, I won't do stuff like that. I don't like to do things like that. Anyway, my friends were all picking these things up, and the guides were just like, "No, it's totally fine to pick them up." And I'm just like, "Really? Like, noth- how ... Has anything ever happened?" "No, nothing has ever happened." I'm like, I don't want to be the first guy who gets stung in the, through the eye socket by one of these things.

Or is that a different kind of stingray, and they can't do anything to you? Or, I, m- it's, I think it's called a manta ray, right? It's maybe they don't even sting. I don't know.

Jessica Wynn: No, because I remember I've been to that spot in the Caymans, and you can't wear, you know, water shoes or anything because you have to shuffle on the sand, because that's what really scares them and makes them sting.

But those guys were huge.

Jordan Harbinger: Imagine holding a gigantic serving plate full of [00:05:00] hors d'oeuvres or something like that. You need both hands. They're fully outstretched. You're gripping the ends of the plate, and the other end of the plate is propped against your chest. That's how big these stingrays are. So I'm not picking that thing up.

I don't care if they're friendly or used to humans or, like, what ... I just don't, I think that's a ridiculous thing to, to do. Especially now you're saying, oh, you don't want to step on them, because that's a pr- picking them up seems like you could get one in a bad mood, and you FAFO, right? You find out. You fart around and find out.

Really fast.

Jessica Wynn: Yeah. Yeah. And I'm just thinking there's no way this guy's really telling me the truth when he's like, "Nothing has ever happened here." I'm like, "Uh, I don't believe you."

Yeah, I don't know how they domesticate them like that or get them used to humans. It- does seem insane. Well, I was there, I, I think it was just, like, a few weeks before the Steve Irwin tragedy too.

Jordan Harbinger: Oh, yeah. So I don't, I don't think I would've picked them up had that -

Jessica Wynn: That's true ...

Jordan Harbinger: episode happened ... this was

Jessica Wynn: years before the Steve Irwin thing, and I was still like, "Yeah, no, they call them stingrays. I'm not pulling this thing out of the water to take a freaking photo." [00:06:00] "Dorks." No.

I would say the one that got me was probably maybe half that size, if I could guess.

So still big, but-

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah ...

not insane.

Jessica Wynn: Merely the size of a medium size or large size pizza instead of a m- gigantic party size pizza. Yeah.

Right.

Jordan Harbinger: Holy smokes.

Jessica Wynn: And it happens fast. Oh, my gosh. But if anybody's in Southern California, with the water temperature, I've seen some great whites recently- No, thanks

Jordan Harbinger: coming really-

I'm

good ... really close to surfers. Um-

Yeah. No.

Yeah.

No, gracias. I see those videos where someone's about to go off the boat, and they put their mask in the water or something like that to, like, look through and make sure it's sealed, and then they pop right back up really fast, and you see this great white kind of, like, hanging out, looking.

Nowadays, it's hard to tell if that's just AI, and this was somebody testing their mask, and there was no shark there. And someone's like, "Oh, let me put a shark there and make it look like you got scared." I don't even believe my own lying eyes anymore. But yeah, I just, the, all that sea stuff, I'm like, "Leave the animals alone, man.

No, thank you."

Jessica Wynn: Yeah, the other [00:07:00] interesting thing I'm learning is a lot of seals, there's so many seals in SoCal, and they will try and jump on your board, and they'll kind of chase you around. But you have to really be mean to them because they're really running from their predators, so you don't want to help them or get them out because it usually means a shark is really close by if they're trying to get on your surfboard.

Jordan Harbinger: So they're trying to get on your surfboard, and you're like, "No, I'd rather you die because if I don't do this, the shark is going to- Then I'll die ... bite both of us off this board." Oh, great.

Jessica Wynn: Sorry.

Yeah, that's kind of sad but also understandable. I don't know.

Surfing is stressful.

Jordan Harbinger: It doesn't sound like something that would be relaxing for me.

Um- ... my policy is to stay out of the water. I prefer to stay on the boat. I'm good. So yeah, it does sound like maybe you could use a drink or at least throw one on your heel and disinfect that thing. Oh,

Jessica Wynn: man, it would be nice.

Jordan Harbinger: Are you walking around, or are you like, "Yeah, no, I'm staying off that foot because I got a arrowhead in it"?

Jessica Wynn: It was really sore, and then I [00:08:00] went for a bike ride yesterday, and it became pretty apparent something was horribly wrong.

Jordan Harbinger: Oh, my gosh.

Jessica Wynn: So

yeah.

Yeah. I think there's just barb in my foot I have to get removed, so.

Jordan Harbinger: You should ask if you can see what was in there. I'm one of those guys who's like, "If I ever get anything stuck in my body, shrapnel, a bul- Oh, I want to keep it

Jessica Wynn: I'm like, I want to keep it. Yeah.

Yeah, me too. Me too.

Jordan Harbinger: If I get barbed with a stingray, it's like, you're not just going to throw that away. No, sir. That's going in one of those little vials that I can keep on a shelf in the studio somewhere or make a necklace out of. I don't know.

Jessica Wynn: I know. I wish I could catch the jerk, but.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. Well, I mean, you know, uh, for me, I'm kind of like, "Well, you did step on it. It's not his fault." All right. Speaking of drinks, on Skeptical Sunday, we're breaking down alcohol. You don't have to go far to find a drink these days. Bars, bodegas, grocery stores, airports, airplanes, sporting events, funerals apparently, maybe for Irish people, I don't know, and baby showers for some reason.

It's everywhere. It's the only drug that's woven into nearly every ritual of Western adult life, and it works. It changes your behavior. That's [00:09:00] not controversial. In fact, that's kind of the point. But the more you drink, the less flattering those changes get. So what exactly are we doing to our bodies and to our brains?

Why is this one substance not just accepted and tolerated, but basically expected? And when something is this normalized, who benefits? To unpack the chemistry behind your happy hour is writer and researcher Jessica Wynn. So Jess, should we all, I don't know, grab a drink for this conversation? Sounds like it might be kind of heavy.

Jessica Wynn: You might go either way with this one, but I'll have to pass. I haven't had a drink in years. But let me ask you something. Imagine a world where alcohol doesn't exist, and then some company walks into the FDA with a brand-new recreational drug. They say it's highly addictive. It's a Group 1 carcinogen, same category as asbestos.

It'll kill about two and a half million people globally each year. It'll play a role in nearly half of all violent crimes in the United States, 37% of sexual assaults [00:10:00] for the general population, a whopping 90% on college campuses, and will cause over 12,000 traffic deaths annually. Oh, and it can cause severe fetal development disorders.

And we'd like to sell it everywhere: airports, stadiums, corner stores, gas stations. There'll be bright packaging, great branding, sexy ads. You know, do you think that drug gets approved?

Jordan Harbinger: That drug doesn't even get past the receptionist, I hope.

Jessica Wynn: But here we are. That drug exists. You can buy it right now.

Jordan Harbinger: Okay.

Jessica Wynn: Most people have some in their fridge or on their shelf, and almost no one questions it.

Jordan Harbinger: Man, all right, slow down, because I think a lot of people, including people who drink regularly, don't actually know what alcohol is, maybe in, like, a, the medical sense.

Jessica Wynn: Right. Absolutely. You know, strip away the vineyard story and the craft brewery branding, and what you're ingesting is ethanol.

