>

Is the new approach to drink more alcohol? God I hope so.
"New treatment" = mental health
The headline made me think it was something actually new >

Could you take acetylcysteine to mitigate possible damage from the combo? >

You are not likely to be prescribed acetylcysteine by your doctor beforehand if you intend to take a pill before getting hammered and then take Tylenol for the headache, like 1 hour after stopping to drink. I should also state that the chemical composition of N-acetylcysteine contains a sulfur group, meaning the medication will smell. It is known the tablet form is horrible to take.
Just keep drinking water to stay hydrated. I drank a bunch of Pedialyte to stave off a headache with better success than Gatorade. >

I used to take N.A.C. as a health supplement it's an amino acid, and did not ever smell like sulfur, a bit like vitamins at worst. I took it on the basis it can help create glutathione, and reduce inflammation. It's actually one of the pills I will put in my mouth before finding water to drink since it tastes like a gelcap and then nothing if it dissolves. You can buy it at a health food store no dr. needed. No this doesn't mean you should od on tylenol or ever take it if you can avoid it. >

If I changed nothing, I would be part of this statistic. Instead, I found recovery cuz some other drunks carried a message that I could be sober and my life would get better. Thanks to AA, stopdrinking sub, SMART recovery, years of intensive therapy, and the gift of desperation caused by organ failure, I will celebrate 10 years clean and sober tomorrow.  
If you drink heavily, you feel that life is pointless, nothing good will ever happen for you, and that you lost the ability to control and enjoy your drinking, I was once in your shoes. The hardest thing I ever did was ask for help, but I believe in you. We can recover from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body. >

r/stopdrinking helped me a lot when I decided to stop drinking. >

Same here. AA wasn't for me, but r/stopdrinking was a huge help for me. Good people there. >

We really need a new drinkable alcohol-like drug that encourages sociability but that doesn't metabolize into a literal body/brain-damaging toxin. >

I’ve been clean and sober for 11 years and the boom of non-alcoholic beverages and mocktails has been great for me in the last few years! >

I stopped 2 years ago and I worry that drinking a NA beer will do nothing but put the taste back in my mouth and make me give in to temptation. >

Everyone's different of course but I was a full fledged craft beer nerd, now 4 years sober. I drink maybe two 6 packs of craft NA a year, it's nice for tailgates and parties to not feel weird but they're not cheap and the calories just feel empty. >

haha, I probably would have stopped years before, but I discovered the local brewery scene. >

Yeah, it's a dangerous "hobby" for sure. Tons of lining up for releases, trading beers, seeking out breweries on trips. Just became such a burden.
I'm sure COVID when all the breweries around me were delivering it would've been a nightmare at home. >

I have that. Because of alcohol when I was younger. I lucky caught at a younger age. I had type two liver cirrhosis. I quit drinking, helped a lot. I can’t reverse my liver damage but I can maintain a healthier living style but exercising and eating healthy. Eating healthy is a big deal with liver cirrhosis and I cut out sodas. >

a confounding issue, which is widely known in the hepatology community, is the liver is already breaking down earlier and earlier from metabolic disease.  More and more young people are developing fatty liver from diet and this accelerates in the presence of alcohol.  Sure, some people burn their livers super fast…..  but have a heavy drinker with no confounding metabolic disease vs a heavy drinker with fatty liver from poor diet and your gonna see the one with fatty liver from diet have issues decades earlier…. >

I wonder if anxiety is increasing among young people and whether this explains the uptick in alcohol-related liver disease.  People self-medicate more when they are anxious, so there's that. But anxiety can also make people take risks out of fear.
"If I don't go to happy hour, I won't be seen as a team player and I won't get that promotion and thus I'll be some kind of a loser."  
"If I don't do shots like the rest of the gang, they won't invite me to hang out with them and I won't have friends and thus I'll be some kind of a loser."
"If I don't do some pre-gaming before our dinner date, I'll be a nervous wreck the whole time and he/she'll think I'm a weirdo and they won't want to go out with me and thus I'll be some kind of loser."   
I don't know if anxiety has increased, but I wouldn't be surprised if it has. >

My wife joined a weight loss support group that meets over Zoom. She told me that everyone (\~10) on the call (except her) said that they were casual drinkers before the pandemic but it turned into a problem since the pandemic. Obviously, the empty calories are bad for their goals, but my wife and I have suspected that more and more people turned to alcohol during the pandemic/stress of day normal life now. This seems to support that. >

I’m recovering. Most addicts are just addicts, they can truly get or become addicted to anything. There is no changing that. The key is to become addicted to healthy things, like weight lifting, running, eating nutritious foods, etc.
Once you can replace bad habits with healthy habits 1/2 of the battle is won. The rest is still a challenge but it’s a helluva lot easier when you have a reason to stay clean. That reason is YOU! >

I didn't read the article, but I decided that what it says is that people get half of their liver removed at 20 and it gets put on ice. Then, at 40 or 50, they have their destroyed liver removed and the half that they had removed at 20 put back in. >

I didn't read it either and can confirm this is what it says >

I'm not surprised. I'm one of those, I guess. I drink too much; a few fifths of vodka a week. My doctors tell me I need to quit. I worry about cirrhosis somewhat.
Getting blackout drunk makes the empty time between work & sleep go by quicker. And I don't really have anything to live for. No friends, no family, bleak future. So, while I don't have cravings and I'm not physically addicted to alcohol, I can't think of a good reason to stop and extend my life. >

Wow.  You've got to find something that excites you and make you want to live.   A hobby,  a craft,  working out,  something, anything. >

I've tried for a long time to get better. A decade at least. Nothing seems to help. Tried a lot of different meds & therapy. Tried things I used to enjoy and new things I think I might. I've given up hope that I might be happy or content one day. I don't even remember what they feel like.
Anyways, my post wasn't meant to focus on me. Just to provide a window into the people in the article that're effected by this. The future looks bleak, there's no chance for many to improve their lives, and our government only seems to care about making the rich richer. It's no wonder that depression & alcoholism are on the rise.