Alcohol Use in the United States: Age Groups and Demographic Characteristics | National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA)
www.niaaa.nih.gov
Prevalence of Lifetime DrinkingPeople Ages 12 and OlderAccording to the 2024 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), 228.4 million people ages 12 and older (79.2% in this age group) reported that they drank alcohol at some point in their lifetime.1,2 This includes:

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.

    • shalafi@lemmy.worldEnglish
      22·
      1 day ago

      Told the practitioner at the doc-in-a-box I drank that much and she was shocked. X number of alcoholic beverages bad! Well, there’s a hella difference taking 12 hours to drink the weakest shit on the market and slamming wine or vodka.

      These studies never take into account differences in individual biology. My wife would certainly get alcohol poisoning from drinking like I do, if she were forced to choke that much down. I don’t even get a mild hangover.

      • salacious_coaster@infosec.pubOPEnglish
        21·
        1 day ago

        That’s early colonial-American style drinking right there.

        “If I take a settler after my coffee, a cooler at nine, a bracer at ten, a whetter at eleven and two or three stiffners during the forenoon, who has any right to complain?”