It's a psychoactive central nervous system depressant, and it's toxic to every organ [00:11:00] system in the body, and it's classified by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, which is part of the WHO, as a Group 1 carcinogen, which means there's sufficient evidence that it causes cancer in humans. Not might cause, causes.

Jordan Harbinger: Group one, so top shelf danger.

Jessica Wynn: Yeah, top shelf, right. Asbestos is group one, plutonium is group one. Oh my God.

Jordan Harbinger: Okay.

Jessica Wynn: And alcohol is group one, and most people just have no idea.

Jordan Harbinger: I want to be clear here, 'becausea lot of people are like, "Oh, this is a political thing." We're not talking about the Schedule 1 drugs, where somebody in the government is like, "Marijuana is as harmful as heroin because reasons."

This is a medical term, right? Where they're like, "Here's the harm it causes," and the most harm is caused by plutonium, asbestos, and alcohol, among other substances.

Jessica Wynn: Correct. Yeah, this is just scientific classification.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, because when I first heard that, I was like, "Ah, somebody just put that in there for a poli-" And then I was like, oh, wait, that's not the same thing [00:12:00] as Schedule 1, Schedule 2, where, like, th- because LSD, I think, was or is Schedule 1, and it's like, yeah, you could probably take a little bit of that every day and you'd just be a hippie.

And I say a little bit because sh- you, you don't want to take too many mushrooms or LSD. That can, that does work on your brain. By the way, not a doctor. I feel like I need to say that in every episode, but especially right now in this one. So okay, if I told someone there was asbestos in my kitchen cabinets, and, you know, help yourself, the dinner party ends pretty quickly, I think.

So, but somehow this is the thing that you bring to dinner to share with everyone, right? Imagine bringing a plate of asbestos for everybody to dig into.

Right.

Sheesh.

Jessica Wynn: And that gap between what the science says and what people believe, it's not an accident.

Jordan Harbinger: Do you think people were deliberately taught to see alcohol differently than the evidence supports?

Jessica Wynn: Yes, definitely. Okay. And the result is that drinkers are exposing themselves to at least seven different cancers with every sip.

Jordan Harbinger: Lucky number seven. Okay.

Jessica Wynn: Lucky seven, right. I mean, and that's at [00:13:00] minimum. So there's mouth, throat, esophagus, liver, colon, rectum, and breast cancer. And the breast cancer link in particular is one of the most well-established causal relationships in cancer epidemiology, and one of the least talked about.

Jordan Harbinger: When you say causal relationship, what are we talking about? Like, those people who drink a fifth of vodka every day, kind of consumers?

Jessica Wynn: Unfortunately not. The cancer risk starts rising with any consumption. So there's no threshold where it drops to zero. In 2023, the WHO finally stated this clearly. There is no safe level of alcohol consumption when it comes to cancer risk.

Jordan Harbinger: No safe level. That

is not how this has been marketed to us at all. Yeah. Wow.

Jessica Wynn: No, and most people are convinced of the narrative that a glass of red wine is basically preventative medicine.

Jordan Harbinger: I can't tell [00:14:00] you how many times I've heard, like, "Wine is good for your he- your heart. It's, it's got resveratrol in it," or whatever.

I'm probably mispronouncing that because I'm going off memory, but it's like, oh, you... Look at the French. They smoke and they drink, and it's because the wine, the red wine has this magical ingredient in it that you can buy on Amazon in a pill.

Jessica Wynn: That's just part of alcohol's armor, right? I mean, you can't- Mm-hmm

criticize it without immediately hearing, you know, "It's cultural. It's tradition. Those French are doing great."

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. It's cultural and it's tradition. It's like, oh, you mean like stoning people who've been sexually assaulted? Yes. That's also cultural. Correct. Do we want to lean into that too? Uh, I don't know.

Yeah, the French don't do that, by the way. For those of you... I'm not confused there. I'm bringing up a- Anymore. Anymore, correct. Yes. They burn people at the stake, or am I out of date here? Yeah. The, the, but the French always win these kinds of arguments, right? Smoking, butter, wine.

Jessica Wynn: Yeah. And look, that cultural history is real.

Humans have been fermenting things for at least 10,000 [00:15:00] years. Alcohol is thought to be the very first recipe. So it shows up in ancient religious rituals, early medicine, in literally every civilization we know, but it was really to, because we couldn't drink the dirty water, you know?

Jordan Harbinger: Alcohol, the only Group 1 carcinogen you're expected to bring to a baby shower.

We'll be right back This episode is sponsored in part by Revolve Man. I've never been a guy who spends hours shopping for clothes, but I do like looking like I have my life together. That's why I've been shopping at Revolve Man. Revolve Man is stocked with elevated essentials and trend-forward styles from brands like Salomon.

One of my favorite shirts right now is actually a Salomon shirt I picked up there, and a bunch of other brands that strike the balance between looking sharp and not trying too hard, which is never a good look on a 46-year-old man. What I really like is how curated the site feels. Instead of getting lost in thousands of products, you find one thing you like, and Revolve Man shows you the entire look styled together.

Before our trip to China, I jumped into their curated summer section looking for pieces that would work in hot weather. [00:16:00] Within minutes, I had a few lightweight options picked out. New arrivals drop twice a week, so there's always something fresh. And with free two-day shipping, next-day options, and easy returns, the whole experience is about as painless as shopping can be.

Whether it's a big night out, a wedding trip, or you just need something last minute that actually works, Revolve Man always has it. Go to revolve.com/jordan to shop and use code JORDAN for 15% off your order. Free two-day shipping, easy returns. It just makes everything easier. That's revolve.com/jordan. Use code JORDAN for 15% off your entire order.

Offer ends soon. Don't sleep on it. This episode is also sponsored by Wayfair. An outdoor space only becomes part of your home when it's somewhere you actually want to spend time. Speaking from personal experience, before we upgraded ours, the backyard was mostly just space. Without a comfortable setup, there wasn't really a natural place to sit with a coffee in the morning, unwind after dinner, or hang out while the kids played.

That changed when we added some outdoor seating, an outdoor rug, and a few patio decor pieces from Wayfair. It completely transformed the space. Now it's one of our favorite spots to spend time as a family. The kids run around while we sit and talk. We found ourselves eating outside far more often than we did before.

In fact, we're about to do the same thing for my in-laws. [00:17:00] They've been making do with older hand-me-down furniture for years, so we're helping them create a backyard they'll actually enjoy spending time in with a full setup from Wayfair. What I love is that Wayfair has everything in one place. With over 20 million five-star reviews, plus Wayfair Verified, you can shop with confidence knowing products have been thoroughly vetted for quality and functionality.

Patio season is here, and these deals won't last. Head to wayfair.com right now to get your outdoor space ready for way less. That's W-A-Y-F-A-I-R.com. Wayfair,

every style, every home.

Don't forget about our newsletter, Wee Bit Wiser. It is a practical read, under two minutes just about every Wednesday, with a little bit of wisdom from a past episode from us to you.

Very practical, something you could apply right away.

Jordanharbinger.com/news is where you can find it. Now, back to Skeptical Sunday.

I'm sure it was also an accident, right? You'd pick a bunch of fruit, you'd leave it in some sort of stone bowl, and then later on you're like, "Ah, I forgot I put this in here."

And you're like, "Dang, bro, what is going on in, with this?" And look, I discovered alcohol for myself as a kid because it was [00:18:00] probably, like, November or December, and I was playing in the basement. My parents never went down there, but we had a second refrigerator down there, like one of those 1950s fridges that my parents had, for whatever reason, kept, and it was, like, from, from when my dad was a kid.

