I don’t drink that often. I drink probably about once a month, to one and a half months. When I do drink though I tend to binge drink and get very intoxicated. Is this more or less healthy than a person who consistently drinks say a few beers every night but doesn’t get too plastered? I’m thinking the former is probably more healthy but I thought I would ask.
Binge drinking isn’t a healthy behavior. Doing it more often is worse than doing it less often, but doing it at all isn’t great.
A person who has a drink every other day is obviously going to fare better than someone who has fifteen in a night just once a month.
Now, we can argue the various permutations of how much is too much and when, but the real issue is that when you drink, you can’t control it well. I’d take a real close look at that if I were you.
Binge drinking significantly taxes the liver and other organs. Steady, low limit (1-2) daily is easy on the body.
Actually, the binge drinking is almost certainly more unhealthy. Lots of studies have been done and the consensus seems to be that 1-3 drinks a night can actually improve your health, usually the cardiovascular system.
I’d think that anything to excess is much worse than a steady stream. If you were to space out that monthly binge over 30 days you’d end up with less than a drink a day.
Take salt for example. In high enough doses it’s toxic, but at lower levels the body can deal with it in a negligible manner. I would imagine that alcohol is the same. This is ignoring whether alcohol in small amounts is actually beneficial or not.
But I wouldn’t worry about it anyway from a health-standpoint. Well I suppose it depends on exactly how intoxicated you decide to get. If we’re talking about losing consciousness, then yeah, not a good thing.
Edited. But yeah, also it’s not a good idea to get too drunk period.
Let’s put things into perspective here. You don’t drink often, but tend to drink enough to get drunk when you do. Does that mean five drinks or fifteen? Someone who drinks every night may easily have five drinks without feeling intoxicated, while that might leave a lighter drinker plastered.
I agree with what everyone else here is saying: one or two drinks a night is certainly better than a dozen once a month. But i’m not sure 4-5 drinks a night is better than, say, eight once a month. I’ve recently heard the argument that it takes the body longer than 24 hours to fully detoxify alcohol, and thus if you drink every night, your body never has the chance to fully recover. Sorry, i have no cite to back this up and don’t know how true it is, but it’s an interesting thought.
Well it does vary but if I’m out at a bar I’ll usually drink around 2-3 beers and then I’ll have maybe 4-5 long islands. I think part of it though is that since I don’t drink as often when I do drink I have a lighter tolerance than people who have say 3 drinks everyday. If I’m at home sometimes I’ll just drink staight vodka though I’m not sure how much. I usually don’t drink to the point of vomiting or anything though. I think the amount I drink does vary a lot though because I drink rather infrequently.
Getting extremely intoxicated is unsafe for other reasons- your chance of physical injury or alcohol-induced health problems from that single event is much greater than if you have only a few drinks.
So it may not be provably unhealthier to drink to severe intoxication once in a while and otherwise abstain- but I would say that it’s definitely riskier.
Ex-Binge Drinker here. A member of a Family of Ex-Binge Drinkers. Binge drinking affects your body very badly, and can lead to liver and kidney damage. There’s also the risk of accidents while dead drunk. I hope to hell that you aren’t driving while drinking.
Let me ask you something. Do you ever go out, have your two or three beers and then stop?
I think you have to worry about tolerance way less than control.
Sure I have gone out many times before and gotten to the 3 beer range and then decided “you know what this little buzz is fine I don’t want to drink anymore tonight.” I’ve also gone out wanting to get drunk and then deciding not to drink anything at all. I don’t think I have any sort of drinking problem at all. I’m more curious if this behavior is really bad for my body or if it is not really causing any long-term damage. If it is REAL unhealthy I will change my drinking habits.