I would be very interested, if somebody can access the full paper, to know what amount of alcohol is "light drinking" for them.
2 glasses a day ? a week ? a month ? with people ? during dinner ?
In France, where I am, awareness campaigns recommend sticking to a maximum of 2 glasses per day, for men, 1.5 for women. and not every day. And these values only take into account protection against serious health problems, such as stroke, not the problems of moderate daily alcohol consumption, such as for example the fact that alcohol being a depressant, consumption will have a impact on their general well-being.
To be honest, I'm even more confused on what to think about this paper.
"less than 2 drinks a day" would be called "moderate drinking" in my culture. I mean if someone is having a drink or two everyday that is moderate drinking already.
Light drinking for us would be like 3 drinks in a week! 4 drinks/week or more gets us into the moderate drinking territory.
I suppose that the root of the matter is whether or not the range '>0 to <2 drinks a day' on average is too broad and may be hiding a significant difference of outcomes between the top of the range at 2 a day and the (non-abstinents) at the bottom who drink an average of, say, 2 drinks a week.
And that's not even going into regularity. I'm sure that 2 drinks a day on the regular has different health impacts and social implications than 14 drinks a night only on Fridays.