Probably used more power than every other item in the house put together. But anyway, they, they bought apple cider. I loved apple cider. And since it was these huge jugs, they kept, I don't know, one or two jugs in the fridge upstairs, and then they're like, "Oh, let's put this third jug in the basement with all the pop," which is what we call soda in Michigan.

And I found this jug of unopened apple cider in, you know, around Christmastime maybe. And I remember it was all puffy, and the, the little dent in the jug that's supposed to keep the shape of the jug, that thing was popped out. And I was like, "Whoa, this is crazy." So I opened it, and it went pssh. Right? That, that sound you get when you open a two-liter bottle of Coke, and I was like, "What's that?"

So of course I took a sip, and it was carbonated, and I was like, "Whoa," and it had bite. And I drank the entire [00:19:00] jug- Oh my God ... in basically one sitting while playing LEGOs, and my parents, later on they were like, "You know, come up for dinner." And I came up, th- and they were like, "What the hell is wrong with you?"

And I was like, "I don't know. Whatever." And they're like, my dad's like, "Were you drinking my beer?" And I was like, "No." And he's like, "Let me smell your breath." And he's like, "It doesn't smell like beer. It smells like apples." And I was like, "I told you, I drank cider." And my parents went and got the empty jug, and they sniffed it, and they were like, "Oh my God, dude, I think this fermented and Jordan drank it."

And I was like, "Yeah, I drank the whole thing."

Wow.

And I was probably, like, 12 or 11 years old, right? So I drank a gallon of fermented, to a certain point, like, lightly fermented enough to be carbonated cider. So of course ancient man finds this and is like, "All right. We've got to make more of this." because I was like, "Mom, can you buy more cider?"

And she was like, "Absolutely not. I know what you're thinking. We are not doing this."

Jessica Wynn: Yeah, you couldn't stop. That's really funny. In nature there's been studies where somewhere out in the Sahara or something, [00:20:00] there's two watering holes, and one will be really full, and the other one will be really depleted, have very little water.

But all these animals are around the one with minimal liquid, and they realize, oh, that's the one closest to a fruit tree. So the fruit's falling in that puddle and fermenting, and the animals are like, "Hell yeah, we'd rather fight for this than..."

It's funny you mentioned that. I was looking at some documentary the other day, and I had to ChatGPT this because I saw, I think it was, like, there were lions, I think, drinking at the same watering hole at the exact same time as, I don't know, gazelles or one of those thi- And I was like, "Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

Jordan Harbinger: This thing spends the whole day running away from lions because it will get murdered, and here it is with its kids, and the lion's like, 'Hey, man. Good morning.'" You know? And they're just drinking fr- And it's like they just sort of have, like, a pause in hostilities because they're like, "Everybody's got to have a drink in the morning."

"Got to be nice at the bar."

Jessica Wynn: That's right. So it's kind of like, "Oh, you know what? We're all having our morning tipple," uh, as the [00:21:00] Brits call it. And so yeah, they're just, like, you kind of have this image in your h- Disney image in your head of a gazelle with its arm around the lion being like, "And then I says to him," you know?

Like, as they're drinking smashed-up, uh, fermented fig water in the middle of the desert.

Why can't we just be friends?

That's right.

You know, I, I've been running and running and running, and I thought to myself Why don't we get to know each other

a little bit? Yeah, um, the thing is, this shows up, like you said, in early medicine rituals, whatever, but that's not a health argument, you know?

Jordan Harbinger: Right, of course. I mean, ancient societies also didn't have germ theory or whatever, you know? I mean, they used mercury as medicine. Oh,

Jessica Wynn: yeah, that's a good point. Here, drink some of this quicksilver.

Jordan Harbinger: Right, exactly. So longevity of use tells you something became cultural, not that it's safe.

Jessica Wynn: It's kind of like cigarettes, right?

Jordan Harbinger: Like, your throat hurts? You know what? Have a Marlboro. My- this is my cigarette of choice when my throat hurts. Yeah, leaded gasoline, also part of American culture. We did not keep it because [00:22:00] of tradition.

Right, and when people say alcohol is part of our culture, what they're really repeating, whether they know it or not, is the narrative a $2 trillion industry has spent enormous time and resources embedding into the public consciousness.

Jessica Wynn: Yeah, so we've been led to believe moderate drinking is heart-healthy. How many articles were there in the early aughts about the benefits of red wine? And even I remember Tim Ferriss being like, "Yeah, I drink a bottle of red wine every day," or something. And sorry, Tim, if I'm getting that wrong, but, you know, it was like, oh, there's resveratrol in it, and he wrote about that, I think, in The 4-Hour Chef, and it just...

Jordan Harbinger: Is that all just made up?

It's not entirely made up, but it's been heavily distorted. The original studies had major methodological flaws. The biggest is what's called the sick quitter problem. So when researchers compared moderate drinkers to non-drinkers, the non-drinker group often [00:23:00] included people who had already stopped drinking because of health problems.

Jessica Wynn: Oh, okay, so the non-drinker group sometimes included people whose doctor basically said, "You need to stop drinking immediately because you're going to die."

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, exactly, which can make moderate drinkers look artificially healthier by comparison. And once you control for that, the cardiovascular benefit of moderate drinking, it just completely disappears.

Jessica Wynn: And when researchers use stronger methods like Mendelian randomization, which uses genetics to stimulate randomized trials, the cardiovascular benefit claims were substantially weakened, and the protective effect essentially just vanished. And those studies have been available for years, slowly shifting the scientific consensus towards no safe level.

So if the science has shifted, why are people still being told red wine is good for them?

Jordan Harbinger: Because it's more appealing. You know, ongoing studies try really hard to find [00:24:00] some signal there's reduced heart disease with low-level consumption, so it's technically not fully debunked. Studies that suggest harm don't get the same attention or the same funding, and really, it's more fun to bring a flask of wine to your kid's soccer game, right, and just be normal.

Jessica Wynn: That's a bit much, but, uh, well, okay. I'm sure it's done regularly. I wonder who benefits from the whole wine is medicine story. I mean, this really does, now that you mention it, remind me of how cigarettes were just like, you know, "Nine out of 10 doctors recommend Winstons."

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, of course. I mean, we know who benefits, right?

Jessica Wynn: Yeah, but we treat alcohol companies very differently than we treat tobacco or pharmaceuticals, even though the harm profile clearly overlaps.

Right. I mean, it's a staggering double standard. So the global alcohol industry is worth roughly $2 trillion. It's heavily lobbied and has used, you know, very deliberately and with remarkable precision, the same [00:25:00] playbook as big tobacco.

The same playbook, so literally the same tactics and everything?

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, literally. It's the same PR firms, the same consultants, same strategies When the tobacco industry was under pressure in the '70s and '80s, they funded favorable research. They created doubt about scientific consensus, they lobbied aggressively against warning labels, and invented the concept of what was called personal responsibility as a regulatory shield.

Jessica Wynn: So every single one of those tactics has been used by the alcohol industry.

Drink responsibly, everyone.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, right? That phrase was invented by the alcohol industry. It wasn't a public health message, it was a legal strategy. So it shifts the blame to the consumer. So if something goes wrong, it's your failure, not the predictable result of a highly addictive product being aggressively marketed.

Jessica Wynn: You know, it's one of the most successful PR moves in [00:26:00] modern corporate history, because it puts the liability on the drinker and removes the manufacturer from the conversation. They're not going to pay your DUI fines.

