6 ms·

I'm a heavy drinker who runs in a crowd of heavy drinkers. I am typing this at a bar. I should probably drink less. I cannot imagine drinking an average of 10

by menssen 12y ago

I'm a heavy drinker who runs in a crowd of heavy drinkers. I am typing this at a bar. I should probably drink less. I cannot imagine drinking an average of 10 drinks a day. Even playing with the numbers a little bit: if you were to have five drinks every weeknight (which seems doable, but still high), it would take more than 20 each night of the weekend to hit an average of 10, which seems unreasonable. So, three questions: 1. Anecdotally, is anybody else having this reaction? 2. Has anybody found the raw data? The linked summary of the original study is not very helpful. I'd like to look at the area of this data that spans the 20%-10% range more closely. The jump between the two categories is huge, and it seems to me that about halfway between (so, say, 35 drinks a week) fits where I would expect there to be a band of heavy-drinking culture. Is there demographic or age data in the study? 3. Given that this is a summary of the way a book that is trying to make a political argument represents these data, has anybody seen a different analysis of the same study?

Tloewald 12y ago
Are you an alcoholic? Because alcoholics can build up quite a tolerance and also maintain the minimal amount of functionality to get by. This is from a Yahoo answer to how much alcoholics drink: "I'm a small woman, 115 lbs and on a typical day I would have anywhere from 8 to 15 shots. On occasion I would go much higher but this was typical." A normal healthy adult can metabolise about one standard drink per hour, and there are 24 in a day IIRC. Also see http://www.niaaa.nih.gov/alcohol-health/overview-alcohol-consumption/alcohol-facts-and-statistics http://www.niaaa.nih.gov/alcohol-health/overview-alcohol-con... 7% are alcoholics according to NIH. They'd be enough to account for the statistics in the article.
- DanBC 12y ago
  In England medically assisted withdrawal is available if you drink over forty units per day. One unit is 10 ml pure alcohol. To find the unit qty you multiply the serving size in litres by the alcohol by volume figure. One litre of spirits at 40% abv is 40 units.
- kelnos 12y ago
  I don't think you can pin "alcoholic" to number of drinks, even if you control for weight/sex/etc. I drink reasonably heavily, but variably, on the order of 15-35 drinks per week. I wouldn't consider myself an alcoholic, mainly because I can -- and do -- stop whenever I want.
danwiding 12y ago
The behavior of the top decile is confusing as it's laid out presently. If the it's possible that the top 99th percentile drinks on average 16 drinks per night which would make it possible for the 91st decile drinking only 4 drinks per night and still get the results shown in the graph. My bet is that the data here is getting heavily skewed by a subset of alcoholics at the top end.
serve_yay 12y ago
Could be the difference between the definition of "a drink" and what we colloquially call a drink. For example a glass of wine contains 8 "drinks", but none of us would say that. There are like 4 or 5 glasses of wine in a bottle.
- kevinrpope 12y ago
  a *bottle of wine contains 8 "drinks". But on the subject, yes I think this is the issue. It's mainly definitional, but regardless - drinking that much is difficult for me to imagine.
DanBC 12y ago
> 1. Anecdotally, is anybody else having this reaction? How do you define "one drink"? One serving? Or some measured amount of alcohol? England has a public health measure of "units of alcohol" - 10 ml of pure alcohol. With metric it's easy to convert. Serving size in litres * Alcohol by volume. Thus, a 330 ml bottle of beer at 5% is about 1.65 units. A bottle of wine at 12% would be 9 units (for a 0.75 l bottle) A litre of vodka at 40% would be 40 units. 10 drinks a day seems high, even if we use this small "unit" figure for alcohol. That's EDIT 2 litres of alcohol per week; more than a bottle of wine every day; more than a lot of beer every day.
- a8da6b0c91d 12y ago
  10 mL is goofy. Who came up with that? A standard unit should be a 1.5 oz shot of 40% booze.
  - largote 12y ago
    Not sure if serious or trolling.
    - a8da6b0c91d 12y ago
      Not sure if stupid or missing the point in a reasonable way. I'm just saying 10 mL is not a drink. 18 mL is a drink.
      - phaemon 12y ago
