
Top 10% of American adults consume, on average, 74 alcoholic drinks per week - ALee
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/09/25/think-you-drink-a-lot-this-chart-will-tell-you/
======
throwitaway1234
I fit into the 10% category for years while building my first start-up age ~22
- 30.

I realized at some point it was out of control and I couldn't stop. The
details are as ugly as anybodys addiction story but to most everybody else I
managed to externally look "fine".

I am the biggest contrarian and skeptic in the world, eventually sought out
medical help and was referred to AA which I was very leery of.

But I did it and recently celebrated year 2 of sobriety along with a way to
address the stress, fear, loneliness of startup life.

Not trying to hijack a data-thread into self-help but when I was out drinking
I loved consuming these articles to feel like I wasn't the only one.

Having spent some time in AA there are are a LOT of developers, entrepreneurs,
hackers that are working the program too, if you're struggling with the
alcohol monkey like I was it's a safe thing to at least check out.

~~~
kelnos
I'm going to try to write this without being inflammatory or sounding
insensitive, which I absolutely don't intend to be, but I'm very sorry if this
post comes off that way. I'm sure my tone will be lost to the cold, hard text
of a web page.

First off, congratulations on turning your situation around and maintaining
your sobriety for 2 years. I can't imagine how much work that must have been.

I've never really understood the whole "alcoholic vs. sobriety" thing. Is it
not possible to "learn" to drink less? I see time and again the idea of being
"out of control, unable to stop". Why is complete sobriety the only answer?
Can varying levels of control truly not be learned? Or is the prevailing
mindset that it's "easier" (while I'm sure still very difficult) to just go
down to zero and maintain that, rather than learn moderation? I wonder if
there are any studies or evidence to back that up, if that's the case.

Also a question about AA itself, if you're ok answering it. My understanding
is that AA is very faith-based (many steps of the 12-step process invoking a
deity), and that a big part of it involves opening yourself to God and Jesus
to help. Is that universal, or are there non-religious versions of AA? I know
if I (an atheist) ever got into a situation where I needed something like AA,
I would be very uncomfortable with the religious aspects.

~~~
peteretep

        > I've never really understood the whole "alcoholic vs.
        > sobriety" thing.
    

Then you've never struggled with addiction.

~~~
kelnos
I haven't, that's true. I'm asking these questions because I'd like to
understand better, and your flippant response isn't a big help.

~~~
fifthesteight
It's not a flippant response, but I would certainly consider yours to be. You
have never suffered from addiction, therefore your frame of reference is
skewed, but forgivable.

Having never suffered addiction you physically and psychologically cannot
understand the affliction. It controls your thoughts, your body, your actions
and decisions. It has costs well beyond every night drinking- costs paid in
broken marriages, lost friendships and worse.

Pointing out that you have never suffered from addiction is not flippant. It
is in response to a lot of what you have already written. You don't know the
pain of which you are so dismissive, far apart from the 'coldness' of text.
You express yourself and your understanding very well, and your words are
sharp.

~~~
kelnos
I think you don't understand what "flippant" means. The parent's response was
certainly flippant. He displayed a (to borrow the phrase from dictionary.com)
frivolous disrespect for my curiosity and questions.

I would absolutely agree that my frame of reference is different (I wouldn't
say "skewed"; that's a bit of a weird and disrespectful way of putting it),
but I'm asking questions with the intent to try to understand better what
people who _have_ struggled with addiction have to go through to get better.

You accuse me of being dismissive, but I am anything but: I am asking
questions trying to understand the forces at work here. The parent was very
dismissive of me and my effort to understand.

Let's teach by example here.

Dismissive: I think addiction isn't real because I've never experienced it.

Dismissive: I'm going to imply that your questions are stupid and invalid just
because you haven't experienced what we're talking about.

Not dismissive: [pretty much everything I've said up till now]

~~~
fifthesteight
Your attitude continues to be less than stellar. You act like a babe in the
woods who has no frame of reference and only innocently asks questions to
further educate yourself. From my perspective, you condescend, and continue to
do so. You are a member of society, presumably older than sixteen, and so you
very well know how pointed this line of questioning can be.

Perhaps my uncalled-for overreaction is due to the loss I've experienced at
the cost of addiction, from my own mistakes and mistakes made around me. For
me there has been a significant loss of life both in my immediate family and
friends.

HN is a pretty weird place to ask these questions, and I understand perfectly
well what flippant means- thanks for not being dismissive or condescending.

I admit I may overreact, but only because I find your questions- especially
the way you responded to be- to me disingenuous.

