We’ll say one drink is one beer, one glass of wine, or 1.5oz of liquor. Yes you can play around with the exact sizes and alcohol content of each, but don’t get bogged down in the specifics, just the spirit of the question.

9 comments

  1. Tbh, I don’t think it’s so much about how *many* drinks per week per se, but in what circumstances and how long you can go without a drink.

    If you’re drinking during the day, then apart from the odd Friday afternoon pub trip or the odd beer at an airport/on a train/plane you’ve got a problem.

    If you’re by yourself and drinking enough to get you drunk, you’ve got a problem.

    If you’re clearly dependent on alcohol and can’t go a day without it, you’ve got a problem.

    The UK’s known for binge drinking but average alcohol consumption’s actually not that high by European standards. It’s just that when (some) people do drink, they drink to excess. There was a whole epidemic of young professionals around, oh I dunno, 10-15 years ago I guess, who managed to haemorrage their livers just by drinking socially without even realising they had a drink problem. Having said that, it’s less of a problem than it used to be as a) drinking is more expensive now and b) smartphones/social media

  3. That much that they would be unable to hold a job or fulfill any social obligations (looking at families here)

  5. I think context matters a lot.

    It is very common to have beer with lunch, it’s even an option in McDonald’s menus, and some people eat with wine, specially in rural environments or old people. It is also very common to go for a few beers after work.

    I’d say you’ll be judged by the eagerness with which you approach drinking and what you use it for. Having a beer with your lunch is fine, getting drunk during lunch is not. Getting a bit drunk in the occasional party is fine, doing it twice every weekend is not, etc. If you’re getting to a point where people around you are slightly uncomfortable you have a problem.

  6. No given amount, as long as you’re functioning (going to work etc..) and thats very sad and dangerous, too many people drink and drive here. I’m glad we have a zero alcohol tolerance policy during a breathalizer test. Last year a guy drove 140 kmh in Bratislava with 2 promile of alcohol in blood and killed 5 Students on a bus stop. Fucker deserves the death penalty, too bad we dont have it.

  7. I am a now-recovering alcoholic, but was living in Spain a few years back when I was first trying to stop.
    I do recall people around me not always understanding what the issue was, couldn’t I just drink less.
    In comparison to the US, where everyone knows about Alcoholics Anonymous for example.

    However my impression is that European drinking culture is overall healthier. So it could be that people were just less likely to be familiar with alcohol addiction.

  8. Not how many, but how often, under which circumstances and how it affects your life. I have seen plenty of people drinking massively at parties in the weekend, but have perfectly good lives, but if it starts affecting you or other people, becoming a thing during the weekdays, etc, it doesn’t matter that “it was only X number of beers”, then it’s a problem. And I would go out on a limb and say it’s the same across the world.

  9. Our alcohol monopoly says that consuming 6 to 7 portions of alcohol per day (it sounds pretty similar to your definition of one drink) for men and 5 to six portions for women. In a week 23 to 24 (men) or 12 to 16 (women) portions is seen as risky. 14 (men) or 7 (women) portions per week is “moderate risk”. And for people over 65 the limits are two drinks at once or seven per week. Our alcohol culture is still dominated by the effects of prohibition about 90 years after it ended. Binge drinking is common as is seeing someone drunk in public. I don’t know about other countries but there were some people in r/Finland who were surprised by the amount of drunk people they might see in the middle of the day on a weekday.

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