My take-away: 8 drinks a week for a woman counts as excessive drinking!?! that is only 1 drink a day plus 2 one day....
Most Heavy Drinkers Are Not Alcoholics
By TARA PARKER-POPE NOVEMBER 20, 2014 5:30 PMNovember 20, 2014 5:30 pm 2 Comments
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Most people who drink to get drunk are not alcoholics, suggesting that more can be done to help heavy drinkers cut back, a new government report concludes.
The finding, from a government survey of 138,100 adults, counters the conventional wisdom that every “falling-down drunk” must be addicted to alcohol. Instead, the results from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health show that nine out of 10 people who drink too much are not addicts, and can change their behavior with a little — or perhaps a lot of — prompting.
“Many people tend to equate excessive drinking with alcohol dependence,’’ sad Dr. Robert Brewer, who leads the alcohol program at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “We need to think about other strategies to address these people who are drinking too much but who are not addicted to alcohol.”
Excessive drinking is viewed as a major public health problem that results in 88,000 deaths a year, from causes that include alcohol poisoning and liver disease, to car accidents and other accidental deaths. Excessive drinking is defined as drinking too much at one time or over the course of a week. For men, it’s having five or more drinks in one sitting or 15 drinks or more during a week. For women, it’s four drinks on one occasion or eight drinks over the course of a week. Underage drinkers and women who drink any amount while pregnant also are defined as “excessive drinkers.”
Surprisingly, about 29 percent of the population meets the definition for excessive drinking, but 90 percent of them do not meet the definition of alcoholism. That’s good news because it means excessive drinking may be an easier problem to solve than previously believed.
Studies show that simply raising the price of an alcoholic beverage by 10 percent reduces alcohol consumption by 7 percent, suggesting that higher taxes on alcohol could make a significant dent in excessive drinking. Zoning laws that reduce the number of establishments that serve alcohol in a given area can also curb excessive drinking. Importantly, a simple intervention by a physician, talking to patients about their alcohol use, has also been shown to help people make better choices and curb excessive alcohol consumption.
Ad campaigns, like a 2010 New York City initiative called “Two drinks ago,” also may help. In the New York campaign, posters showed a well-dressed woman slumped and drunk and a young businessman bleeding and bruised. The posters read, “Two drinks ago you could still get yourself home,” and “Two drinks ago you would have walked away.” The tagline was “Stop drinking while you’re still thinking.”
Dr. Brewer noted that excessive drinking is still a challenging problem, but it is not as difficult to address as alcohol addiction can be.
“I don’t want to minimize the fact that excessive drinking can be a difficult behavior to change even in those people who are not alcohol dependent,’’ said Dr. Brewer. “So many of the cues people get about drinking behavior in our society are confusing. People think drinking to get drunk is part of having a good time.”
Conventional wisdom is that anyone who gets falling down drunk is an alcoholic? What?
I have said this before, but I personally would be more concerned about someone drinking several drinks a day, every day than someone who occasionally gets falling down drunk. Neither a drink a day nor the occasional bender strikes me as particularly problematic. But 4 or 5 drinks a day starts to signal alcohol dependence to me.
Post by delawarejen on Nov 21, 2014 16:24:42 GMT -5
Notice that any drinking by people 20 or younger is considered excessive drinking. The number of people who make it to their 21st birthday in the US without ever having consumed alcohol must be nearly zero. They're smoking crack.
How is that even helpful if the only options are 0 or 1 or more?
But hey, that would lead to less chats with my doctor about cutting down on my alcohol use than the "how many drinks do you consume in a typical week?" question does, because I'd imagine the "1 or mores" are easy to ignore because they could be 1.
Is there a person who drinks at all and weighs more than 100 pounds who has not had more than 4 drinks in one day? For what it is worth, it is perfectly possible to have 4-5 drinks in a day and not be drunk. This part irritates me, "Studies show that simply raising the price of an alcoholic beverage by 10 percent reduces alcohol consumption by 7 percent."
This is is straight up a consumption tax that far more deeply impacts the poor, and only changes the behavior of people who have other choices (the better off). Look at cigarettes, who still smokes? It's not Mr. And Mrs. White Collar, it's the yard guy. The tax he pays is far more as a percentage of his income.
Lol. I've had periods in my life when I only had alcohol one day in a whole YEAR and that would have been 4-5 drinks. (Thank you, employer, for open bar holiday parties)
This is is straight up a consumption tax that far more deeply impacts the poor, and only changes the behavior of people who have other choices (the better off). Look at cigarettes, who still smokes? It's not Mr. And Mrs. White Collar, it's the yard guy. The tax he pays is far more as a percentage of his income.
Huh?? You don't think rich or upper middle class people smoke?
Well, she is right that the poor smoke in higher percentages than the non-poor:
How is that even helpful if the only options are 0 or 1 or more?
But hey, that would lead to less chats with my doctor about cutting down on my alcohol use than the "how many drinks do you consume in a typical week?" question does, because I'd imagine the "1 or mores" are easy to ignore because they could be 1.[/qoute]
I thought about this too.
