• Not really equivalent. Smoking permanently leaves all kind of nasty shit in your lungs and causes cancer. Also very addictive, making moderation physically difficult (alcohol can also be addictive but not to the same extremes). Alcohol in moderation isn’t really an issue. Pushing it more can give your liver a bad time, but as long as you give it a break before the point of disease it can bounce right back.

    There is a societal problem especially in the UK in that it’s seen as a sort of matter of pride to throw moderation out of the window and get as wasted as possible, but I have my doubts that graphic health warnings will do much about that. Either way it’s more an effect of society ignoring and sometimes even shaming moderation (how many times have you been shamed for going home before you fall over on a work’s night out) than the alcohol itself.

    • Smoking does not permanently leave anything in your lungs. The lungs constantly self clean and I believe after 10 years, all damage from any amount of smoking is removed.

      • The scarring from all the heavy coughing etc?

        Still, rather not have all that sitting there for 10 years. The liver recovers from a few pints a lot quicker I believe, and even in the less favourable case of a fatty liver, a matter of weeks of abstienence rather than years. Disease of either, is probably a more dangerous situation.