Jordan Harbinger: Right. That is genuinely enraging. I mean, we've all said it. They got us to be the spokespeople.

Right. I mean, that's how effective it is, and the industry also funds a significant amount of its own research. So there's a well-documented pattern of industry-funded alcohol studies producing more favorable conclusions, and the studies that generated the moderate drinking health narrative were just disproportionately funded by the industry or by foundations with industry ties.

Jessica Wynn: So the research that told us wine was good for our hearts w- was-

Jordan Harbinger: It was paid for by the people selling the wine.

Jessica Wynn: Right. Okay.

Jordan Harbinger: And there was a spectacular case in 2018 where the NIH, the National Institutes of Health, they shut down a major clinical trial [00:27:00] on drinking because industry representatives had been involved in the design of the study and in recruiting industry funding for it.

Jessica Wynn: That's not how science is supposed to work.

Jordan Harbinger: Agreed. That sounds less like scientific research and more like branding, and the branding wasn't neutral, right? A- alcohol companies, they targeted women very deliberately.

Jessica Wynn: Right, and this is the story I think most people are genuinely unaware of, and it's one of the clearest examples of that deliberate market expansion.

So starting in the 1990s, alcohol companies made a strategic push towards women. Wine, in particular, was positioned as sophisticated, empowering, even a form of self-care. There was a messaging shift, right? Girls' night, mommy juice, rosé all day, all those things.

All of which sound like the title of a WhatsApp friend-

Jordan Harbinger: chat, group chat, right? Right.

Exactly.

Jessica Wynn: But came from marketing departments. And by the way, y'all, I just texted Tim to check on that, and he's like, "No, that would not be [00:28:00] me because you'd need to drink dozens of bottles of wine to get the needed trans-resveratrol, I think." And so that's, ba- basically he make the same point that we're making.

Jordan Harbinger: Exactly. Yeah. There's always a kernel of truth, right?

Jessica Wynn: Right. Yeah.

Jordan Harbinger: But those mantras and phrases and things, they were engineered. The wine mom cultural phenomenon, it didn't organically emerge, right? It was built, and it worked. Drinking rates among women rose, especially middle-aged women. At the same time, alcohol-related liver disease and deaths among women increased.

Jessica Wynn: And layered on top of that is the breast cancer link.

Jordan Harbinger: Right, which is definitely worth repeating. So it's one of the most well-established causal relationships in cancer research. Among women, the more alcohol consumed, the higher risk of breast cancer. So this isn't a fringe finding. It's been replicated across hundreds of studies that focus on women.

Jessica Wynn: I know men can get breast cancer too, but the studies I came across were just looking at [00:29:00] women in multiple countries over decades. And for years, this finding exists alongside marketing telling women that, you know, it's wine o'clock somewhere.

Yeah, man. Uh, that's just... It's dark, and the industry knows.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, and the evidence has been available for a long time, and there were documented efforts to challenge, discredit, or bury this breast cancer link, very similar to how Big Tobacco handled lung cancer research.

Jessica Wynn: But the marketing can still happen because they put warning labels on bottles, like, "Don't drink if you're pregnant," "Don't drink and drive," and you see the signs of those little symbols at the liquor store sometimes.

Jordan Harbinger: I know. And in the US, those labels haven't been updated in at least 35 years, since, uh, 1988. There's no mention of cancer anywhere on the alcohol warning labels.

Jessica Wynn: So we update our iPhones every year, but not alcohol warnings since I was in elementary school.

Jordan Harbinger: Right. And during that time, the evidence linking alcohol to cancer, it's only [00:30:00] strengthened, and the industry has consistently lobbied against adding cancer warnings to labels.

Jessica Wynn: Poison the consumer. Yeah, that's a solid business model, actually, in 2026 and for the last couple hundred years.

Jordan Harbinger: Right? I mean, it's more accurate than people want to admit. You know, the alcohol industry depends on addiction. A relatively small percentage of consumers account for a huge share of sales. So roughly the top 10% of drinkers consume over 60% of the alcohol.

Jessica Wynn: The exact figures vary by data set and country, but they all land between 10 and 20%. So the business model depends on heavy drinkers, many of whom have alcohol use disorder, or AUD, which is the medical term for problematic or compulsive drinking. Most people would call it alcoholism.

So your best customers are the people struggling the most.

Jordan Harbinger: So when they say [00:31:00] drink responsibly, they mean, well, not too responsibly.

Jessica Wynn: Right. Exactly. I mean, it's a deeply hypocritical slogan built into the system, and the industry studies heavy drinkers. They understand and design products around what drives consumption: pricing, packaging, and marketing.

Jordan Harbinger: All right, so what does alcohol actually do to your brain?

Because I think most people, they think it relaxes you, and if you overdo it, you get sloppy, but, you know, what else?

Yeah, I mean, that's the surface version. But alcohol primarily acts on GABA receptors, which are the brain's main inhibitory neurotransmitter system. So it's basically the brake pedal for anxiety and stress response, and alcohol enhances that effect, which is why people feel calmer at first.

Jessica Wynn: But it also affects dopamine, which is our reward system, and over time, it disrupts the brain's ability to regulate stress on its own. So [00:32:00] what happens with chronic drinking is that your baseline anxiety increases and natural dopamine response decreases, and people start needing alcohol just to feel normal.

You know, the brain literally reorganizes around alcohol.

So the thing marketed as stress relief becomes stress maintenance.

Jordan Harbinger: For many people, yeah. I mean, there's another piece people don't realize, which is our sleep. So alcohol knocks you out. But it suppresses REM sleep, which is the stage tied to emotional processing and memory consolidation.

Jessica Wynn: So you may wake up thinking you slept, but neurologically, you did not get restorative sleep.

So tonight's nightcap is stealing tomorrow's sanity.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. And over time, this is linked to higher rates of depression, anxiety disorders, and significantly elevated suicide risk. So alcohol becomes the coping tool and the accelerant.

Jessica Wynn: That sounds like the thing people use to [00:33:00] manage stress s- it just, just slowly becomes the reason that they are stressed.

Jordan Harbinger: Right. I mean, it is. And the particularly cruel part is that the people most vulnerable to this neurological hijacking are often already under stress. They have, you know, trauma history, financial instability, and untreated mental health conditions.

Jessica Wynn: Yeah, that's a brutal feedback loop. So what does treatment look like? Because drinking is everywhere, so where's recovery?

Jordan Harbinger: It's pretty bleak. So tens of millions of Americans meet criteria for alcohol use disorder, but only a small fraction receive treatment, and there are real barriers. There's stigma, there's cost, there's lack of trained providers.

Jessica Wynn: There's also, I mean, drinking is everywhere, so nobody really thinks they have a problem, and there's also a genuine shortage of treatment options that work.

Nothing says wellness culture like poisoning yourself out of a novelty glass that says Mommy Juice. We'll be right [00:34:00] back

Jordan Harbinger: This episode is sponsored in part by Progressive. Do you ever think about switching insurance companies to see if you could save some cash? Progressive makes it easy. Just drop in some details about yourself and see if you're eligible to save money when you bundle your home and auto policies. The process only takes minutes, and it could mean hundreds more in your pocket.

Visit progressive.com after this episode to see if you could save. Progressive casualty insurance company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states. This episode is sponsored in part by Quilt Mind. If you're running a business, you're building a career, you're trying to stay relevant in your industry, LinkedIn is not optional anymore.