Though I should never discourage someone from learning, and judging by my
reaction i see why anonymity and text are the right place.

(i can tell that i overreacted, and responded emotionally and strangely. I am
bipolar on top of addiction issues and reading this post back to myself it's
apparent. I'm being an ass. I'm leaving my post because maybe my broken train
of thought can be a bit of a learning experience? i'm sorry i am so rude.)

~~~
kelnos
Thanks for explaining. I'm just trying to get the point across that I _just
don 't understand_, but would like to. I happen to think that HN is a pretty
reasonable and normal place to engage in discussions about these sorts of
things, so it seemed natural to me to ask.

I can only ask you to believe me when I say I'm not being disingenuous here: I
am genuinely curious about all this stuff, _especially_ since I have no first-
or even second-hand experience with it. I am sorry if I come off as somewhat
clinical or detached... as I mentioned and we all know, it's very hard to get
tone across via a medium like this.

------
menssen
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
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-
con...](http://www.niaaa.nih.gov/alcohol-health/overview-alcohol-
consumption/alcohol-facts-and-statistics)

7% are alcoholics according to NIH. They'd be enough to account for the
statistics in the article.

~~~
kelnos
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.

------
JohnBooty
I'm not sure about this conclusion with regards to alcohol:

    
    
      > The Pareto Law states that "the top 20 percent of 
      > buyers for most any consumer product account for 
      > fully 80 percent of sales," according to Cook. The 
      > rule can be applied to everything from hair care 
      > products to X-Boxes...
    
      > ...But the consequences of the Pareto Law are different 
      > when it comes to industries like alcohol, tobacco, and 
      > now marijuana. If you consume 10+ drinks per day, for
      > instance, you almost certainly have a drinking problem. 
      > But the beverage industry is heavily dependent on you 
      > for their profits.
    

If you're having ten drinks per day you're almost certainly going to be
drinking the cheap stuff, not the high-profit-margin luxury alcohol brands.

There's probably more profit in a single bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue than an
entire month's supply of the cheapo local beer that's chugged by an alcoholic.

~~~
honestfeedback
Rich people can be alcoholics, too – and in fact they can often conceal and
maintain it better. A well-off white collar worker is unlikely to spend a
significant percentage of their income on alcohol, even if they're drinking to
excess; they also are likely to have flexible work hours, sick time, and other
mechanisms to cover for their binges and hangovers.

There are even (up to a point) social and professional benefits that come from
drinking with colleagues. Alcohol is a huge part of many companies' culture,
and people can easily hit the 80th percentile (>15 drinks per week) simply by
accepting a reasonable fraction of the offers to share a drink with their
peers in a given work week.

Some normal signs in tech companies: * Company-stocked beer fridges * Hosted
weekly (or more often) happy hours * Personal bottles of expensive whiskey on
desks * Expense reports for "team dinners" that are 60-70% booze

~~~
redthrowaway
I find it weird that >15 drinks a week is 80%ile, given that that's a pretty
standard moderate level of drinking in many parts of the world and is
significantly healthier than not drinking at all.

[http://www.psmag.com/navigation/health-and-behavior/truth-
wo...](http://www.psmag.com/navigation/health-and-behavior/truth-wont-admit-
drinking-healthy-87891/)

~~~
bagels
That study defines "moderate" as 1-2 drinks a day, if you look at the chart in
the article you linked, >6 drinks per day had higher mortality rate.

~~~
redthrowaway
It's >15 drinks per week, not per day. Let's call that 3/day, which is
significantly better for your health than not drinking at all.

~~~
a8da6b0c91d
IQ and alcohol consumption are highly correlated. IQ and health & longevity
and highly correlated. I think even a lot of alcohol in the context of a good
diet is benign, but I'm skeptical about the health benefit claims. I think
they're just not properly controlling for other factors like intelligence.
Somebody needs to run the data controlling for IQ.

------
DanielBMarkham
I was reading a book yesterday where one character offers another one a drink.
He declines, and the guy says something like "Come on, the sun's over the
yardarm somewhere."

This struck me as a very odd phrase, so I looked it up.

The yardarm is the horizontal beam on a sailing boat. Back in the day, once
the sun rose above the yardarm, the Royal Navy would start issuing the first
of the rum rations for the day. There were several throughout the day.

This was about 11am.

The U.S. Navy had similar rules. George Washington's army pounded back quite a
bit as part of their daily rations. The first major uprising in the U.S. was
due to alcohol production. Foreigners traveling to the states were always
impressed at the amount of booze the colonists could put away. Even folks who
mostly teetotaled kept a cider barrel and took a good-sized cup to get the day
going.

Some anthropologists believe that the natural state of man up until a hundred
years or so ago was intoxication, it just wasn't spelled out as clearly in the
literature, mainly because it wasn't unusual. In fact, some believe that
civilization itself started with the fermentation of grain.

I'm still trying to absorb those numbers, which I feel are inflated. But I
note that excessive consumption in the states is certainly not a new thing. So
who knows? Maybe the stats are true.

I note that another commenter is pointing out that addicts will enjoy these
articles because it tells them they are normal. Beats me what normal is. Are
we supposed to all agree on a definition here? Is it okay to bring up what
some of the stats and historians are saying about alcohol consumption in a
non-judgmental way without either having to endorse or condemn it?

