Alcoholic beverages. Not interested in the debate about healthy at any level or not, just what is normative in a food oriented forum. One drink defined as any of 12 oz beer, 5 oz wine, or 1.5 oz hard spirit. Answer closest. I’m personally less than one a week but 1-2 is closest.
None
1-2/week
3-7/week
8-14/week
More
Any off the above and also occasionally binge to point of getting drunk, say at least 4 in one session
0voters
Happy to hear if you think it is a problem or not too.
Inspired by recent studies re-evaluating previous work and find no good evidence that even moderate drinking is healthy per se, but not interested in debating it.
I typically have two glasses of wine in the evening. Once a week or so, I might have three. So, I said more than 14. Some weeks, of course, it’s less. (but not many)
I voted ‘None,’ but that’s not really accurate. I may open a bottle of wine once a month. Takes me 3 days (1 8-oz glass/night) to finish it. So it’s more like 4-6 drinks per month.
I voted “more”. I don’t consider it a “problem” per se (although my liver may feel differently) because (a) I don’t drink in order to get drunk, and haven’t been discernibly drunk in a very long time, (b) can and do stop drinking entirely once in a while, and (c) absolutely do not drink when I’m going to be driving, and conversely, do not drive if I have been. A major component of my drinking is my predilection for always having wine with dinner.
I agree that the studies about the alleged benefits of drinking were probably flawed, inasmuch as folks who could afford regularly having wine with dinner could probably afford other things that contributed to a healthier lifestyle.
But my own theory is that there’s also potential psychological benefits to alcohol in terms of stress relief that can be beneficial. I had an amusing thought flit through my head the other day when I set out on a grocery shopping expedition which also included a stop at the liquor store. It was mostly facetious, but not entirely, and it was along the following lines: we go shopping for food in order to sustain life; we go shopping for liquor in order to tolerate it.
What if I drink 1-2 per month?. I can’t truthfully answer “none”, but your first alternative is about 4 times more frequently than I actually drink. Your last alternative would seem to be applicable until you get to “occasionally binge” which implies more than I drink in a month.
Funny how these surveys always seem to presume either weekly drinking or none. Nothing for “once a month” or “just winter holiday dinners”.
I’m also in the 1-2 drinks per month category. I answered “none” since the op specified “pick what’s closest”.
I had a couple of glasses of wine last night, at the Seder. Well, it might have been only one “standard” glass of wine, or a bit more, plus a glass of grape juice (which counts, ritually, as wine.)
I do enjoy the taste of many alcoholic beverages, but i don’t like the way it makes me feel, so i try to avoid drinking enough to notice the effect. (If i drink too much, i feel antisocial and want to go to sleep. But then i often get insomnia. Obviously, other people have a different subjective reaction than i have.) Also, my husband is a teetotaler, so i don’t have a lot of opportunity for social drinking.
But I’ll have a small glass of beer after working at the temple soup kitchen, when one of the organizers offers around his fresh homemade beer. And i enjoy wine with a nice dinner, and do that… well, less since the pandemic. And i enjoy a nice scotch before bed, especially when i have a cold. It adds up to a couple of drinks a month.
(Although there are lots of months when i don’t drink any alcohol, unless you count half a teaspoon of vanilla extract in my cocoa, and even that isn’t very often.)
I’ve never developed a typical man’s beer belly. I attribute it to the fact that I don’t like beer. I rarely drink. If I do, it’s liquor, and I get trashed. But I don’t recall the last time I did.
Most evenings, I have a drink, either with dinner, or sometime later in the evening – usually a beer, but sometimes it’s a glass of wine or a glass of whiskey. Some days, I don’t have one at all, and sometimes (particularly if I’m visiting with friends, or out at a restaurant) I have a second drink.
I probably average 6 or 7 drinks (cheap Canadian or American pilsner) every 3 weeks. I’ll go a while and think "i could go for some beers tonight, and I’ll end up having between 5 and 7 that night. Enough to get a good buzz while i watch tv. Then i won’t drink again for another 2-4 weeks.
Yeah. I doubt there’s any significant medical/health difference between “less than one drink per week” and “never” but there are rather significant social differences.