Anyone know if this is the case or not? Thinking of going cold-turkey

Do you mean long-term cognition post-consumption? Because IMO, it's not even up for debate that alcohol impairs cognition while under it's influence, but you need to drink a lot of alcohol to permanently impair cognition... A LOT.

yeah long term. doesn't a small amount destroy brain cells but?

I believe so... but I think you could damage quite a few brain cells before you gained any noticeable impairments. I mean, look at every one who has ever gone through College; none of them are brain damaged, but they all drank a ****-load of liquor.

A live $5/$10 reg recently told me that he wins $200/hour when he drinks.

I think it's more likely that he just keeps bad records when he drinks, but who knows.

In the long run we're all dead. Hard to say what exactly it is we're trying to maximize.

Brain damaged, no, stupid, I'd argue yes, I don't see this as any evidence either way

$200? That means he's running at 66.66bb/100, fairly unsustainable, 40bb/100 is about the max a very very very very strong player can achieve, which is $120 per hour.

Pretty sure the commonly held belief that acute alcohol consumption destroys brain cells (in vivo) is a myth. Chronic alcohol use will cause cerebral atrophy (shrinkage) and potentially dementia.

Frequent low to moderate consumption (especially daily) may impair sleep cycles which might make you a bit less sharp.

So there probably are no +EV cognitive factors to alcohol, with the possible exception of creative lines of work I suppose.

I used to live on a farm. Down the road from us there lived an old man. We called him fingers. He was a chronic alcoholic and his fingers had swollen up and were all misshapen. He drank a case a day.

Drugs and alcohol are crutches. They prevent you from becoming who you want to be. New experiences are interesting, refreshing and good but long term use or reliance on any substance can be definitely hurt. Alcohol consumption in excess of one glass of red wine a day is foolish. Unless u rly need to get drunk.

What is with the whole glass per day thing? That just seems ridiculous to me; don't people typically drink a few at one time, then go on some sort of break.

Any more and the damage from the alcohol outweighs the benefit from resveratol / other good stuff.

"Resveratrol is found in the skin of red grapes and in other fruits. However, red wine contains very little of it, in the order of one milligram per glass."

uh huh

That is what people often do, yes. But it's not exactly a "healthy" way to do it. Alcohol is unusual in that it can cause some health benefit at low doses before higher doses cause definite harm. Problem is a large number of people drink to excess or in an unhealthy pattern.

Many substances are bioactive in doses of 1mg or less.