1351: Alcohol | Skeptical Sunday

Summary

The Jordan Harbinger Show — Episode 1351: Alcohol | Skeptical Sunday (June 28, 2026)

Host: Jordan Harbinger
Co-host: Jessica Wynn

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Episode Overview

This Skeptical Sunday delves deep into the realities, risks, and cultural footprint of alcohol. Jordan Harbinger and writer/researcher Jessica Wynn challenge common assumptions about alcohol’s safety, health claims, and its pervasive presence in society. They explore the scientific evidence behind alcohol’s health impacts, unpack the powerful tactics used by the alcohol industry, and discuss the complicated relationship the Western world has with what is essentially a widely accepted, legal drug. Listeners are invited to reconsider how alcohol fits into their lives — and society at large.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Alcohol: The Only Socially Mandated Drug

• Alcohol’s Ubiquity: Present at life’s milestones — weddings, funerals, baby showers, sporting events. “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 not controversial. In fact, that's kind of the point.” (Jordan, 10:34)
• Cultural Tradition: Humans have been fermenting alcohol for thousands of years, which cements it as “cultural,” but does not make it safe or healthy. (Jessica, 16:24)

2. Alcohol’s True Nature and Health Risks

• Ethanol: Behind all the branding and tradition, alcohol is ethanol — “a psychoactive central nervous system depressant...toxic to every organ system in the body.” (Jessica, 12:17)
• Group 1 Carcinogen: Walking through the hypothetical of alcohol as a new drug proposal, Jessica points out: “It's a Group one carcinogen, same category as asbestos...and will cause over 12,000 traffic deaths annually.” (Jessica, 10:58) Alcohol is classified alongside asbestos and plutonium as a known cancer-causing agent.
• No Safe Level: “The cancer risk starts rising with any consumption. So, there's no threshold where it drops to zero.” (Jessica, 14:57) WHO states there is “no safe level” of alcohol when it comes to cancer risk (2023).

3. Debunking the ‘Wine is Healthy’ Myth

• Red Wine Narratives: The widely-circulated benefits of red wine for heart health rest on flawed studies (the “sick quitter problem”) and industry-funded research. When corrected, the supposed benefit disappears. (Jessica, 24:11)
• Quote: “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, 24:35)
• Industry Influence: The alcohol industry used the same playbook as Big Tobacco — funding favorable research and pushing the “moderation is healthy” story.

4. Industry Tactics and Responsible Drinking

• Same PR Playbook: “The same PR firms, the same consultants, same strategies [as Big Tobacco]... every single one of those tactics has been used by the alcohol industry.” (Jessica, 26:36)
• ‘Drink Responsibly’: Industry-invented slogan to shift blame from producer to consumer. “It's a deeply hypocritical slogan built into the system.” (Jessica, 32:35)
• Disproportionate Consumption: The top 10% of drinkers account for 60% of alcohol consumed, underscoring the industry's dependence on addiction. (Jessica, 31:45)

5. What Alcohol Actually Does to the Brain & Body

• Neurochemistry: Alcohol acts on GABA and dopamine systems, initially relaxing but eventually increasing anxiety and disrupting sleep. “Tonight’s nightcap is stealing tomorrow’s sanity.” (Jordan, 34:13)
• Mental Health Spiral: Chronic alcohol use increases depression, anxiety, and suicide risk — it becomes both a coping tool and an aggravator. (Jessica, 34:17)

6. Alcohol Use Disorder and the Treatment Gap

• Treatment Rarity: “Tens of millions of Americans meet criteria for alcohol use disorder, but only a small fraction receive treatment.” FDA-approved meds like naltrexone are rarely prescribed, due to stigma, lack of awareness, and limited options. (Jessica, 34:57)

7. Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD)

• Prevalence: “FASD affects about 2 to 5% of school age children in the U.S… makes it one of the most common causes of intellectual disability. And it's entirely preventable.” (Jessica, 41:06)
• Warning Labels: U.S. labels haven’t been updated since 1988 and contain no mention of cancer. (Jessica, 31:08)