~~~
aaronbrethorst

        Some anthropologists believe that the natural state
        of man up until a hundred years or so ago was
        intoxication, it just wasn't spelled out as clearly 
        in the literature, mainly because it wasn't unusual.
    

There's quite a bit of literature out there about this. What I haven't seen a
lot of—and would be interested in learning more about—is the seemingly
simultaneous occurrence of the proliferation of coffee houses and the
Enlightenment in Europe.

It would make a ton of sense to me that trading in a constant state of
inebriation for a caffeine buzz might make for better productivity.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
There are all these cases today of sizable percentages of the population being
pre-dispositioned to do things that currently make no sense. ADHD is one. Is
ADHD a defect? Or an adaptive response that is no longer needed? Or just a
different kind of personality maturation pattern?

Perhaps heavy alcohol inebriation was needed when you worked 35 years barely
staying alive, then died of measels. Perhaps it's part of intelligence -- some
addiction researchers are now saying that addicts are actually "over-learning"
the stimulus-response associated with drinking.

Like I said, beats me. But it is fascinating -- even more so if there is 10%
of the population who are adults and presumably mostly feel they have no
problem while the rest of us think they do. Obesity is developing along
similar lines -- except the 10 percent are going to end up being the folks who
aren't fat!

Personal anecdotes are great, and I congratulate anybody on overcoming
something that they've identified as a problem. But when we're talking 10
percent of the population? There's something else at work here; something that
has developed over eons across populations worldwide. Fascinating stuff.

~~~
PhasmaFelis
IIRC, a lot of it was credited to the difficulty of getting pure drinking
water. Fermented beer (with considerably lower ABV than we're used to) was
much safer to drink than water from a river that everyone upstream had been
throwing their trash into.

------
pesenti
The article is misleading. You don't need to drink 74 drinks per week to be in
the top 10 percentile. 74 drinks is the average of all those in the top 10
percentile and not the lower boundary.

~~~
nirmel
I don't think it says that. The author points out that upon entering the top
10 percentile, "you'd still be below-average among those top 10 percenters."
PS. Send my regards to Watson!

~~~
pesenti
The article says: "But in order to break into the top 10 percent of American
drinkers, you would need to drink more than two bottles of wine with every
dinner." And according to Watson that's 10 drinks ;-)
([http://www.rethinkingdrinking.niaaa.nih.gov/default_wine.asp](http://www.rethinkingdrinking.niaaa.nih.gov/default_wine.asp))

~~~
rco8786
Right. so two bottles of wine is 70 per week. and you would need to drink MORE
than that(let's say, by about 40% of a bottle/week) to crack the top 10 :)

~~~
pesenti
No that's wrong. If 74/week is the average for the top 10 percentile, most
likely half of that, a bottle a day, gets you in the top 10.

------
mjb
From a linked article:
[http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/03/28/t...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/03/28/the-
wonkblog-guide-to-efficient-drinking/)

> After Prohibition, beer makers were actually forbidden from putting alcohol
> content information on their labels. They finally sued for the right to do
> so in 1987.

That's amazing. I come from a country where content labeling is mandatory.
When I'm in the US I tend to prefer beer that is labelled for its content (or
styles I know are closer to 5% than 9%), because I like to know how much I'm
drinking. It seems strange to me that the conclusion about labeling is "people
will use labels to buy more alcohol for the same money" and not "people will
use labels to help them make responsible decisions".

