I found this in The Independent yesterday:

"Women in England and Ireland are officially the world's biggest binge drinkers, according to a unique study of global alcohol consumption. One in three 17- to 30-year-olds is now classed as a heavy drinker, bingeing on four or more drinks in one session at least once a fortnight."

to which my reaction was crikey, in that case I'm a daily binge-drinker! Seriously, though, is it true that if a woman has 4 glasses of wine in one session once a fortnight, then she indulges in binge drinking and is classified as a heavy drinker??

For men, five pints of beer is classed as a binge. Which puts an awful lot of people in that category...

Yes indeed, and so does four glasses of wine for a woman :yikes:

I also read that one in ten people have a drink problem :yikes:
My clickable smilies have stopped working

Bloody hell if that classifies as binge drinking god help me :yikes:

ive had about 5 binges this weekend then :(

:o I drink 4-6, on average, glasses of wine in one session - once a week or sometimes only once a fortnight and maybe a couple of Smirnoff ices, or something similar......that means I binge according to this article :o

I occasionally have a glass of wine at home midweek, but I would say that is pretty rare.

roflmao well it was your birthday I see Liam B)

Happy belated birthday wishes, :hug: and I see you had a great time :rolleyes:

still getting over last binge session!

seriously, I know lots of people who drink more than that - it seems a very low amount to consider it binge drinking.

I always thought that binge drinking meant people who rarely drank but then would occasionally go out and have a right old session!

I thought it meant starting at 6pm and finishing at 3am!
Mind you, thats social drinking :roflmao:
Seriously, most people I know would say 5 pints was moderation!

How I define binge drinking?

When you don't drink during the week, but when you do you drink way over the limit e.g. 20 units

Well five or six pints is about my limit anyway ! As for wine a couple of glasses does me. Middle age creeping in.

roflmao

I mean like drinking 10+ pints in one session

Yeah thats what I would call a binge. Five pints seems not that much!

:shrug: I dunno, most of the fun things in life seem naughty too. :blink:

*thinks* and thats a bad thing :unsure: :unsure:

:giggle:

I know, anything fun is bad for you !

Thanks everyone! You all seem to think that four drinks once a fortnight hardly qualifies as binge drinking!

But I take WB's point that you are only a binge drinker if you drink relatively infrequently and then quite a bit. But I still don't see how it can be claimed that such people are heavy drinkers.

Heavy drinkers are surely habitual drinkers - I am one of them, about ½ bottle of wine on a daily basis (AND I've cut down a lot....) Bet none of you thought that old granny here coulod easily be called an alcoholic! (a well-functioning one :) )

The article in The Independent ended up by saying that in most countries in Europe the consumption of alcohol was decling - two of the exceptions being England and Denmark, where it is increasing. I haven't a chance then: English by birth, Danish by residence....

roflmao no hope for you at all Scolios... you lucky thing you ;)

I guess I would have thought it would take more than 4 drinks to call it a "binge", but you guys are making me feel like a tea-totaller. Four glasses of wine sounds like a lot to me. That's basically a full bottle in one session. I'm more of a one or two drink person. (Although, by this definition, I did binge at a wedding w/ open bar that I went to a couple weeks back. I had four or five glasses of wine, and they were rather generous pours. :unsure: )

According to my glasses, a botle of wine contains SEVEN glasses, Nick - you must have enormous wine glasses in the US if there are only four to the bottle!

If you order wine out over here, most places do either a 5 oz. or 6 oz. pour. At 5 oz., there are 5 glasses in a 750ml bottle; at 6 oz. it's just a little over four glasses.

Yes, well, I can see that does make a difference! Four glasses in the "right" restaurant and you're reeling!

I was counting glasses as we pour them out at home - and believe me, we have vast experience :whistle: We are essentially wine- drinkers.

To be honest, i'm not much of a drinker, so sharing a bottle of wine between 2 is a lot for me!!!! (I guess that's about 4 glasses....) I don't know i'd consider it binge drinking - i belief that involves falling over and throwing up over yourself..... roflmao

I'd always thought you were French for some reason Scolios, don't ask me why roflmao

So what is a serving to the rest of you guys? I've always seen "standard" servings here listed as:

5 oz. wine (~150 ml)
1 1/2 oz. hard liquor (~45 ml)
12 oz. beer (~355 ml)

1 1/2 ox. - you guys have your liquer served by the ox?????

ummm....best say sorry to the Overlord for being cheeky..... :giggle:

sorry Overlord :bow:

Only In America

sorry extreme overlord :bow:

:whip:

Now, a million rude comments have just run through my head - but i don't think any are suitable for a message board in all honesty.... :devil:

roflmao ...a classic rock and a hard place..

I have to say I'm impressed by how LITTLE you all drink. But then, you're mostly in your teens, twenties and thirties - you'll find the really hard drinkers are in their 50s, 60s and 70s. So, a treat ?? in store for you all...

I bet none of you smoke either :(

I did smoke......kind of....i gave up about 4 months ago

And i realised a while back that i'm not a very nice drunk - i tend to get really emotional, so i just don't really do it. I'm getting better at being drunk, but i really do know my limits

Really SW?!! I know I've lived out of England for 48 years (:yikes:) but I didn't think my English was SO bad roflmao Hope not, I taught it at Uni for 30 years...

But i did live in France for six years when I was youngish :)

Thank God you gave up smoking! Worst thing one can start on - except perhaos drugs. And I have to admit tht I hardly drank at all until I was 40 :rolleyes:

I tend to get six to a bottle, four of which are too much for me - bit of a lightweight I am afraid :blush:

The old style wine glasses ( small) you can get six of those out of a bottle. But not many people use those small ones these days.
1 and 1/2 glasses of the largish ones is about 1/2 a bottle of wine.

When in my teens I would drink 30-40 pints a week.Having 5-6 pints nearly each night wasn't a big deal then.Now I'd be suprised if I could drink two.

Now I'm more cultured and drink wine mainly,in my thirties you know,gotta grow up sometime roflmao

It's the influence of the wife,we have a bottle between us a few nights a week.

Oh, am a complete lightweight when it comes to this stuff!! roflmao

Mind you, most of my friends seem to drink like billyo.. I seem to come in handy for making sure that they get home alright at the end of the evening :) Also the days of both working in a bar, and DJing got me very much into that rather lazy description 'social drinker' (which means...:shrug: you drink not to feel left out?! :lol: )

Of course I'm a major disappointment to my parents, who drink rather a lot of the vino. I once e-mailed a northern Exposure drinking game to my Dad, who in turn thanked me for this, and thought that it would actually help to curtail their wine consumption! :yikes:

Brakkus the beer monster teenager! :yikes:

And now Brakkus the cultured wino! :D

"Brakkus in vino veritas"