> The top 10 percent of American drinkers - 24 million adults over age 18 - consume, on average, [...] 10 drinks per day. What counts as an "American drinker"?

> The top 10 percent of American drinkers - 24 million adults over age 18 - consume, on average, [...] 10 drinks per day. What counts as an "American drinker"? Apparently only 24M of our 330M population. That's 7% of the population. So the average of the top 0.7% Americans consume 10 drinks per day. Since averages are heavily affected by the outliers at the top, you're looking at probably between 2-3 per 1000. I absolutely believe that many Americans consume the equivalent of 10+ light beers per day. What's more surprising to me is that only 24M Americans count as "drinkers". Our college population alone is 17M.