NIAAA defines heavy alcohol use as follows:
For men, consuming five or more drinks on any day or 15 or more per week
For women, consuming four or more drinks on any day or eight or more per week
According to the 2024 NSDUH, 14.4 million adults ages 18 and older (5.5% in this age group) reported heavy alcohol use in the past month
Five drinks for me would be a good date night dinner at home (cocktail hour, plus two glasses of wine with dinner). Hardly a bacchanal, but apparently America is slacking as of late.
I try. But frankly, my level of drinking (these days) doesn’t do any medically detectable damage, according to my doctor. The point of the post was to make light of how ridiculously low the standard for “heavy drinking” is, and the implied likelihood that the stats are bullshit.
You’re substantially increasing your chances of developing some form of cancer vs baseline though.
Great video by Howtown on this that I think everyone should watch, at the end of the video here’s a snip of health outcomes vs alcohol consumption based on the most update to date science. The increased risk on the chart is per year, so with with 5 -6 drinks per day any given year you have ~1.5x the likely hood of developing an alcohol consumption related health problem, like cancer.
Many have ridiculously outdated ideas about what constitutes safe enough behavior. We all damage our bodies every day doing… well, living. The art is in the heal.