8. Alcohol-Related Violence and Social Harm

• Statistics: Alcohol is implicated in up to 60% of violent crimes, nearly 13,000 U.S. traffic deaths annually, and a large share of sexual assaults — especially on college campuses. (Jessica, 42:27)
• Quote: “If a car company's engineering defect caused 13,000 traffic fatalities, there’d be congressional hearings every week.” (Jordan, 42:50)
• Accountability Gap: Through the ‘personal responsibility’ doctrine, responsibility is shifted away from manufacturers. (Jessica, 43:37)

9. Economics and Policy

• Economic Cost: Excessive alcohol use costs the U.S. nearly $400B annually in healthcare, lost productivity, crime, and property damage. (Jessica, 45:10)
• Privatize Profit, Socialize Damage: “The people who profit most...are not the same people absorbing its worst harms.” (Jessica, 44:19)
• Policy Solutions: Other nations, like Scotland, have implemented minimum pricing and seen reductions in harm, while U.S. alcohol taxes have not kept up with inflation, making booze relatively cheaper. (Jessica, 55:13)

10. Alcohol vs. Other Substances

• Misaligned Risk: Alcohol ranks above many illegal drugs for harm to others, revealing legalization has more to do with culture than actual safety. (Jessica, 56:25; 57:06)

11. Generational Change & the Rise of Sober Spaces

• Gen Z Drinks Less: 20–30% less than older generations. The 'sober curious' trend and alcohol-free social venues reflect a cultural shift. (Jessica, 57:44)
• Third Space: As public, alcohol-free venues vanish, bars become the default place for social connection. Sober spaces are attempting to challenge this norm. (Jessica, 46:11)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Alcohol’s Group 1 Carcinogen Status
  • Jessica (12:17): “What you're ingesting is ethanol...a Group 1 carcinogen, which means there's sufficient evidence that it causes cancer in humans, not might cause — causes.”
• Drink Responsibly — A Corporate Invention
  • Jessica (27:09): “That phrase was invented by the alcohol industry. It wasn't a public health message, it was a legal strategy.”
• Wine 'Health' Research
  • Jessica (24:11): “The studies that generated the moderate drinking health narrative were disproportionately funded by the industry or by foundations with industry ties.”
• Normalized Harm
  • Jordan (40:22): “We built social 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.”
• Stigma of Not Drinking
  • Jessica (47:26): “If you don't drink, you have to declare it. You have to explain yourself...which is genuinely insane when you think about it.”
• Defensiveness and Identity
  • Jessica (49:01): “People don’t just drink. They see themselves as wine people or beer people or cocktail enthusiasts. Criticizing alcohol feels strangely personal. Like you’re criticizing them, their taste, their social life, their whole identity.”
• Population-Level Harm
  • Jessica (64:56): “Because population level harm doesn't require universal addiction... enormous aggregate harm. So cancer risk doesn't require alcoholism... Violent statistics don't require everyone to be violent.”

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Timestamps for Key Segments

| Time | Segment | |-------------|---------------------------------------------------------------------| | 10:34 | Societal ubiquity and ritual role of alcohol | | 10:58 | “Hypothetical FDA pitch” — alcohol’s risk profile compared to new drugs | | 12:17 | What alcohol really is and Group 1 carcinogen status | | 14:57 | Cancer risk at any level of consumption; WHO statement | | 24:11 | Debunking red wine health benefits; “sick quitter” flaw | | 26:36 | Big Alcohol = Big Tobacco playbook; “Drink responsibly” origins | | 31:45 | Heavy drinkers are key to industry profit | | 34:13 | Sleep destruction and mental health by moderate drinking | | 41:06 | Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders prevalence | | 42:50 | Alcohol in violence and fatalities; accountability double standard | | 45:10 | Economic burden of alcohol to society | | 55:13 | Effective policy: Scotland's alcohol pricing; U.S. tax policies | | 57:44 | Sober curious movement and generational shift | | 64:56 | Most people are not alcoholics, but structural harm is immense |

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Additional Insights

Alcohol in Social Architecture

• The “third place” concept: With coffee shops, parks, and public spaces shrinking, bars have become the default public venue, making alcohol consumption central to social life. Non-drinkers face stigma and awkward questions.
• Jessica (47:57): “The fact that you might just not want to consume a carcinogen doesn't read as a normal explanation...”