        18ml is not a drink in England, which is the place we're talking about for 'units of alcohol'. In fact, most countries don't use the same measures for alcoholic drinks as the USA does. I'm surprised you don't know this.
        a8da6b0c91d 12y ago
        A "drink" in England is a pint of lager, making the 10 ml measure even sillier. What are you talking about?
cafard 12y ago
1. Yes, it seems astonishingly high. Montaigne mentions some acquaintance who drank just an astonishing amount (five liters?), but who knows who strong the French wine of that day was? 2. No. 3. No.
vacri 12y ago
if you were to have five drinks every weeknight (which seems doable, but still high) Perhaps instead of drinking them all at once, a couple of drinks at lunch, and a few in the evening. It's easy to drink a lot more when you spread it out over the day. You can drink a lot and never get drunk that way. Or if you're a high-powered movie lawyer, a shot from your whiskey carafe every time you talk to a client in your office.
rosser 12y ago
Statistics often don't conform to one's anecdotal expectations.
mehwoot 12y ago
1. It is standard drinks. A reasonable sized medium strength beer can be ~1.6 standard drinks, so you'd only need 3 of those for 5 on a weeknight. A standard drink generally corresponds to one shot (44ml) of spirits. 2. You're a "heavy drinker" and 20 drinks on a weekend seems like a lot? I'm done that numerous times and I hardly even enjoy drinking, to the point where I completely quit with almost no effort.
rasengan 12y ago
I drank 3 bottles yesterday. (750ML x 3 of Whiskey)
- georgeecollins 12y ago
  I am amazed you can do that without getting alcohol poising. If you are serious, you are killing yourself. Hope you are trolling.
pacaro 12y ago
I spent a year of my life drinking 8-10 imperial pints a day, which is way over this 10 standard drinks thing. Part of that was accomplished simply by drinking for 6+ hours a day (usually 8pm to 2am) After a year of that I stepped back to one or two a day. It was never an addiction thing for me, more just a social environment and expense account that encouraged drinking (which in retrospect included several hard core alcoholics) I've watched people close to me really struggle with addiction and do a lot of harm to people around them with smaller amounts of alcohol. It's not necessarily an issue of quantity, I believe that why you drink may well be the determining factor
- plaguuuuuu 12y ago
  Genetics also plays into it quite a lot. If you had the wrong genes you would still be drinking that much or possibly even more. That said, even irrespective of shitty genetics or good genetics, depression or stress will make it very difficult to get out of that hole.
mdesq 12y ago
I work with a number of sales folks who changed my impression of what it means to be a "drinker." I know personally several people who will easily and regularly down a few (3-4) 4-ounce vodka martinis before dinner, split a bottle of wine at dinner, then drink five spirit-based drinks after dinner. More than one of these folks has admitted they simply "don't get hangovers." They could be lying, but with the amount of alcohol they can drink and still be perfectly functional the next day, I bet these folks skew the average.
- deciplex 12y ago
  If you're drinking regularly and in large amounts like that, your tolerance for alcohol is going to be quite high, and your hangovers much more benign. If they quit drinking for a few months and then tried to drink like that again, they probably wouldn't make it through the night, and the next day would be rough.
slyall 12y ago
Here is a recent interview with actor Gerard Depardieu where he says he drinks 12+ bottles of wine in a day. A bottle of wine is around 7 standard drinks so he is drinking daily what the average "Top 10% drinker" gets through in a week. http://www.sofilm.co.uk/interview-gerard-depardieu-i-can-absorb-12-13-14-bottlesper-day http://www.sofilm.co.uk/interview-gerard-depardieu-i-can-abs...
- PhasmaFelis 12y ago
  Surely there's some miscommunication or exaggeration there. I don't think most people could drink 12-14 wine bottles of water a day. Forget alcohol poisoning, you'd be risking death just from hyperhydration.
aidenn0 12y ago
"A drink" in these studies refers to one of the following, which are approximately equal in alcohol content: 1) A shot of hard liquor 2) A 12oz can of beer 3) A 5oz glass of wine So a Pint of beer is 1.3 drinks, a generous pour of wine could be as much as 2 drinks and various cocktails are all over the place.

