DoubleDragons

The U.S. has one of the lowest rates of drinking in the developed world, new figures have revealed.

Average Americans drank just 9.4 litres of alcohol a year - the same as 470 pints of mild beer or 31 glasses of wine.


The figure is much lower than Europe where the average British drinker sinks 1100 pints of beer each year and Russians have 1350 pints of beer and 90 bottles of vodka.


Read more: U.S. drinks the lowest amount of alcohol in the developed world, figures reveal | Mail Online


For those of us who want to "dilly-dally" with the idea of moderation, I looked these statistics up. Being an American woman, that means that if I wanted to be an average/moderate American drinker, I would only have less than three glasses of wine a month! Wow, is moderation even worth it?!? Three glasses a month sounds laughable to me even now!!! Just found this interesting . . . .

DoubleDragons

As a follow-up, I think what this article showed me is that even the idea of "moderation" is very skewed in the mind of an alcoholic/problem drinker/addict. I know that my idea of a moderate or a "normal" drinker would certainly have been more than 2.5 glasses of wine a month!!

MIRecovery

Well I've never been average. It will take at least 15 or 20 years of not drinking before I will average. Actually thinking about it I don't think I will live long enough to average. I will have to break out the calculator on this one

chaili05

Wait... 31 glasses of wine per year?! 2.5 per month... Yikes... I was having what, closer to 60 per month? Somewhere around there. Countless bottles.

isitme

Wow.. I would have thought 2 or 3 glasses of wine a week as average or "moderation" for me.

MIRecovery

I only drink two drinks a day. 16 ounces of cheap vodka at a time

ImperfectlyMe

I'm assuming that is suppose to be 31 BOTTLES of wine are equivalent to 470 pints

ScottFromWI

That's actually kind of surprising to me. I thought we ( Americans ) were at the top of just about every gluttony/vice list that there was. At least we are all bringing the averages down in all of our home countries a tiny bit each day by staying sober though....

FourSeasons

Why bother! What's the point???

liberated

FINALLY! SOmewhere where I am considered "above average!" lol!

liberated

.................or was

MrBen

I'm not sure about Europe in general, but the drinking in Britain is completely out of control. Walking through Leeds town centre completely sober was one hell of an eye opener.

happyhour

ok, this is a little off topic, one day i did the math on how much my consumption created in waste per year, it was 1400 pounds of trash, that's 3/4 of a ton! i should get a green tax credit or something for my outstanding efforts in conserving the planet by getting sober.

courage2

"Average" American is a really poor way of describing American drinkers, because as the article (eventually) states, "The U.S. also has one of the highest rates of people who abstain from drinking with 35 per cent of residents preferring not to drink."

If you exclude non-drinkers, the numbers are about what you'd expect in the US, although the article presents some stats that appear to be inconsistent.

Renarde

I was having at least 3 a day, some days more. I thought I was doing fine! Lol

Skye2

I think you find that in most university cities though

DoubleBarrel

Not even close. All over Europe, people drink at lunch and wine with meals. All of them.

Then there is Russia, where they drink straight room temperature vodka. Even as an alcoholic, that one is rough.


ETA, oops, sorry, I see you are from WI. That's a whole different matter.

Lewis Black | Drinking in Wisconsin - YouTube

Nightswimming

Agreed. Anyone with any doubts about their sobriety should take a walk down Sauchiehall Street in Glasgow on a Saturday night.


470 pints = 31 glasses of wine? Not what my Dad taught me! Is that why I got so drunk on white wine?!

I think a 250ml glass of wine (13% ABV) = approximately 3 UK standard units of alcohol and 1 pint of strong lager (5-5.5% ABV) = 2.5 - 3 units. Anything over 4 units a day (and a total of 21 units in a week) for men is considered binge drinking by NHS standards. I used to consider anything under 18 units (2 bottles of wine) a restrained evening out....

sugarbear1

If there's about 33.841 ounces in 1 liter

and I've drunk at least a 6 pack a night (often more)....which is 72 ounces.....

that's about 2+ liters a night......or 14+ liters a week.....

Oh my, have I surpassed the yearly amount each week???? For how many years????????

Oy!

phoebe64

Yeah, I was also having 2-3 a day, and more on a weekend. Maybe 3 bottles of wine over every weekend, and another couple during the week, at its peak. Got harder to count when I got into buying boxes. Blech.