Policy and Perception

• The alcohol industry successfully resists policy changes (tax, labeling, regulations) that are routine for other harmful products (tobacco, sugary drinks).
• Warning labels mentioning cancer are shown to change drinking behavior, but are routinely fought by industry (Jessica, 53:19).

Social Shifts

• Sober bars, mocktails, and non-alcoholic social spaces are emerging. Younger generations seem less interested in drinking, seeing through marketing myths and seeking new forms of socialization.

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Conclusion & Takeaways

• Alcohol is not benign. It's a carcinogen, highly addictive, and responsible for immense social, health, and economic costs.
• No safe amount exists. Even moderate drinking increases cancer risk.
• Cultural acceptance is manufactured. Decades of marketing have mapped alcohol onto identity, health, and tradition.
• Structural critiques over personal blame. The scale of harm is due to deep industry integration in every level of society, not just outlier cases of addiction.
• Policy interventions work. Other countries’ experiences and better warning labels make a difference, but U.S. resistance continues.
• Informed choice matters. “Know the actual facts about the thing before you decide how much of it you want to put in your body.” (Jordan, 66:11)
• Change is possible. The rise of sober spaces and shifting generational attitudes suggest culture can evolve.

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Final Quote (Jessica, 67:23):
“Which doesn’t mean nobody should drink. It just means maybe we should stop pretending this is some harmless little lifestyle accessory, when in reality, it’s a multi trillion dollar industry selling an addictive carcinogen.”

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For more:

• Jessica Wynn’s work: Substacks “Between the Lines” and “Where Shadows Linger”; Instagram @evermetjessica
• jordanharbinger.com for show notes, resources, and topic requests

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[This summary skips advertisements, intros, and outros; focuses on content and highlights actionable or reflective takeaways.]

Transcript

[Jordan Harbinger]

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[Jordan Harbinger]

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 perform 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 show. Just visit jordanharbinger.com start or search for us in your Spotify app to get started. Now. Before we get started today, Jess, you got stung by a stingray. I mean, are you. 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, it's really the most painful thing, and there's just 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.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Oh. So you just, like, collapse. So he wasn't on the beach and you're just walking? He was in the water. You stepped on it.

[Jessica Wynn]

Yeah, I was out surfing and just. Yeah. Who knows? I never saw it, but it's been so warm this year that there's. I've seen a lot of stingrays out. I 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 good

[Jordan Harbinger]

luck finding hot water.

[Jessica Wynn]

The lifeguard was like, it'll take me about 45 minutes to bring boiling water. I said, well, that's not gonna help.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, thanks. I'll just sit here and writhing in agony until then.

[Jessica Wynn]

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

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah.

[Jessica Wynn]

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 what, like a. A bone barb?

[Jessica Wynn]

Yes. There's a huge puncture wound in my heel. Like, it was really deep.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Ooh, ouch.

[Jessica Wynn]

Yes. So getting a wetsuit. Never comfortable, but very uncomfortable when you.

[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've been sober so long, but now I really would like some alcohol too.

[Jordan Harbinger]

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

[Jessica Wynn]

Every. Everybody's just handing you a shot.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah. What's in that tower there, bucko? Yeah, that's. That's kind of terrifying. So was it. Well, you didn't see it. I don't know. Was it a big one or a small one?

[Jessica Wynn]

I'm gonna guess 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 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, this big sandbar, and they're floating around, and they're turbo touching you, and they're like, pick one up. And you're like, okay, this seems like a bad. 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, I don't think so. You know, So 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, nothing. 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 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 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 play 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 do. Especially now you're saying, oh, you don't want to step on them because that's a. Picking them up. Seems like you get one in a bad mood and you fafo. Right. You find out. You fart around and find out really fast. 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, I don't believe you. Yeah.

[Jessica Wynn]

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

[Jordan Harbinger]

That's true. This was 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. Dorks.