by menssen 12y ago

Tloewald 12y ago

Are you an alcoholic? Because alcoholics can build up quite a tolerance and also maintain the minimal amount of functionality to get by. This is from a Yahoo answer to how much alcoholics drink: "I'm a small woman, 115 lbs and on a typical day I would have anywhere from 8 to 15 shots. On occasion I would go much higher but this was typical." A normal healthy adult can metabolise about one standard drink per hour, and there are 24 in a day IIRC. Also see http://www.niaaa.nih.gov/alcohol-health/overview-alcohol-consumption/alcohol-facts-and-statistics http://www.niaaa.nih.gov/alcohol-health/overview-alcohol-con... 7% are alcoholics according to NIH. They'd be enough to account for the statistics in the article.

DanBC 12y ago
In England medically assisted withdrawal is available if you drink over forty units per day. One unit is 10 ml pure alcohol. To find the unit qty you multiply the serving size in litres by the alcohol by volume figure. One litre of spirits at 40% abv is 40 units.
kelnos 12y ago
I don't think you can pin "alcoholic" to number of drinks, even if you control for weight/sex/etc. I drink reasonably heavily, but variably, on the order of 15-35 drinks per week. I wouldn't consider myself an alcoholic, mainly because I can -- and do -- stop whenever I want.

danwiding 12y ago

The behavior of the top decile is confusing as it's laid out presently. If the it's possible that the top 99th percentile drinks on average 16 drinks per night which would make it possible for the 91st decile drinking only 4 drinks per night and still get the results shown in the graph. My bet is that the data here is getting heavily skewed by a subset of alcoholics at the top end.

serve_yay 12y ago

Could be the difference between the definition of "a drink" and what we colloquially call a drink. For example a glass of wine contains 8 "drinks", but none of us would say that. There are like 4 or 5 glasses of wine in a bottle.

kevinrpope 12y ago
a *bottle of wine contains 8 "drinks". But on the subject, yes I think this is the issue. It's mainly definitional, but regardless - drinking that much is difficult for me to imagine.

DanBC 12y ago

> 1. Anecdotally, is anybody else having this reaction? How do you define "one drink"? One serving? Or some measured amount of alcohol? England has a public health measure of "units of alcohol" - 10 ml of pure alcohol. With metric it's easy to convert. Serving size in litres * Alcohol by volume. Thus, a 330 ml bottle of beer at 5% is about 1.65 units. A bottle of wine at 12% would be 9 units (for a 0.75 l bottle) A litre of vodka at 40% would be 40 units. 10 drinks a day seems high, even if we use this small "unit" figure for alcohol. That's EDIT 2 litres of alcohol per week; more than a bottle of wine every day; more than a lot of beer every day.

a8da6b0c91d 12y ago
10 mL is goofy. Who came up with that? A standard unit should be a 1.5 oz shot of 40% booze.
- largote 12y ago
  Not sure if serious or trolling.
  - a8da6b0c91d 12y ago
    Not sure if stupid or missing the point in a reasonable way. I'm just saying 10 mL is not a drink. 18 mL is a drink.
    - phaemon 12y ago
      18ml is not a drink in England, which is the place we're talking about for 'units of alcohol'. In fact, most countries don't use the same measures for alcoholic drinks as the USA does. I'm surprised you don't know this.
      - a8da6b0c91d 12y ago
        A "drink" in England is a pint of lager, making the 10 ml measure even sillier. What are you talking about?

