Comment by ctdonath | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ctdonath | Hacker News Reader

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Was thinking that too. For all the verbiage, there was only a vague "I had only been averaging a couple drinks a day" way down the article as an indication of what the abstained-from baseline was. Averaging two? The "couple" numeric implies room for large values of 2, and "averaging" easily includes two days of nothing followed by 6 in short order.

This brings back the crux of those who argue such subjects: some people are the "a glass with dinner" type and experience almost no effect, some people are the "six-pack at a time" type and experience significant effect, and very few in either category seem able to acknowledge the other category exists at all. Their average may be comparable, but frequency * intensity produce wildly differing results.

2 glasses of wine could be 2 glasses, at 250 ml per glass, of a 14.5% ABV wine. This is a considerable, probably dangerous, amount of alcohol.

(In the UK this is described at 3.6 units per glass, or about 7 units per day. Safe limits for men are not more than 3 to 4 units per day, not every day.)

Or it could be 2 glasses, at 150 ml per glass, of a 10% ABV wine. That would be 1.5 units per glass, or 3 units per day.

That just accentuates his curious vagueness about the baseline he varied from.

A "serving" of alcohol is considered 0.6 fl oz, or 14 grams, of ethanol. People tend to overestimate what constitutes a "serving" of any food/drink, with consequences in line with the withdraw effects he experienced.

> A "serving" of alcohol is considered 0.6 fl oz, or 14 grams

Not in the UK!

> Their average may be comparable, but frequency * intensity produce wildly differing results.

I think this is largely an academic discussion. Some people drink a glass a wine every day, some people binge drink once/two times a week. If you consider alcoholism to be the point at which you can't withdraw without death resulting then both groups will pass. If you consider regular alcohol consumption as a potential psychiatric problem then both groups are suspect. But both groups still have:

A) People who just drink socially/for fun.

B) People who are alcohol dependant (in terms of a psychological crutch).

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