[Jessica Wynn]

No, I would say the one that got me was probably maybe half that size, if I could guess so. Still big, but not insane.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Merely the size of a medium size or large sized pizza instead of a gigantic party sized pizza. Yeah, right. 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 coming. Really?

[Jordan Harbinger]

I'm good.

[Jessica Wynn]

Really close to surfers.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah. No, yeah. No grass. Yes. I see those videos where someone's about to go off the boat, and they put their mask in the water or something, something like that, to, like, look through and make sure it's sealed. And 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. Make it look like you got scared. I don't even believe my own lying eyes anymore. But, yeah, I just. All that sea stuff, I'm like, leave the animals alone, man. No, thank you.

[Jessica Wynn]

Yeah. The other 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 bite both of us off this board. Oh, great.

[Jessica Wynn]

Sorry.

[Jordan Harbinger]

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

[Jessica Wynn]

Surfing is stressful.

[Jordan Harbinger]

It doesn't sound like something that would be relaxing for me. My policy is 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.

[Jessica Wynn]

Oh, man. It would be nice.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Are you walking around or are you like. Yeah, no, I'm staying off that foot. Cause I got an arrowhead in it.

[Jessica Wynn]

It was really sore. And then I went for a bike ride yesterday, and it became pretty apparent something was horribly wrong.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Oh, my gosh.

[Jessica Wynn]

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

[Jordan Harbinger]

So you should ask if you can, what was in there. I'm one of those guys who's like, if I ever get anything stuck in my body, shrapnel, I want to keep it.

[Jessica Wynn]

Yeah, yeah, me too. Me too.

[Jordan Harbinger]

If I get barbed with a stingray, it's like, you're not just gonna 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, 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 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. 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 one 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 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, man.

[Jordan Harbinger]

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, 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 system in the body. And it's classified by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, which is part of the whole, as a Group 1 carcinogen, which means there's sufficient evidence that it causes cancer in humans, not might cause causes Group one.

[Jordan Harbinger]

So top shelf danger.

[Jessica Wynn]

Yeah, top shelf. Right. Asbestos is group one, plutonium is group one, and alcohol is group one. And most people just have no idea.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I want to be clear here because a 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, 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 politics. And then I was like, oh, wait, that's not the same thing as Schedule 1, Schedule 2. We're like, 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 you don't want to take too many mushrooms or lsd 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.

[Jessica Wynn]

Right.

[Jordan Harbinger]

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. Ok. And the result is that drinkers are exposing themselves to at least seven different cancers with every sip.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Lucky number seven.

[Jessica Wynn]

Okay, Lucky seven. Right. I mean, and that's at 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. No safe survival.

[Jordan Harbinger]

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 you how many times I've heard like, wine is good for your. Your heart. It's. It's got resverat 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

[Jessica Wynn]

a pill that's just part of alcohol's armor. Right. I mean, you can't 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? That's also cultural. Do we want to lean into that too? I don't know. Yeah, the French don't do that. By the way. I'm not confused there. I bring up anymore. Correct.

[Guest or Additional Speaker]

Yes.

[Jordan Harbinger]

They burn people at the stake. Or am I out of date here? Yeah, 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 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,

[Jordan Harbinger]

you know, 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 Men 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. 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, Revolveman 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 Jorphan Use code Jorphdan 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, about to do the same thing for my in laws. 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 5 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 WA-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 pick a bunch of fruit, you leave it in some sort of stone bowl. And then later on you're like, I forgot I put this in here. And you're like, dang, bro, what is going on with this? And look, I discovered alcohol for myself as a kid because it was 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 when my dad was a kid. Probably used more power than every other item in the house put together. But anyway, 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 pops, which is what we call soda in Michigan. And I found this jug of unopened apple cider in, you know, around Christmas time maybe. And I remember it was all puffy and 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 right that sound you get when you open a 2 liter bottle of Coke. And I was like, what's that? So of course I took a sip and it was carbonate. And I was like, whoa. And it had bite. And I drank the entire jug 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 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.

[Jessica Wynn]

Wow.

[Jordan Harbinger]

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 gotta 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, 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.