It's where decision-makers hang out, not just recruiters and hiring managers, but investors, collaborators, potential clients. And whether you realize it or not, they are checking you out, and that's why I've been working with Quilt Mind. For me, it wasn't just about chasing likes or building a huge audience.

It was about making the right people take me seriously and getting noticed. LinkedIn has become a kind of professional billboard. And if, if you're not actively shaping how you show up there, you're leaving some opportunity on the table, really. Quilt Mind makes it ridiculously simple. We talk for 30 [00:35:00] minutes a week.

They pull out stories, insights, stuff I didn't even think was post-worthy, turn it into smart, strategic content that actually sounds like me. And the ROI, i- it's real. I've had speaking invites, partnerships start just because somebody saw a post and thought like, "Oh, this guy's not a dumbass." You don't need 50,000 followers.

You just need a smart strategy and someone to execute it for you. Hit up jordanaudience@quiltmind.com to get started. If you're on Reddit, join us on the Jordan Harbinger subreddit. We discuss the episodes, the ideas from the show, the show in general, and there's some dank memes in there as well. If you're a Redditor, come join

us on the Jordan Harbinger subreddit.

Now, back to Skeptical Sunday.

I for sure drank too much in my 20s, like way too much, because my friends were doing it. And I didn't even really like it most of the time, but then it was like, "Oh, okay, well, if we're all going to go out to this place that I hate, I'm just going to get really drunk," and like, "Why not?"

And then you're kind of like, "Hey, Jordan. Oh my God, bro, you fell asleep in the pool chair last night." And you're like, "Ah, ha ha ha," and you're not like, "Hey, that's a huge red flag that I have a problem with [00:36:00] alcohol." And like, your buddy falls asleep and like pukes or something in the kitchen, and you're like, "Whatever," you know, because you're stupid and 25.

And you don't think like, "Hey, he's done that every single weekend once or twice. That's not good." You're just like, "Eh, everybody's doing..." You know, it's just so dumb. It's like if you're around probably people who are shooting up heroin all the time. You're like, "Well, you know, whatever, these people are all fine."

It's like every... It's like if e- because you get up and go to work the next day. You're like, "It can't be that bad," right?

There's always somebody that seems worse than you, too.

Jessica Wynn: Yes.

Jordan Harbinger: You know?

Jessica Wynn: Oh, that's a good point, right. Yeah, like, "Oh man, Tom, he's kind of an alcoholic. Yeah, he did fall off the balcony and break his leg, and he's back drinking in his wheelchair today."

Jordan Harbinger: And you're like, "Oh yeah, he's, he's a little bit of a mess." And as you say that as you, like, are doing your 21 shots because it's your birthday- Exactly ... and you're projectile vomiting and having to go get your stomach pumped, and you're like, "Whatever, it's my birthday."

I'm not Tom.

Jessica Wynn: Yeah. At least I'm not Tom. I didn't get injured this time.

Okay, so you mentioned there's a genuine shortage of [00:37:00] treatment options that work. So what treatment options are there? I, I just figure there's tons of stuff. I don't pay attention to this.

Nobody really pays attention to it, but there are FDA-approved medications, like naltrexone. That's shown to significantly reduce cravings and relapse rates, but most primary care doctors, they just never prescribe it, and most patients never know it exists.

Jordan Harbinger: How honest are you with your doctor about your alcohol, you know?

Sure.

Jessica Wynn: Naltrexone does have hepatotoxicity risks at higher doses and may not be great for your liver, which is a bummer, but naltrexone and another called acamprosate are FDA approved. They're clinically proven and dramatically under-prescribed for alcohol use disorder.

Jordan Harbinger: Okay, so we have the tools, but we don't use them, I guess. And meanwhile, the industry spends billions of dollars making sure people encounter alcohol constantly.

I mean, constantly, and that's the inverse, right? Billions spent to start the problem, pennies spent [00:38:00] to solve it.

Jessica Wynn: And just to underline what we said earlier, we're structuring entire social lives around something that increases cancer risk at all levels of consumption.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, that's not to be debated. So the Global Burden of Disease studies consistently rank alcohol among the leading risk factors for death and disability worldwide, especially for people between 15 and 49.

Jessica Wynn: And meanwhile, every major celebration in society is basically sponsored by it: New Year's Eve, weddings, sports, office parties.

Happy hour, just, just being done work, right? But we built social life around a substance that public health researchers consistently rank as extraordinarily harmful, but it's really fun. So that contradiction has become so normalized, most people barely notice it.

Jordan Harbinger: I want to talk about fetal alcohol syndrome because I feel like we know the name, and then we just kind of move on.

Jessica Wynn: What, what are we actually talking about?

Right, so that, there is [00:39:00] a warning on the label, but if you're not pregnant, you're not seeing it, right? So fetal alcohol spectrum disorders, or FASD, are entirely preventable and vastly under-diagnosed. So they're caused by alcohol exposure during pregnancy, and they result in a range of physical, cognitive, and behavioral disabilities that last a lifetime.

So a 2018 JAMA study across US communities found 1.1 to 5% of first graders have FASD.

Oh my God.

Jordan Harbinger: It's a lot. And the CDC estimates FASD affects about 2 to 5% of school-age children in the US. So this makes it one of the most common causes of intellectual disability, and it's entirely preventable, yet we rarely see it discussed in the context of alcohol's overall harm profile.

Jessica Wynn: Then we look at these children, and often we just give them more [00:40:00] drugs to fix- Right. Yeah ... their problems, you know?

Jordan Harbinger: But this, well, that certainly complicates the whole glass of wine is self-care for moms narrative, eh?

I, yeah, I know. And it would put enormous pressure on the industry to be clearer about the risks during pregnancy, but they just fight against it.

My mom talks about when she was pregnant with me, she's like, "I didn't drink anything." And I'm like, "Yeah, okay. Thank you. Duh." And she's like, "No, you don't get it. Pretty much everyone thought that having wine or something like that when you were pregnant was totally fine."

Was totally fine. If you have the craving, just have it.

Jessica Wynn: Yeah.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah.

Crazy.

I don't know. Maybe if you have a glass here and there, I don't really know. It seems like probably a bad idea. But yeah, I think other people just kept on drinking like they always did, because they were like, "Whatever."

And smoking, too.

Jessica Wynn: Oh, and smoking. I mean, yeah. Right. Yeah. My mom was not a smoker, but a lot of her friends were, and they smoked when they were pregnant.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, it's crazy. So let's talk about violence, because I think this is the part that gets almost completely disconnected from the alcohol conversation in public discourse.

Yeah, that's another remarkable disconnection. So alcohol is a [00:41:00] factor in roughly 40 to 60% of violent crimes in the United States, depending on which study you look at.

Jessica Wynn: It's present in a significant proportion of sexual assaults. It's involved in about 13,000 traffic fatalities every year. I mean, these are enormous numbers.

Jordan Harbinger: Wow, 13,000 traffic fatalities. So if a car company's engineering defect caused 13,000 traffic fatalities, there would- you'd have congressional hearings every week.

I mean, you wouldn't be- Yeah, that would never stand.

Jessica Wynn: Right, and that's the accountability gap I find most revealing. So think about how we've treated other industries whose products contribute to mass harm. Tobacco, there was litigation, and settlements, and massive restrictions. With, like, opioid manufacturers, there was litigation.

