Supercrew

I think Matt is correct. What most people consider heavy drinking, wouldn't give me a buzz on an empty stomach after running a 10K.

When you tell someone you need 3-5 drinks to feel right in the morning, I don't think they would consider you a heavy drinker. I thought it was funny when I got my DUI, because I blew a .24. The police asked me when I had my last drink, and I told them about 6 hours ago, (I drove back from Baja Mexico), they both looked at me like either I was a liar, or I should have been dead. The worst part about it was I got pulled over because I dozed off, (only had about 4 hours of sleep the night before), not because I was drunk. So I would say the term "heavy drinker" would depend on who is doing the drinking. If 3-5 drinks is considered heavy, why bother? That would barely get my cravings to kick in!

JJB

With all due respect I find this distinction between heavy drinker and alcoholic very dangerous too.
If having 4 or 5 drinks a day makes me JUST a heavy drinker then it looks like I'm olk and can carry on then....
As has been said time and time again is that it's not the quantity that counts it's the fact that you can't go a day without it and that once you start you can't control it.
I also dispute the idea that alcohol is only dangerous for some people and not for others .
I live on a main road where every night and even more so on fridays and saturdays lots of people go past very drunk shouting, swearing and generally behaving in a way which without alcohol wouldn't be considered as "normal". (I believe the police call it "anti-social behaviour")
Either all these people are alcoholics which makes for extremely high figures or else alcohol is just not really good for anyone but the press and the drink industry really don't want this publicizing, so prefer to publish this sort of article instead.

Draciack

For the research project, heavy drinkers were defined as individuals who consume more than 3 drinks per day.

It's important to note that the differences in mortality rate between abstainers and heavy drinkers is not great...in fact, the researchers don't mention the difference in the discussion section of the paper.

The most interesting part (for me ) of the study is the baseline characteristics of abstainers when compared to moderate drinkers: abstainers are more obese, more likely to be smokers, use avoidance coping mechanisms, are less active socially, and more at risk for depression.

Finally, the study relied on self-reported drinking habits.

Draciack

From the limitations section:

...our analyses were limited to baseline alcohol consumption. Future research is needed to examine the health effects of changing patterns of alcohol consumption during the aging years.


This goes for the other variables (socioeconomic status, coping mechanisms, risk of depression, social activity, smoking, etc.).

A lot can change in 20 years.

Just food for thought.

north

If one wants to take a look at the study, I think it makes a lot more sense to read the actual study rather than the hundreds of articles that have come out citing it - and yes, I've gotten over 15 emails with articles citing the study along with stupid jokes on whether I want to reconsider my decision to quit the booze. The full-version does not come out until November but the abstract is here.

I think it is more important to understand the significance of what the study might mean to people like us - people who have had problems with alcohol. Going back to alcohol would be stupid and bring a return to all the associated health risks. Staying off alcohol alone might not be enough however - and we need to be extra proactive about other aspects of a healthy lifestyle including exercise, diet, sleep and reducing stress in our lives. Whatever damage we've done to our bodies is done ... what we decide to do going forward is our choice.

Anyways that's my take.

LexieCat

I really don't care if it IS true. If I were to live a few more years (unlikely, but let's play "let's pretend") in the hell I was in, I'd be glad to trade those years in for quality of life.

Che

A study includes all the information related, doesn't it? If I can see that their subjects were not satisfactorily random, I can determine for myself my own conclusion.

I think this is a matter of semantics about what we are calling the study. To me, the study is the raw data before anyone made any conclusions. If information, such as who the subjects are, is missing, it is clearly fraudulent or did not obey scientific method (carefully documenting all variables).

lildawg

I saw this much earlier today, but I'm just now getting to a point that I can reply.

Here are the things I thought (and I'm not trying to be inflammatory)

*Sometimes, when I see something like that, I have to say, "That message was not for lildawg." This, of course, leads to me reminding myself that I'm not the most important person in the world and that I am a little fish in the big pond. That particular message was for all the other little fishies in the pond who like to swim around drunk.