~~~
ZanyProgrammer
I agree, its hard to find decent non cheap beer (PBR, Coors, Bud, etc) that
has lower alcohol content, it seems. Even on the West Coast, where we have
tons of microbrews available in seemingly every store.

~~~
buckbova
Try the Stone Go To IPA.

It has all the flavor of an IPA at 4.5% alcohol. Good drink on a hot day.

[http://www.stonebrewing.com/gotoipa/](http://www.stonebrewing.com/gotoipa/)

------
ZanyProgrammer
I can see a daily drink or two (realizing that the 'or two' does make a
difference) as what should be a normal high end, but the top 10%? Wow, I'd
imagine that drinking a dozen or so drinks a day would quickly ruin your
health-obesity, liver problems, run ins with the law, etc.

It seems like in the US there really isn't that much of a nationwide culture
of moderate drinking-drinking being the thing you're only supposed to do on
non work nights or for celebratory occasions. I think controlled moderate
drinking (the glass or two of booze a night) tends to be looked down upon as
being one step away from being in the gutter.

But that's just my own opinion, bashing our somewhat prudish society.

------
yodsanklai
How to explain it? is it an addiction that grows slowly, or is it a
consequence of people being dissatisfied with their lives. I also wonder if
cannabis, when fully legalized, will replace alcohol as our "drug of choice".

~~~
martin1975
It's a spiritual disease. You are correct in speculating that one addiction
can be switched with another - cannabis, pornography/hookers/affairs, heavier
drugs. The bad part is, unless one surrenders, if a person is a bona fide
addict, their full blown illness will drive them to depression,
unmanageability, prison... possibly suicide.

The good news is, if one surrenders, he or she can suspend the progress of the
disease.

~~~
Igglyboo
I really don't think a cannabis addiction can be classed as the same life
ruining addiction that alcohol is. Maybe because of it's legality it can ruin
lives but the parent was specifically talking about after it became legalized.

~~~
diltonm
The following is a troublesome statement to me about pot that I didn't know
until now:

"Smoking marijuana is more dangerous than smoking cigarettes, experts say. The
tar in joints contains a much higher concentration of the chemicals linked to
lung cancer compared with tobacco tar. And smoking marijuana deposits four
times more tar in the lungs than smoking an equivalent amount of tobacco,
according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse."

[http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/20/health/marijuana-versus-
alcoho...](http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/20/health/marijuana-versus-alcohol/)

~~~
yodsanklai
It's important to know that there are alternative ways to consume cannabis.
One is to ingest it (which may not be as convenient as smoking), an other one
is vaporization. Vaporization offers a very similar experience to smoking
without the health risks associated with combustion (it's still not known if
it's totally safe though).

One thing we can expect with legalization is that consumers will be better
informed about those alternatives.

------
nicpottier
Graph is for everyone, not just drinkers. So headline is more than a little
off as the bottom 3 deciles drink 0 and are therefore not "drinkers".

~~~
delecti
I'm curious about the specific questions asked.

For a few years I drank so infrequently that across a year my weekly average
would be below 0.25 drinks/week, but I wasn't a "never" drinker. There might
be a difference between people who literally never drink (recovering
alcoholics, lifelong teetotalers) and those who do drink, but who do so so
infrequently that their average would round down to 0 depending on the
question asked.

------
DanBC
This article doesn't define what a "drink" is. It also says:

> Do you drink a glass of wine with dinner every night? That puts you in the
> top 30 percent of American adults in terms of per-capita alcohol
> consumption. If you drink two glasses, that would put you in the top 20
> percent.

Which, in context, is weakly linking "glass of wine equals one drink".

England talks about alcohol units. One unit is, for example, 125 ml of wine
with an ABV (alcohol by volume) of 8%. Even though wine is recently getting
weaker it's tricky to find wine as weak as 8%. 13% is more typical. If someone
poured you 125 ml of wine at a meal you might think they'd made a mistake. Try
it yourself now to see how small it is. 175 ml or 200 ml are more normal
serving sizes.

200 ml at 13% is 2.6 units. Two of those is 5.2 units.

So, really, people need to learn how much alcohol they're drinking. You get
the health benefits from alcohol when you drink one unit per day; risks start
to rise after that. Being teetotal appears to be as harmful as drinking maybe
5 to 6 units per day, even when corrected for people who are teetotal because
of health history.

~~~
dntrkv
125ml is actually about how much wine you should be pouring into a glass at a
time.

Random image I found illustrating this:
[http://i.imgur.com/27971Kr.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/27971Kr.jpg)

~~~
andybak
If someone poured me the 'just enough' glass at a dinner party, I'd be having
words...

~~~
DanBC
I'm not sure why you got downvoted so much! I haven't seen 125 ml as a serving
size any place I've been to.

------
DMac87
Basic statistics: just because the average in the top decile is 74, that
doesn't mean everyone in the top decile drinks 74. The top 5%/1%/0.1% who
drink way more than 74/week (15/day? 20/day?) can counter-balance the 5-8/day
crowd.

To give another example: the average top decile Facebook employee has a net
worth over $33 Million. That seems high, but that's because that net worth is
highly skewed - in fact, I assumed only Mark Zuckerberg's wealth was
distributed equally among FB's ~10k employees, and that everyone else has $0.
The figure $33 Million is meaningless.