[Jordan Harbinger]

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. And I was like, wait, wait, wait, wait. 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 for. 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.

[Jessica Wynn]

Got to be nice at the bar.

[Jordan Harbinger]

That's right. So it's kind of like, oh, you know what? What? We're all having our morning tipple, as the Brits call it. And so, yeah, they're just like. You kind of have this image in your Disney image in your head of a gazelle with its armor on, the lion being like. And then I says to him, you know, as they're drinking smashed up fermented fig water in the middle of the

[Jessica Wynn]

desert, why can't we just be friends?

[Jordan Harbinger]

That's right. You know, I've been running and running and running, and I've thought to myself, why don't we get to know each other a little bit? Yeah. The thing is, this shows up, like you said in early medicine rituals, whatever. But that's not a health argument, you know.

[Jessica Wynn]

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

[Jordan Harbinger]

Oh, yeah, that's a good point. Had drink some of this quicksilver.

[Jessica Wynn]

Right, exactly. So longevity of use tells you something became cultural. Not that it's safe.

[Jordan Harbinger]

It's kind of like cigarettes.

[Guest or Additional Speaker]

Right.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Like your throat hurts. You know what? Have a Marlboro. This is my cigarette of choice when my throat hurts. Yeah. Leaded gasoline, also part of American culture. We did not keep it because of tradition.

[Jessica Wynn]

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.

[Jordan Harbinger]

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 drank 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. And he wrote about that, I think in the Four Hour Chef. And it just. Is that all just made up?

[Jessica Wynn]

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 included people who had already stopped drinking because of health problems.

[Jordan Harbinger]

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.

[Jessica Wynn]

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

[Jordan Harbinger]

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

[Jessica Wynn]

Because it's more appealing. You know, ongoing studies try really hard to find 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.

[Sponsor Voice]

Right.

[Jessica Wynn]

And just be normal.

[Jordan Harbinger]

That's a bit much, but, 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 ten doctors recommend Winston's.

[Jessica Wynn]

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

[Jordan Harbinger]

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

[Jessica Wynn]

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 playbook as Big Tobacco.

[Jordan Harbinger]

The same playbook. So literally the same tactics and everything?

[Jessica Wynn]

Yeah, literally. It's the same PR firms, the same consultants, same strategies. And 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. So every single one of those tactics has been used by the alcohol industry.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Drink responsibly, everyone.

[Jessica Wynn]

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. You know, it's one of the most successful PR moves in 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.

[Jessica Wynn]

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.

[Jordan Harbinger]

So the research that told us wine was good for our hearts was.

[Jessica Wynn]

It was paid for by the people selling the wine.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Right. Okay.

[Jessica Wynn]

And there was a spectacular case in 2018 where the NIH, the National Institutes of Health, they shut down a major clinical trial on drinking because industry representatives had been involved in the design of the study and in recruiting industry funding for it. 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. 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, rose all day. All those things.

[Jordan Harbinger]

All of which sound like the title of a WhatsApp friend chat group chat. Right, exactly. 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 me. Because you'd need to drink dozens of bottles of wine to get the needed trans resveratrol, I think. And so that's basically. He made the same point that we're making.

[Jessica Wynn]

Exactly. Yeah. There's always a kernel of truth. Right, Right. 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.

[Jordan Harbinger]

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

[Jessica Wynn]

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. I know men can get breast cancer too, but the studies I came across were just looking at 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.

[Jordan Harbinger]

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

[Jessica Wynn]

Yeah. And the evidence has been available for a long time. And there were documented efforts to challenge, discredit, or bury this breast cancer layer. Think very similar to how big tobacco handled lung cancer research.

[Jordan Harbinger]

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 those signs of those little symbols at the liquor store sometimes.

[Jessica Wynn]

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

[Jordan Harbinger]

So we update our iPhones every year, but not alcohol warnings. Since I was in elementary.

[Jessica Wynn]

Right. And during that time, the evidence linking alcohol to cancer, it's only strengthened. And the industry has consistently lobbied against adding cancer warnings to labels.

[Jordan Harbinger]

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

[Jessica Wynn]

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. 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 or problematic or compulsive drinking. Most people would call it alcoholism.

