[n4r9]

That's nonsense. A shot of spirits is one unit of alcohol. A pint of strong-ish beer like Stella Artois is 3 units. 550 calories is easily a dinner's worth for a woman of 70kg, or a man that's heavier but trying to gradually lose weight. Either of whom would normally not be too affected by two pints of Stella.

[Kirby64]

> A pint of strong-ish beer like Stella Artois is 3 units.

No it's not. Stella is 5.2% in the strongest form (some places sell a weaker version that is 4.6%). Both are roughly standard ABVs. At worst, a 20 oz 'pint' of Stella would be ~1.7 units. In most places in the US, a pint is 16 oz, so it would be ~1.4 units. Two pints at worst is slightly over 3 units total.

[n4r9]

Maybe I'm misreading it (or it's just wrong) but this NHS webpage very clearly states that a "Pint of higher-strength lager/beer/cider (ABV 5.2%)" has 3 units:

https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/alcohol-advice/calculating-alco...

[Kirby64]

Ah, right. We're both getting it a bit wrong. A 'unit' (10 ml of pure ethanol) isn't actually equivalent to a 'drink'. One 'drink' is considered to be 12 oz of 5% beer, 5 oz of 12% wine, or one 1.5 oz 40% shot. None of those are actually '1 unit', they're all ~1.7 units (~17 ml of ethanol).

I think most folks think in 'drinks' and not 'units'.

So, back to the original comment: 6 shots at most establishments would be ~10 'units' of alcohol. Or, closer to 3.3 20oz pints of beer. 3.3 20oz beers would be enough to get most folks pretty intoxicated if drank quickly; the difference being that 3.3 20oz beers (66oz total!) is a lot harder to drink very quickly than 6 shots, purely by volume of liquid.

[n4r9]

Thanks for the clarification. Though on a lighter personal note I'd definitely struggle to drink 6 shots of gin (or tequila for that matter) in the same day. Awful stuff!

[kelipso]

What is nonsense? Go to https://alcohol.org/bac-calculator/. Putting in the numbers for a 150lb woman drinking 6 shots over 2 hours gets you 0.21% BAC, which is plenty enough for black out drunk.

[n4r9]

I see. That looks a lot like it's applying a Widmark-style model [0], which assumes that absorption is instantaneous, and that drinking starts in a fasted state unaccompanied by food or water. I guess that makes sense if we're literally talking about replacing a whole meal with alcohol. But normally I imagine cutting back on portion sizes so that I can have some drinks later. I don't know about other users but the idea that an 80kg man will have body control or speech impairments after 3 pints (60oz) of beer over 3 hours just feels wrong. Especially if they start after dinner and have a glass of water in the middle.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_alcohol_content#By_intak...

[kelipso]

Yeah good point. It’s saying a bottle of wine gets you to 0.3% which basically is close to dying, so it’s not realistic. Still six shots is equivalent to 6 beers or a bottle of wine, so it still affects you quite a lot.

[n4r9]

I agree it's a fair amount of booze. Especially at 1.5oz per shot. In the UK a single is officially more like 1oz, so 6 UK shots is 4 US shots.