Jordan Harbinger: There were criminal convictions with that. I mean, with firearms, there's an ongoing fierce debate about liability. Remember when we were kids, and they banned lawn darts [00:42:00] because one kid died you know?

Jessica Wynn: I mean. Kind of, yeah. I, I don't remember if they banned it, but yeah, I remember talking about these.

There's things like that, but alcohol, essentially nothing, and the industry has achieved, you know, near total insulation from accountability for the downstream harms of their product.

Jordan Harbinger: How?

Jessica Wynn: So through the personal responsibility doctrine, primarily. If someone drinks and drives, that's their crime, their fault, their moral failure.

The company that produced the product, marketed it, and successfully lobbied against things like ignition interlocks and stricter alcohol liability laws, they're just absent from the conversation once you get busted.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, of course, and who bears the cost? Like, you know, who actually absorbs the damage from alcohol-related violence?

Jessica Wynn: Yeah, mostly lower income communities and women are disproportionately affected. So domestic violence has one of the strongest alcohol correlations of any form of [00:43:00] violence. That harm falls primarily on women and children, and traffic fatalities from drunk driving disproportionately kill people in areas with fewer public transit options, lower income, maybe more rural and less served.

But the people who profit most from alcohol's cultural ubiquity are not the same people absorbing its worst harms.

Jordan Harbinger: When you line it up like that, it is really hard to argue that this is just a lifestyle choice with some downsides, right? Like vaping or something. We've talked about lives. What about money?

Because in America, nothing gets attention until there's a dollar sign attached to it.

Right. So the economic cost of excessive alcohol use in the United States is about 350 to $380 billion annually. Think of healthcare, lost productivity, criminal justice, and property damage. All of that gets factored in, and that doesn't even begin to [00:44:00] capture the intergenerational costs.

Jessica Wynn: You know, children growing up in homes destabilized by alcohol abuse, educational disruption, and just long-term health burdens.

So we privatize the profit and socialize the damage. I feel like I've heard this kind of thing happening all over the place.

Jordan Harbinger: I mean, that's exactly what's happening.

Jessica Wynn: And I think that connects to something bigger that gets overlooked.

People talk about drinking like it exists in some pure vacuum of personal choice, but alcohol is really built into the architecture of modern social life. You don't just choose alcohol, you kind of inherit a world organized around it. You didn't opt into that, it was just there when you arrived.

Jordan Harbinger: Right.

Jessica Wynn: And there was a sociologist, Ray Oldenburg, he wrote about what he calls third places, which are social spaces outside of home and work where people, you know, casually gather and build community, like coffee shops, parks, libraries, barber shops, whatever. Places where [00:45:00] conversation, familiarity, and human connection happen without much pressure or obligation.

Historically, bars and taverns were one version of that, but in many modern cities or even small towns, with the erosion of truly public spaces, bars and alcohol-centered venues, they've become the dominant version.

Jordan Harbinger: Because we defunded everything else.

Yeah. I mean, community centers, public parks, and civic spaces, they've just atrophied or been privatized.

So what's left in a lot of cities is the bar, and bars work financially because they sell alcohol. So the price of admission to communal social life in many places is essentially alcohol consumption.

Jessica Wynn: And if you don't drink, you kind of, you're out on the social life. I mean, look, yes, you can just go out and not drink, but it's not that simple kind of sometimes.

Right. I mean, and if you don't drink, you have to declare it. You have to explain yourself. You know, [00:46:00] "I don't drink" is a statement that in many social contexts requires justification. You're asked why. People assume you're in recovery or... I mean, I go out a lot, and when I say I don't want to drink, it's always jokes like, "Oh, are you pregnant?"

Jordan Harbinger: Or you know, "Do you have some health issue?" The fact that you might just not want to consume a carcinogen doesn't read as a normal explanation.

Jessica Wynn: Which is genuinely insane when you think about it. You don't have to explain why you don't smoke cigarettes at a party. Why aren't you smoking? Nobody asks that unless you just quit last week and somebody's confused.

Right, right. And tobacco only got to that place through decades of public health pressure, lawsuits, and cultural backlash. Alcohol just hasn't had that moment yet, and class changes the whole picture, too. So for wealthy people, drinking gets framed as sophisticated and curated with, you know, wine tastings and mixology or [00:47:00] craft brewery tours.

Jordan Harbinger: So those are leisure activities for people with disposable income. For poorer communities, the consequences from addiction to alcohol-related deaths, they tend to land harder and stay visible longer.

Jessica Wynn: So here's something I know is going to happen after this episode airs. People are going to be defensive, right?

And not just reflexively. People who are genuinely smart and thoughtful are going to push back. Why is this topic so resistant to the kind of scrutiny we apply to other health issues?

Jordan Harbinger: Well, I think a few things are happening at once, and one is identity. So people don't just drink, they see themselves as wine people or beer people or cocktail enthusiasts.

So criticizing alcohol feels strangely personal, like you're criticizing them, their taste, their social life, their whole identity. And the industry has spent decades deliberately building that association.

Jessica Wynn: And once people identify with the product, they [00:48:00] start defending it instinctively. So this is how smokers reacted when smoking sections started disappearing, and they had to go outside to have a cigarette.

It, it stopped feeling like a health issue, and it kind of felt like somebody attacking their lifestyle.

Oh, man. I mean, smokers were so offended. Yeah. Like, right, when all of a sudden you couldn't smoke in bars. I actually, this is so gross, but right when that was happening, I had just started bartending at a place.

And I look back on that, and before we made people go outside to smoke, ashtrays were all over bars, and I think about how we would take those ashtrays and just put them in the same dishwasher as the glassware and stuff. Just, it was so normalized. Now we would just, oh, that grosses everybody out, but yeah.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah.

But, I mean, it points to another thing is just the autonomy piece of all of this. So we live in a culture that places tremendous value on personal choice, and because alcohol [00:49:00] is legal and socially accepted, any conversation about its harms immediately gets framed as paternalistic, like someone's trying to tell you how to live.

Jessica Wynn: The industry has encouraged that framing very effectively. So any health warning or regulation, this conversation you and I are having, it's just all painted as an infringement on one's rights.

Even though the industry is also telling you how to live by telling you to drink more.

Right, exactly. That my freedom argument is conveniently invoked against public health but never against marketing.

You know, nobody says, "I resent being told by a Super Bowl ad that beer will make me attractive and fun." So alcohol's like the only drug where not using it requires that explanation, and that's deeply revealing about how thoroughly the industry has captured culture. So non-drinking is treated as the, like, deviant choice.

And if this [00:50:00] conversation makes some listeners defensive, I genuinely invite them to sit with that defensiveness and just ask yourself, you know, where does it come from? Is it from my considered reflection on alcohol's place in my life, or is it from decades of very effective messaging telling me my identity and social belonging just depend on consuming this product?

Jordan Harbinger: And just to head this off, this is not an argument for prohibition, right? We tried that. It went terribly.

Jessica Wynn: Right. I mean, prohibition failed for a lot of complex social and political reasons, but people hear alcohol causes harm and immediately jump to, "Oh, so you want to ban it." And no, you know, public health policy is not just ban or don't ban.

Jordan Harbinger: There's a whole spectrum in between, like warning labels, taxation, and marketing restrictions. We already accept those tools for cigarettes.

Jessica Wynn: It seems alcohol and your terrible sister-in-law are proof that with the right positioning, even the [00:51:00] most toxic things can still get invited to a wedding. We'll be right back.