[Jordan Harbinger]

So your best customers are the people struggling the most. So when they say 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?

[Jessica Wynn]

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. 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 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.

[Jordan Harbinger]

So the thing marketed as stress relief becomes stress maintenance for many people.

[Jessica Wynn]

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

[Jordan Harbinger]

So tonight's night cap is stealing tomorrow's sanity.

[Jessica Wynn]

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.

[Jordan Harbinger]

That sounds like the thing people use to manage stress. It just slowly becomes the reason that they are stressed.

[Jessica Wynn]

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.

[Jordan Harbinger]

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

[Jessica Wynn]

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. 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.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Nothing says wellness culture like poisoning yourself out of a novelty glass that says Mommy juice. We'll be right back. 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. 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. 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. 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 minutes a week. They pull out stories, insights, stuff I didn't even think was postworthy. Turn it into smart, strategic content that actually sounds like me. And the roi? It's real. I've had speaking invites. Partnerships start just because somebody saw a post and thought like, oh, this guy is 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 jordanaudiencewiltmind.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 gonna go out to this place that I hate, I'm just gonna get really drunk and, like, why not? And then you kind of like, hey, Jordan, oh, my God, bro, you fell asleep in the pool chair last night. 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 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, 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, whatever. These people are all fine. It's like. It's like if because you get up and go to work the next day, you're like, it can't be that bad.

[Jessica Wynn]

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

[Guest or Additional Speaker]

Yes.

[Jessica Wynn]

You know?

[Jordan Harbinger]

Oh, that's a good point. Right? Yeah. Like, oh, man. Tomorrow, 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, and you're like, oh, yeah, 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, and projectile vomiting and having to go get your stomach pumped, and you're like, whatever, it's my birthday.

[Jessica Wynn]

I'm not Tom.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah. At least I'm not Tom. I didn't get injured this time. Okay, so you mentioned there's a genuine shortage of treatment options that work. So what treatment options are there? I just figure there's tons of stuff. I don't pay attention to this.

[Jessica Wynn]

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. How honest are you with your doctor about your alcohol? You know, sure, naltrexone does have Hepatitoxicity risks at higher doses and may not be great for your liver, which is a bummer. But naltrexone and another called a comprasate are FDA approved. They're clinically proven and dramatically underprescribed 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.

[Jessica Wynn]

I mean, constantly. And that's the inverse, right? Billions spent to start the problem, pennies spent to solve it.

[Jordan Harbinger]

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

[Jessica Wynn]

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.

[Jordan Harbinger]

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

[Jessica Wynn]

happy hour, just, just being done work. Right. But we built social 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. What are we actually talking about?

[Jessica Wynn]

Right, so that there is a warning on the label, but if you're not pregnant, you're not seeing it. Right, so. 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 U.S. communities found 1.1 to 5% of first graders have FASD.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Oh my God.

[Jessica Wynn]

It's a lot. And the CDC estimates FASD affects about 2 to 5% of school age children in the U.S. 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. Then we look at these children and often we just give them more drugs to fix their problems, you know.

[Jordan Harbinger]

But does the. Well, that certainly, certainly complicates the whole glass of wine is self care for moms narrative.

[Jessica Wynn]

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.

[Jordan Harbinger]

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're pregnant was totally fine.

[Jessica Wynn]

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

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, yeah.

[Jessica Wynn]

Crazy.

[Jordan Harbinger]

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.

[Jessica Wynn]

And smoking too.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Oh, and smoking, right.

[Jessica Wynn]

Yeah.

[Jordan Harbinger]

My mom was not a smoker, but a lot of her friends were. And they smoked when they were pregnant. 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.

[Jessica Wynn]

Yeah, that's another remarkable disconnection. So alcohol is a factor in roughly 40 to 60% of violent crimes in the United States, depending on which study you at. Look, look at. 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, 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 because one kid died?

[Jordan Harbinger]

You know, kind of.

[Jessica Wynn]

Yeah.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I don't remember if they banned it, but yeah, remember talking about these.

