4 ms·

That factoid about the heaviest drinking 10% is probably wrong, by the way. Basically, it comes out of survey data about how much alcohol people consume. But

That factoid about the heaviest drinking 10% is probably wrong, by the way. Basically, it comes out of survey data about how much alcohol people consume. But when you take the actual results from the survey and multiply it by the population of the US, you only get about half as much alcohol consumption as there are sales of alcohol. So the guy who ran the survey just multiplied all the numbers by two. People who said they had 5 drinks per night, he assumes they have 10 drinks per night. In contrast, the people who said they have 1 drink per month, he assumes 2 drinks per month. That's pretty dubious. It seems like it's a LOT more plausible that if you have 3 drinks per month, you'd report just one, than if you report 5 drinks per night, actually you take 10. Reference: http://vinepair.com/booze-news/10-americans-consume-10-drinks-per-day-no/ http://vinepair.com/booze-news/10-americans-consume-10-drink...

Bartweiss 10y ago
Wow, thank you. That really changes the initial result. I remember being shocked by those numbers. 10 per night is high-impact even with high tolerance, and totally out of the question for lots of people. For 5% of Americans to drink more than that would be wild, since you've largely slashed your potential demographic to good-sized men. And the reverse explanation, where the low end is particularly bad at estimating, would match with everything else people estimate. If you have a beer after work and a second with dinner, you can probably say "two a day" with confidence. If you have a glass of wine sometimes, out with friends, but not often, it's not terribly easy to guess whether that's two a month or one every two months. I sort of see why he used his estimate, because you have to bring up the low end hugely to account for so much absence, but it seems unjustifiable to assume that the heaviest drinkers could even survive having their numbers doubled.
- aetherson 10y ago
  Yeah, I think that probably a huge chunk of the difference is just that actually a lot of alcohol purchased is disposed of unconsumed. Tie that with a modest increase in the lower-end reporters, and perhaps a modest decrease in the highest-end reporters (are there people who said they average 5 drinks a night who really average 4 because in fact their drinking is variable per night and averaging across a week is more mental record keeping + math than they bothered with when answering a survey?), and you get something that strikes me as more congruent with basically all other facts that I've observed about the world. Now, that probably does still mean that the top decile accounts for an astonishing percentage of overall alcohol consumption, on a relative basis -- just the absolute amount is less incredible.
  - Bartweiss 10y ago
    The 'failure to consume' part didn't even occur to me. Between half-emptied drinks that go bad and liquor cabinets which have been stocked but barely used for decades, it can't be a small amount. And yeah - I don't doubt it's a power law thing, pretty much all addictive substances are. I imagine the 95th percentile of use for a lot of drugs would be lethal for a first-time user. But the raw dose claimed for alcohol here was bizarre, and I'm glad to have it explained.

Bartweiss 10y ago

Wow, thank you. That really changes the initial result. I remember being shocked by those numbers. 10 per night is high-impact even with high tolerance, and totally out of the question for lots of people. For 5% of Americans to drink more than that would be wild, since you've largely slashed your potential demographic to good-sized men. And the reverse explanation, where the low end is particularly bad at estimating, would match with everything else people estimate. If you have a beer after work and a second with dinner, you can probably say "two a day" with confidence. If you have a glass of wine sometimes, out with friends, but not often, it's not terribly easy to guess whether that's two a month or one every two months. I sort of see why he used his estimate, because you have to bring up the low end hugely to account for so much absence, but it seems unjustifiable to assume that the heaviest drinkers could even survive having their numbers doubled.

aetherson 10y ago
Yeah, I think that probably a huge chunk of the difference is just that actually a lot of alcohol purchased is disposed of unconsumed. Tie that with a modest increase in the lower-end reporters, and perhaps a modest decrease in the highest-end reporters (are there people who said they average 5 drinks a night who really average 4 because in fact their drinking is variable per night and averaging across a week is more mental record keeping + math than they bothered with when answering a survey?), and you get something that strikes me as more congruent with basically all other facts that I've observed about the world. Now, that probably does still mean that the top decile accounts for an astonishing percentage of overall alcohol consumption, on a relative basis -- just the absolute amount is less incredible.
- Bartweiss 10y ago
  The 'failure to consume' part didn't even occur to me. Between half-emptied drinks that go bad and liquor cabinets which have been stocked but barely used for decades, it can't be a small amount. And yeah - I don't doubt it's a power law thing, pretty much all addictive substances are. I imagine the 95th percentile of use for a lot of drugs would be lethal for a first-time user. But the raw dose claimed for alcohol here was bizarre, and I'm glad to have it explained.