But I also got a "warning" on my wellness survey at work because, on average, I have more than 14 drinks a week.
I definitely fit into the "heavy drinker" category under these guidelines. I usually have 1-2 glasses of wine or beer/ night and 3-4 on the weekends. I cut back by about 1/3 this fall, mostly because my work-related stress went down. Oddly, now that I'm not working as much and home more, I'm drinking less...
I definitely fit into the "heavy drinker" category under these guidelines. I usually have 1-2 glasses of wine or beer/ night and 3-4 on the weekends. I cut back by about 1/3 this fall, mostly because my work-related stress went down. Oddly, now that I'm not working as much and home more, I'm drinking less...
This is true for me too. I actually drink less on the weekends because I'm not stressed.
DH is the opposite- he only drinks for social purposes, so if he is upset/stressed he won't drink at all.
This is is straight up a consumption tax that far more deeply impacts the poor, and only changes the behavior of people who have other choices (the better off). Look at cigarettes, who still smokes? It's not Mr. And Mrs. White Collar, it's the yard guy. The tax he pays is far more as a percentage of his income.
Huh?? You don't think rich or upper middle class people smoke?
Anecdotal, but as a physician in Boston for rather well off people, about 5% of my patients smoked. Now I work in a much more undeserved area and my patients are definitely of a lower socioeconomic class, and 70+ percent of them smoke. The difference to me was quite obvious and surprising to me.
Huh?? You don't think rich or upper middle class people smoke?
Anecdotal, but as a physician in Boston for rather well off people, about 5% of my patients smoked. Now I work in a much more undeserved area and my patients are definitely of a lower socioeconomic class, and 70+ percent of them smoke. The difference to me was quite obvious and surprising to me.
That's really interesting -- YIKES at 70%.
Are there any other interesting trends that you've noticed?
Conventional wisdom is that anyone who gets falling down drunk is an alcoholic? What?
I have said this before, but I personally would be more concerned about someone drinking several drinks a day, every day than someone who occasionally gets falling down drunk. Neither a drink a day nor the occasional bender strikes me as particularly problematic. But 4 or 5 drinks a day starts to signal alcohol dependence to me.
Agreed. Most of the alcoholics I have known would take a LOT of beer/wine/liquor to get falling down drunk and they also seem hardly affected by hangovers, unlike the non-alcoholic who goes on the occasional bender, passes out and pays for it the next day (and possibly longer).
Post by awkwardpenguin on Nov 21, 2014 20:50:52 GMT -5
This article is stupid. It's basically saying "if you define excessive drinking really liberally and alcoholism really strictly, there's not much overlap". Well duh.
Well, it does make sense to me that a typical woman who has 8 drinks in a week is not an alcoholic. I'd like to see the science that a glass of wine with dinner every night (plus one extra) is actually bad for your health, as this article seems to imply.
Almost 20% of adults smoke? I am definitely living in a bubble on this one.
In Texas, no less, which I would think is a heavier smoking state than many...
Well, to be fair, Austin is not necessarily representative of Texas as a whole. But I haven't known many smokers anywhere I have lived, and I have lived in a lot of different regions of the county. I knew people who smoked during high school, college, and law school, but that was the only time of my life when I saw anywhere near 20% of the people around me smoking. With the exception of one great aunt, none of the adults I was around regularly when I was kid smoked, and none of the 30 and 40-something adults I socialize with now smoke.
Almost 20% of adults smoke? I am definitely living in a bubble on this one.
I'm in weird opposite bubble. I'd say 50% of my friends smoke, and almost all of them are graduate degree holding professionals. Its bizarre.
Yeah, similar. I know a lot of smokers, and if I include people who are not smokers right now, but smoked in recent years and have had a lot of struggles through the years with it, it's higher.
When I stayed with a family in France, every person in the house, including the teenagers had a glass of wine with lunch and dinner every day. This is a stupid article.
I don't really have any friends who dmoke anymore. I rarely see people smoking.
I have one friend who smokes when she's drunk with her college friends, but that's it. Oh, and one of my husband's uncles smokes. But I never knew many smokers, except when I was in college (and almost all were drunk smokers, not regular smokers).
I do see smokers all the time, but I walk by a lot of bars (very common for there to be smokers outside them) and a lot of people smoke while walking down the street.
I discussed drinking for health reasons with my doctor two weeks ago. Seriously. He is totally ok with a glass of wine each night.
I have gi problems and muscle pain that wakes me up at night. I had a glass of wine a few nights and it helped me sleep longer. I told my BFF and she said, you know, maybe you shouldn't just start drinking. I relayed it to the doctor and he laughed and said, um, maybe you DO need to start drinking. We discussed amounts, interactions, etc and I picked up some medicinal Malbec on the way home. I have a month or so course of meds that may help the issue, and I'm avoiding drinking while on that particular med but plan to start having wine each night.