When I said I got along fine on benzos before, I wasn't very specific. They did greatly impair me on all cognitive measures but it wasn't enough to prevent me from keeping my job or keep up with general necessities. I also used to abuse alcohol as a means to obliterate my depression and general anxiety however temporarily. It was recreational to me by itself and I think other people share that experience. Alcohol was nowhere near adequate enough to overcome my social anxiety and that's why I used it alone. I felt physically drained during that time period and like i was being poisoned but the temporary escape was hard to resist. I got super high on benzos at home where I had no responsibilities and i used alcohol at home where I had no responsibilities. Eventually either one of them is bound to expand to the rest of your life especially with tolerance and dependence.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6284787
http://cdn.intechopen.com/pdfs/32394/InTech-_beta_endorphin_and_alcoholism.pdf
I think endorphins play a larger role in alcohol abuse than you think. Suboxone completely negates the pleasurable effects of alcohol for me probably due to a similar mechanism as to opiates by blocking endorphin effects. Yes, opiate users use less alcohol, that's not a bad thing. A long acting opiate might just be the best possible thing for an alcoholic by replacing a less efficient endorphin system modulator. The main thing I that I would critique your posts on is that you downplay alcohol's negative effects as much as possible. I'm not trying to be a dick here but I would like to you to recognize that alcohol is a very bad thing for some people and that maybe in some cases opiates are better for them as is my case. My hypothesis may be a hypothesis but if opiates were set to destroy society that would've happened long ago before they were illegal. The opium poppy has been around for a long time.
I'm not saying its a bad thing.
I honestly don't know how you came to that conclusion. I know alcohol can make a very negative impact on some and that it can have a serious withdrawal syndrome. My goal in this discussion isn't to relate alcohol's danger, but if you want me to I can.
It has been around for a while, but the world we live in today is a lot more complicated and connected than even a couple hundred years ago, which I argue would increase consumption. Actually, in that less-complicated world, the Chinese state was almost overrun because of legal opium. Check it out:
http://www.victorianweb.org/history/empire/opiumwars/opiumwars1.html
"If we continue to allow this trade to flourish, in a few dozen years we will find ourselves not only with no soldiers to resist the enemy, but also with no money to equip the army"