~~~
Centigonal
That's sound statistics, but consider that that average value figures to over
10 drinks a day every day, and there's probably an upper limit on how much
alcohol you can drink, even with an alcoholic's level of tolerance.

Salaries at Facebook are probably exponentially distributed, but if drinks per
week were distributed that way, then the top 5%/1%/0.1% would become very
dead, very quickly.

------
integraton
Interesting that junk food isn't mentioned. I bet that we could find quite a
few examples of where the top consumers of classes of food products are having
their health damaged more than the top consumers of marijuana.

------
funkyy
Many Startup owners and entrepreneurs will be slightly scared about them
getting in to alcoholism.

But lets get things straight.

I am "heavy" drinker in my opinion drinking on average 1,5 litre of whiskey a
week. Is it a lot in statistics? No. Do I think its a lot? Yes. Do I have a
problem? No. I can stop for a month without trying (doing a test every 3-4
months for 2 weeks just in case).

Alcohol helps to release stress. As old saying says - the very first time you
will taste the vodka and you think its tasty - you have a problem pal. Serious
problem.

Same with Whiskey or Gin.

Any strong alcohol will do actually.

Just use it as relaxing method, not substitute to happiness, and you will be
good. Dont feel bad if you drink more alcohol than Yahoo statistics say. Just
use common sense - anything in excess is harmful.

------
dneronique
Do I drink 10 drink every day? Naw. But I drink 1-2 every week night and 6-15
on the weekends. So yea, I can see this averaging out awkwardly...

~~~
jrs99
that averages out awkwardly to what? 6 drinks? 10 seems like another level no
matter how you distribute it.

------
dalore
Is this self reported? How many people lie and say they don't consume any?
Especially if they are religious and there religion forbids it. I know quite a
few people who say they don't drink but I've seen them drink. They would even
lie to themselves that they don't drink.

------
mpg33
Jesus...even when I used to get absurdly hammered on the weekends in my late
teens/early 20's at max I'd say that it worked out to 20-25 drinks (fri+sat
night)...these guys are basically sustaining that rate through the entire
week?

------
BadassFractal
Been happily consuming up to 1 alcoholic drink per week for years now, still
manage to go out and have a great time in bars and clubs, don't have to deal
with being useless the next day or destroying my health.

------
durbin
Someone needs to get the NYTimes data visualization team to clean this up.
Doesn't do the enormity of the number justice by folding the last column into
four columns when the rest are a single column.

------
pkaye
I have a drink maybe once in three months. I though I was unusual given so
many people around me drive much more. Now I realize I'm closer to the medium.

------
cowsandmilk
for those who want the raw data:

[https://web.archive.org/web/20040623191611/http://niaaa.cens...](https://web.archive.org/web/20040623191611/http://niaaa.census.gov/index.html)

On the data tab, the zip files unzip into a text file that is column based.
The SAS convert program gives codes for those columns. Codes can be converted
to questions using the code book tab.

------
ninjakeyboard
I'm in the top 15% probably. Maybe top 10 actually. Aren't all developers?
It's the Balmer peak I try for.

~~~
buckbova
Agreed.

I probably hit the 20-25 drinks a week mark with one to two 22 ounce craft
beers a night during the week and maybe 3 on a Saturday.

I stock my beverage fridge like a Dr Dre video, but with good beer.

I love a good double/triple IPA. Having one makes me want another.

Of course on strong beer alone I could never hit 75 drinks. I'd be in the
bathroom the whole time. In my distant past I had a buddy that would drink a
twelver of bud light nearly every night. No thanks.

------
seanflyon
Title is incorrect. Should be 15 drinks per week, not per day.

~~~
therealdrag0
Or: Top 10 % drink 10 drinks a day :/

~~~
lisper
Actually, by strict adherence to HN rules the headline should be "Think you
drink a lot? This chart will tell you." (Which IMO is a perfect illustration
of why this is a stupid rule.)

~~~
dang
That's not true. The rule calls for changing the headline when it is
misleading or linkbait. "Think you drink a lot? This chart will tell you" is
arguably bait because it uses the "you" trick and the "this" trick.

~~~
diminoten
Yeah but shouldn't it be "top 10% of American people", not drinkers?

Seems a little misleading, as the population of drinkers is only 70% of the
actual population.

~~~
dang
Ah, good point. The article says "adults" not "drinkers". Thanks!