[Jessica Wynn]

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. How 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 interlock 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 cause? 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 violence. That harm falls primarily on women and children. 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.

[Jessica Wynn]

Right. So the economic cost of excessive alcohol use in the United states is about 350 to $380 billion annually. Think of health care, lost productivity, criminal justice, and property damage. All of that gets factored in. And that doesn't even begin to capture the intergenerational costs. You know, children growing up in homes destabilized by alcohol abuse, educational disruption, and just long term health burdens.

[Jordan Harbinger]

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

[Jessica Wynn]

I mean, that's exactly what's happening.

[Jordan Harbinger]

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.

[Jessica Wynn]

Right. And there was a sociologist, Ray Oldenburg, he wrote about what he calls third places, which are social spaces outside of home and work work where people, you know, casually gather and build community, like coffee shops, parks, libraries, barbershops, whatever. Places where 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 space, bars and alcohol centered venues, they've become the dominant version.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Because we defunded everything else.

[Jessica Wynn]

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.

[Jordan Harbinger]

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

[Jessica Wynn]

Right? I mean, and if you don't drink. You have to declare it. You have to explain yourself. You know, 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? Or you know, do you have some health issues issue? The fact that you might just not want to consume a carcinogen doesn't read as a normal explanation, which is genuinely

[Jordan Harbinger]

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.

[Jessica Wynn]

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. 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 craft brewery tours. 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.

[Jordan Harbinger]

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?

[Jessica Wynn]

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.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And once people identify with the product, they 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 stopped feeling like a health issue and it kind of felt like somebody attacking their lifestyle.

[Jessica Wynn]

Oh, man. I mean, smokers were so offended. 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, yeah, but I mean, it points to another thing. It's just the autonomy piece of all of this. So we live in a culture that places tremendous value on personal choice. And because alcohol is legal and socially accepted, accepted, any conversation about its harms immediately gets framed as paternalistic, like someone's trying to tell you how to live. 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.

[Jordan Harbinger]

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

[Jessica Wynn]

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

[Jordan Harbinger]

It seems alcohol and your terrible sister in law are proof that with the right positioning, even the 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 [e-mail] 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.

[Jessica Wynn]

And it turns out warning labels actually work. So just this week, studies were published that fine 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.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Out of sight, out of 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.

[Jessica Wynn]

Well, yeah, and you can even see the economic protectionism 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. 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. 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.

[Jordan Harbinger]

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. So do other countries have a different approach?

[Jessica Wynn]

It's difficult, 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]

Cases.

[Jessica Wynn]

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. It's amazing.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Is anything like that happening here in

[Jessica Wynn]

the U.S. well, alcohol taxes in the United States have not kept pace with inflation in most cases states. So the effect of 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 any increase. 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.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Which is interesting because when people don't want us to use something, cigarettes, certain drugs, the tax and the price way up, but for alcohol, somehow the logic reverses.

[Jessica Wynn]

Yeah, I mean, I think the tax on sugary drinks like soda 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.

[Jordan Harbinger]

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

[Jessica Wynn]

Yeah, I mean there's been academic work ranking drugs by harm, both harm to the individual user and then harm to others. Alcohol consistently ranks at or near the top of harm to other measures above many illegal drugs. It ranks above cannabis, above mdma, above lsd, above most things we treat as these serious social problems. 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.

[Jessica Wynn]

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.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Right. Is anything changing? Because I've noticed anecdotally at least that there's more conversation about this than there used to be. You mentioned this, that the Gen Z drinks less. It does feel like the conversation is different than even 10 years ago. And I know there's sober bars now, not that I've ever been to one. In fact, I don't even. Couldn't even name it. Sounds fake to me. That's like a tobacco free cigar lounge. I don't even understand. I guess they just make mocktails or something there.

[Jessica Wynn]

Yeah, overpriced juice, I think.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah. Really? Well, it's probably safer, but. Yeah, right.

[Jessica Wynn]

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 cases, 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 a place by me in West Hollywood, it's called the woods and shout out to Woody Harrelson, it's his dispenser sensory. But in the back there's. It's the only place, I think in LA where you can actually smoke weed

[Jordan Harbinger]

legally indoors, you mean because everybody be smoking weed in la.