Thank you so much for listening to the show. Your support of our sponsors keeps us going. All of the deals, discount codes, and ways to support the show are searchable and clickable on the website at jordanharbinger.com/deals.

Now for the rest of Skeptical Sunday

So we need to be asking whether the policies in place match the concern and real harm that products are causing.

Jordan Harbinger: And it turns out warning labels actually work. So just this week, studies were published that find people are much more likely to rethink their drinking when labels explicitly mention cancer risk instead of the tiny generic warning, you know, that our driving might be impaired, that we don't even really notice on the packaging.

Jessica Wynn: Outta sight, outta mind, I suppose. Nobody wants that reminder when they're just having a drink at happy hour. And the companies don't want to remind their customers either, obviously.

Oh, yeah. And you can even see the economic protectionism [00:52:00] happening in real time. So the logic gets inconsistent really fast.

If we look at just hemp-derived THC drinks, you know, states like Texas and Kentucky, they've pushed crackdowns on those products while alcohol remains widely protected and normalized. So some alcohol industry groups have openly lobbied against hemp beverages because they see them as competition and a threat because younger consumers, they are drinking way less alcohol.

Jordan Harbinger: Huh. So suddenly public health concerns about THC show up the minute somebody threatens, I don't know, beer sales or whatever.

Jessica Wynn: Right. Yeah. Which tells you these debates are never just about health. They're about culture, profit, and which industries have political protection, which in this case, it's the alcohol lobby.

So let's zoom out to policy that actually seems to work because I don't want this whole episode to just be us angrily staring at a bottle of Pinot Grigio. Right. So do other countries have a different approach?

It's difficult, [00:53:00] but Scotland is probably the best case study and the clearest example. So in 2018, Scotland introduced minimum unit pricing for alcohol, basically setting a floor so the cheapest, strongest products couldn't be sold at rock bottom prices.

Jordan Harbinger: The policy was aimed mostly at reducing heavy drinking, especially among the people at highest risk, like alcoholics and people in poverty, and it worked. Alcohol-related deaths in Scotland fell following the policy. Hospitalizations fell. The effects were most pronounced among the heaviest drinkers, you know, the people most at risk.

Jessica Wynn: It's amazing.

Is anything like that happening here in the US?

Well, alcohol taxes in the United States have not kept pace with inflation in most states, so the effective tax on alcohol has actually fallen in real terms, meaning it's become cheaper relative to income over time, and the industry lobbies very effectively against [00:54:00] any increase.

Jordan Harbinger: So no, I guess is the answer. It's not happening in the US. But meanwhile, we have strong evidence that price is one of the most effective levers for reducing alcohol-related harm.

Jessica Wynn: Which is interesting because when people don't want us to use something, cigarettes, certain drugs, the tax and the price go way up.

Jordan Harbinger: But for alcohol, somehow the logic reverses?

Jessica Wynn: Yeah. I mean, I think the tax on Sugary drinks, like soda, uh, is higher, but, you know, the difference is the lobbying power and some cultural power. So, the alcohol industry is woven into agriculture, into hospitality, into local economies, into political donations in ways that create enormous resistance to any regulatory action.

How would you compare alcohol's harm profile to substances that are illegal or treated as social emergencies?

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, I mean, there's been academic work ranking drugs by harm, both harm to the individual user and then [00:55:00] harm to others. Alcohol consistently ranks at or near the top of harm to other measures, above many illegal drugs.

Jessica Wynn: It ranks above cannabis, above MDMA, above LSD, above most things we treat as these serious social problems. So, the legal status of a substance in the United States has very little to do with its actual harm profile, and very much to do with its cultural and economic embeddedness.

Jordan Harbinger: So we are, as a society, having the wrong conversation.

Yeah, we're having the conversation the industry prefers, which is not about alcohol's harm profile. It's about personal responsibility, cultural heritage, and, you know, don't tell me what to do.

Right. Is anything changing? Because I've noticed anecdotally, at least, that there's more conversation about this than there used to be.

Jessica Wynn: Y- y- you mentioned this, that, that Gen Z drinks less. It does feel like the conversation is different than even 10 years ago, [00:56:00] and I know there's sober bars now, not that I've ever been to one. In, in fact, I've... I don't even, couldn't even name where... It, it sounds fake to me. That's like a tobacco-free cigar lounge.

Jordan Harbinger: I don't even understand. W- I guess they just make mocktails or something there.

Jessica Wynn: Yeah, overpriced juice, I think.

Yeah, really. Well, it's probably safer, but yeah.

Right. But something real is happening. I mean, younger people are drinking significantly less than previous generations did at the same age, and I mean about 20% to 30% less.

And the sober curious movement has become a genuine cultural shift. I think social media really helps that, and what's interesting is that a lot of these sober spaces, they're not built around recovery culture. They're built around wanting the social experience without the alcohol, and I think it reflects a generation that has seen the consequences of heavy drinking culture and is skeptical of it in a way that previous generations weren't.

Jordan Harbinger: Which gets back to that whole third space thing.

Jessica Wynn: Definitely. There's [00:57:00] a place by me in West Hollywood, it's called The Woods, and shout out to Woody Harrelson, it's his dispensary, but in the back there's... It's the only place, I think, in LA where you can actually smoke weed.

Legally indoors, you mean, because everybody be smoking weed in LA.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, legally indoors. So In the back, he's just created this kind of, as you can imagine, like little Woody Harrelson garden. You know, there's macaws and tree houses and like- Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah, it's, and a koi pond and, and there's a coffee bar. There's no alcohol, and it's super interesting because it functions socially like a bar.

Jessica Wynn: People go on dates, they meet their friends, they hang out for hours, but without alcohol being the center of gravity You know, it's a really beautiful space, and I've noticed every time I go there, the clientele skews heavily female, which I think says something really important.

Oh, so this is, like, women opting out of drunk dudes being like, [00:58:00] "Hey, ladies," all the time?

Yeah. And so they're opting out of places with drunk men, and it's not all women. I will say, I have gone into The Woods, and I've definitely never seen somebody as high as Woody Harrelson. Right.

Right.

You know, him, him and Bill Maher just sitting there smoking joints, and they're very gracious in smoking.

Everybody wants to give them a hit of what they're smoking, and they, they take it all. It's just, it's so comical to see these guys like, "Okay, I guess it's better that you're not just doing shots with people- Yeah ... because you're just sitting here giggling with fans." So it's

Jordan Harbinger: ridiculous. That is really cool, and I feel like that's going to be somewhat short-lived because if everybody starts going there to smoke a J with Bill Maher and Woody Harrelson, they're just going to make a private room where nobody can do that.

Jessica Wynn: Yeah. Well, what I mentioned the tree houses. There are times, I think, when he's there you have to reserve them, but there's no secret entrance. He walks in and out, and Bill Maher, I [00:59:00] think, is one of the investors, and so he's there a lot, too. That makes sense.

Jordan Harbinger: That makes sense. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. The idea of getting stoned in public is nightmare fuel for me.

Jessica Wynn: All marijuana does for me is trigger anxiety, so I don't really use it unless I'm trying to go to sleep and I can't. Like, like I'm worried about something or I just can't... I've drank too much caffeine. That's the only time I would use something like cannabis, and I'm not smoking it, right? I just take a gummy that's got a bunch of CBN in it just to knock me out.

I don't... That whole high feeling, my brain is not wired like that. I'm not one of those guys. That's so LA to have a, a weed bar where Woody Harrelson and Bill Maher- ... are stoned out of their minds. I know.