cafard 12y ago

1. Yes, it seems astonishingly high. Montaigne mentions some acquaintance who drank just an astonishing amount (five liters?), but who knows who strong the French wine of that day was? 2. No. 3. No.

vacri 12y ago

if you were to have five drinks every weeknight (which seems doable, but still high) Perhaps instead of drinking them all at once, a couple of drinks at lunch, and a few in the evening. It's easy to drink a lot more when you spread it out over the day. You can drink a lot and never get drunk that way. Or if you're a high-powered movie lawyer, a shot from your whiskey carafe every time you talk to a client in your office.

rosser 12y ago

Statistics often don't conform to one's anecdotal expectations.

mehwoot 12y ago

1. It is standard drinks. A reasonable sized medium strength beer can be ~1.6 standard drinks, so you'd only need 3 of those for 5 on a weeknight. A standard drink generally corresponds to one shot (44ml) of spirits. 2. You're a "heavy drinker" and 20 drinks on a weekend seems like a lot? I'm done that numerous times and I hardly even enjoy drinking, to the point where I completely quit with almost no effort.

rasengan 12y ago

I drank 3 bottles yesterday. (750ML x 3 of Whiskey)

georgeecollins 12y ago
I am amazed you can do that without getting alcohol poising. If you are serious, you are killing yourself. Hope you are trolling.

pacaro 12y ago

I spent a year of my life drinking 8-10 imperial pints a day, which is way over this 10 standard drinks thing. Part of that was accomplished simply by drinking for 6+ hours a day (usually 8pm to 2am) After a year of that I stepped back to one or two a day. It was never an addiction thing for me, more just a social environment and expense account that encouraged drinking (which in retrospect included several hard core alcoholics) I've watched people close to me really struggle with addiction and do a lot of harm to people around them with smaller amounts of alcohol. It's not necessarily an issue of quantity, I believe that why you drink may well be the determining factor

plaguuuuuu 12y ago
Genetics also plays into it quite a lot. If you had the wrong genes you would still be drinking that much or possibly even more. That said, even irrespective of shitty genetics or good genetics, depression or stress will make it very difficult to get out of that hole.

mdesq 12y ago

I work with a number of sales folks who changed my impression of what it means to be a "drinker." I know personally several people who will easily and regularly down a few (3-4) 4-ounce vodka martinis before dinner, split a bottle of wine at dinner, then drink five spirit-based drinks after dinner. More than one of these folks has admitted they simply "don't get hangovers." They could be lying, but with the amount of alcohol they can drink and still be perfectly functional the next day, I bet these folks skew the average.

deciplex 12y ago
If you're drinking regularly and in large amounts like that, your tolerance for alcohol is going to be quite high, and your hangovers much more benign. If they quit drinking for a few months and then tried to drink like that again, they probably wouldn't make it through the night, and the next day would be rough.

slyall 12y ago

Here is a recent interview with actor Gerard Depardieu where he says he drinks 12+ bottles of wine in a day. A bottle of wine is around 7 standard drinks so he is drinking daily what the average "Top 10% drinker" gets through in a week. http://www.sofilm.co.uk/interview-gerard-depardieu-i-can-absorb-12-13-14-bottlesper-day http://www.sofilm.co.uk/interview-gerard-depardieu-i-can-abs...

PhasmaFelis 12y ago
Surely there's some miscommunication or exaggeration there. I don't think most people could drink 12-14 wine bottles of water a day. Forget alcohol poisoning, you'd be risking death just from hyperhydration.

aidenn0 12y ago

"A drink" in these studies refers to one of the following, which are approximately equal in alcohol content: 1) A shot of hard liquor 2) A 12oz can of beer 3) A 5oz glass of wine So a Pint of beer is 1.3 drinks, a generous pour of wine could be as much as 2 drinks and various cocktails are all over the place.