[Jessica Wynn]

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.

[Sponsor Voice]

Yeah.

[Jessica Wynn]

It's in a koi pond and, and there's a coffee bar. There's no, no alcohol. And it's super interesting because it functions socially like a bar. 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.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Oh, so this is like women opting out of drunk dudes being like, hey, ladies all the time.

[Jessica Wynn]

Yeah. And so, 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.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Right, right.

[Jessica Wynn]

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 that's better that you're not just doing shots with people because you're just sitting here giggling with fans. So it's.

[Jordan Harbinger]

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 think is one of the investors. And so he's there a lot too.

[Jordan Harbinger]

That makes sense. That makes sense. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The idea of getting stone and painting public is nightmare fuel for me. 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 I'm worried about something or I just can't drink 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 weed bar where Woody Harrelson and Bill Maher are stoned out of their minds.

[Jessica Wynn]

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.

[Jordan Harbinger]

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 about it if I made him mad at me. And if he's, you know, now everyone's looking at me. You know, that's. That's the dialogue of my head.

[Jessica Wynn]

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

[Jordan Harbinger]

Okay, fine, that's one exception. But I also think he would delete the episode because he'd be like, yeah, so Jordan took a couple hits and then he just sat there looking at the lighting and was like, wow, man. What about the treatment side? What would genuine social support for people who want to stop drinking, what would that actually look like?

[Jessica Wynn]

It would look like primary care physicians routinely screening for alcohol use disorder and offering those medications we about talked talked about, like naltrexone. It would look like insurance coverage for treatment that's as comprehensive as coverage for other chronic conditions. 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 an enormous amount on the consequences of alcohol use disorder. The emergency room visits, prevention, prison, the social services, but we spend almost nothing on treating that underlying condition.

[Jordan Harbinger]

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

[Jessica Wynn]

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. 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 bad boys coffee. It's a genuinely vibrant, artistic, funny community that is more supportive than any drinking buddies I ever had.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Which is ironic because the stereotype is that sobriety kills the party, 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. 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 infrastructure structure 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.

[Jordan Harbinger]

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

[Jessica Wynn]

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

[Jordan Harbinger]

Right. Okay. Right.

[Jessica Wynn]

So you can have a product that most people use without catastrophic consequences and still have enormous aggregate harm. So cancer risk doesn't require alcoholism. Sleep disruption doesn't require alcoholism. Violent statistics don't require everyone to be violent.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Right.

[Jessica Wynn]

So the scale comes from this ubiquity.

[Jordan Harbinger]

So the problem isn't that everybody was spiraling, it's that everybody's participating in a system with predictable downstream damage.

[Jessica Wynn]

Exactly.

[Jordan Harbinger]

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?

[Jessica Wynn]

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 instance, a long time alcohol has been marketed as healthier and safer than the evidence really supports 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.

[Jordan Harbinger]

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.

[Jessica Wynn]

Yeah. It's a revolutionary concept, right?

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah. Okay, so back to that alternate universe thought experiment that's 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 alcohol actually predates the fda, correct?

[Jessica Wynn]

Of course. Yeah. 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.

[Jordan Harbinger]

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

[Jessica Wynn]

I mean, extremely effective. And that's the thing. 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.

[Jordan Harbinger]

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

[Jessica Wynn]

Right, Right. Which doesn't mean nobody should drink. It just means maybe we should stop pretending this is some harmless little lifestyle accessory, when in reality, it's a multi trillion dollar industry selling an addictive carcinogen.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Well, yeah, that really puts Rose 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. And thanks, Jess. Feel like I owe you a drink.

[Jessica Wynn]

I'll take it.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And thank you all for listening. Topic suggestions for future episodes of Skeptical Sunday. To me. Jordanordanharbinger.com advertisers, deals, discounts, ways to support the show, [e-mail] deals I'm @jordanharbinger on Twitter and Instagram. 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. Evermetjessicas. This show is created in association with Podcast One. My team is Jen Harbinger, Jace Sanderson, Tata Sidlowskis, Robert 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 well being. 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.

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