Jordan Harbinger: I wonder, though, if you were in that environment, I mean, it is curated for smoking weed, so I wonder if your anxiety would be curbed a little bit because you're in this really beautiful place with other people doing the same...

I don't know. It would be interesting experiment to take you there.

I'd probably start talking about podcasting with Bill Maher, who probably doesn't understand podcasting even though he has one, and then he would just get mad at me, and then I'd be really self-conscious [01:00:00] about it if I made him mad at me and if he's an- you know, now everyone's looking at me.

You know, that's, that's the dialogue in my head.

He won't let you on Club Random unless you sit there and smoke with him during the show.

Jessica Wynn: Okay, fine. That's one exception. But I also think he would delete the episode because he'd be like, "Yeah, uh, so Jordan took a couple hits, and then he just sat there looking at the lighting and was like, 'Wow, man.'"

Jordan Harbinger: What about the treatment side? What would genuine social support for people who want to stop drinking, what would that actually look like?

It would look like primary care physicians routinely screening for alcohol use disorder and offering those medications we talked about, y- like naltrexone. It would look like insurance coverage for treatment that's as comprehensive as coverage for other chronic conditions.

Jessica Wynn: It would look like the stigma around alcohol use disorder being treated like the medical condition it is, rather than the moral failing the industry has spent decades making it. So right now, we spend [01:01:00] an enormous amount on the consequences of alcohol use disorder, the emergency room visits, prison, the social services, but we spend almost nothing on treating that underlying condition.

What does a sober-friendly social infrastructure look like? Because I think this is the piece that's actually hardest to imagine, really.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. I mean, honestly, it looks like what many cities used to have and have lost, you know, these genuinely public social spaces that don't revolve around buying alcohol.

Jessica Wynn: I can go to bars and shows and whatever now, but when I first stopped drinking, that was more Difficult, and it is. If you're sitting around with a friend, like, "What do you want to do?" It's hard to find something that doesn't involve alcohol. And I think people wildly misunderstand sober communities, too, especially in Los Angeles.

Like, I got sober here, and it's not this depressing room of people in folding chairs drinking [01:02:00] bad coffee. It's a genuinely vibrant, artistic, funny community that is more supportive than any drinking buddies I ever had.

Which is ironic because the stereotype is that sobriety kills the party.

Jordan Harbinger: Which is absurd.

Jessica Wynn: I mean, I'm a good time, so but for a lot of people, it's actually the first time they've had a real social life not organized around getting wasted. And some cities are experimenting with that idea more broadly now, that, like you said, there are sober bars. There's these non-alcoholic cocktail lounges, which honestly I think are a bit of a scam just because of the prices, but they are creating these spaces that don't revolve around alcohol.

There's tea rooms are becoming popular again, and just social spaces that keep the atmosphere people want without alcohol being the driving force. Don't get me wrong, it remains a niche market, but the deeper question is whether we're willing to invest in social [01:03:00] infrastructure the same way we invest in roads and schools.

Because left entirely to the market, you know, we just ended up with a bar on every corner.

Yeah. Let me say the thing I know most people are thinking. Most people who drink are not alcoholics, most people who enjoy a glass of wine and go to work and raise their kids and never crash a car on the freeway or whatever.

Jordan Harbinger: So why frame this like a structural crisis just because some people can't handle it?

Because population-level harm doesn't require universal addiction, and I just want to keep reminding everybody, no level is safe health-wise. Right.

Jessica Wynn: Okay. Right.

Jordan Harbinger: So you can have a product that most people use without catastrophic consequences and still have enormous aggregate harm.

Jessica Wynn: So cancer risk doesn't require alcoholism. Sleep disruption doesn't require alcoholism. Violence statistics don't require everyone to be violent.

Right.

Jordan Harbinger: So the scale comes from this ubiquity.

Jessica Wynn: So the problem isn't that everybody is [01:04:00] spiraling, it's that everybody's participating in a system with predictable downstream damage.

Jordan Harbinger: Exactly. Yeah.

Jessica Wynn: So if somebody's listening to this, and they drink, and they're not an alcoholic, and they feel fine, what do you want them to take away from this?

Jordan Harbinger: I don't want people to feel judged, first of all. I just want them to know what they're actually signing up for. For a long time, alcohol has been marketed as healthier and safer than the evidence really supports.

Jessica Wynn: The cancer risk, the breast cancer link, the shaky heart health claims, most people genuinely don't know that stuff. And once you do know it, you can make your own decision.

That feels like a genuinely reasonable ask. Know the actual facts about the thing before you decide how much of it you want to put in your body.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. It's a revolutionary concept, right?

Jessica Wynn: Yeah. Okay, so back to that alternate universe thought experiment that we started with. With all this information, we both know this product would never end up in Super Bowl ads or approved by the FDA, but [01:05:00] alcohol actually predates the FDA, correct?

Jordan Harbinger: Of course, yeah.

Jessica Wynn: And the industry now isn't just selling you a product, it's selling a story. Wine is medicine. Drink responsibly. It's cultural. It's tradition. If you question it, you're a lame Puritan prude.

Okay, so those aren't neutral facts. They're narratives, and they've been so very effective.

Jordan Harbinger: I mean, extremely effective, and that's the thing.

Jessica Wynn: Alcohol doesn't survive because people carefully reviewed the evidence and made a rational decision. It survives because, well, it's fun in the short term. It gets us drunk, right? But it's also woven into celebration, adulthood, dating, sports, grief, you know, stress. Every emotion we have involves alcohol.

And because it's one of the only products we're questioning it, it makes you sound weird instead of the product.

Jordan Harbinger: Right, right, which doesn't mean nobody should drink. It just means maybe we should stop pretending this is some harmless little lifestyle accessory, [01:06:00] when in reality it's a multi-trillion dollar industry selling an addictive carcinogen.

Jessica Wynn: Well, yeah, that really puts rosé all day in a different light. Maybe the real public health crisis started by convincing people brunch needed bottomless mimosas and vodka. So if you drink, now you know more, and if you don't drink, congratulations, you no longer have to pretend it's for a challenge or training or something like that.

Jordan Harbinger: And thanks, Jess. Feel like I owe you a drink.

I'll take it.

Jessica Wynn: And thank you all for listening. Topic suggestions for future episodes of Skeptical Sunday to me Jordan@jordanharbinger.com. Advertisers, deals, discounts, ways to support the show, all at jordanharbinger.com/deals. I'm @JordanHarbinger on Twitter and Instagram.

Jordan Harbinger: You can also connect with me on LinkedIn. You can find Jessica on her Substacks, Between the Lines and Where Shadows Linger. We'll link to those in the show notes as well. Her work is on Instagram @nevermetjessicas. This show was created in association with PodcastOne. My team is Jen Harbinger, Jase Sanderson, Tadas Sidlauskas, Robert [01:07:00] Fogarty, Ian Baird, and Gabriel Mizrahi.

Our advice and opinions are our own, and I'm a lawyer, but I'm not your lawyer, and I'm definitely not a doctor. Also, of course, we try to get these as right as we can. Not everything is gospel, even if it's fact-checked. So consult a qualified professional before applying anything you hear on the show, especially if it's about your health and wellbeing.

Remember, we rise by lifting others. Share the show with those you love. If you found the episode useful, please share it with somebody else who could use a good dose of the skepticism and knowledge that we doled out today. In the meantime, I hope you apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you learn, and we'll see you next time.