* Often, when I see something annoying like that, I ask myself if it's a thing I can change. In other words, does letting the whole stupid report get under my skin change anything? If it's a thing I can't change, then, I have to accept it. So . . . I accept that it's reckless but that it's not going away. Then, I have get on with my life.

* I remind myself that minutes I spend on negative endeavors are minutes I'll never get back. Why not spend the time encouraging other people or petting my dawg?

I'm sorry if this stuff is over the top stupid or too simple. Here's the thing, though: I've learned I'm a lot more happy if I don't let stuff like this irritate me. Sometimes that takes some effort, but I've got a smile on my face a lot more often.

LexieCat

I agree. There's a lot of stupidity, evil, and outrage in the world. I've got little bits that I'm responsible for doing something about, and it does me no good to get all righteously worked up about all the rest. It doesn't mean I don't care, but I can't afford the emotional investment anymore.

mercurial me

as George Jones sings...."well there's more old drunks than there are old doctors."

The media can be such a farce

artsoul

Very sad that they didn't qualify what was considered "heavy" drinking. I think most alcoholics think they fall in that category.

I'm sure they'll get some negative feedback on this.

yeahgr8

lol ain't that the truth...heavy drinkers...psshhh amateurs!

LaFemme

For a long time doctors prescribed smoking to help with respiratory problems based on studies they had at the time.

getr345

Take it with a grain with a salt.

Apparently, doctors used to think smoking was OK too...

hrhxtc

It is important to read the news article about this study carefully. The study done by Dr. Michael Sucher says that heavy drinkers live longer than those people who have NEVER DRUNK. According to Dr. Sucher the non-drinkers didn't drink because they couldn't afford it. They were from a lower soci-economic group. I think from this we can deduce that it was poverty, not lack of alcohol that led them to earlier deaths. If these people are so poor they can't afford to drink, chances are they can't afford quality health-care, quality food, quality education. The study also said the non-drinkers had much higher stress levels, no doubt a result of dealing with a life of poverty.

Here is the article: KTAR.com - Study says tip a few, live longer

Mat

This article is whack.

In the study they controlled for all of the factors that Sucher is claiming skew the results. When they did control for SES(socioeconomic status), the results were less dramatic, but still the same. The heavies outlived the lifetime abstainers by a small margin, followed by light drinkers, and moderate drinkers living the longest.

I have the 11 page PDF of the study in front of me. I am going to spend the afternoon reading it(there is also a big discussion about it on my favorite skeptics forum).

I'll see if I missed anything.

Mat

I was going to edit my prior post to add this, but my 15 minutes was up:

What Sucher says is true for the baselines, and the first plot of results in the study. However, when controls were applied to all covariates(age/gender, SES, marital status, former problem drinker(y/n), health problems, obesity, smoking, physical activity, avoidance coping, depression, # of close friends, quality of support) the mortality rate of abstainers and heavies dropped by about 30% yet the abstainers still had higher numbers than the heavies(by a tiny bit) followed by light and moderate drinkers. I would have liked to see more diverse plots of these controls instead of just none of them vs. all of them. Is an expanded version of this study being released later? Another poster said the full version wasn't out yet, but this looks like it to me...

Goat

Newspaper reporters, that's who. But delusional alcoholics are a very close second.

Sorry, couldn't resist. I work with reporters all the time

-Goat

BullDog777

i wouldn't have lasted another 3 weeks if i hadn't stopped drinking.

these "studies" are a joke.

north

The actual study - all 11 pages - is here. (if you're curious about it and don't want to rely on the interpretation of the thousands of reporters who have provided second-hand analysis & comments).

At least one item in the study that made me both laugh out loud and realize its external insignificance was their working definitions of "moderate" (< 3 drinks/day) and "heavy" (> 3 drinks/day). WTF? The latter sounds like the starting range for my understanding of "moderate" and obviously many of us would rank in some super-category like "extra heavy XXXO".

There are plenty of other studies out there which clearly indicate the health risks of drinking alcohol for people like us.