[stdbrouw]

People keep yapping on about the health benefits of alcohol, red wine in particular, but I'd be impressed if you could find me a single drinker who only ever drinks that one unit of alcohol a day. At that point it very quickly stops being beneficial to your health.

[cobrausn]

I typically drink one glass of red wine a night, occasionally two if dinner is particularly good. Feel free to be impressed.

[mikeash]

This, of course, also describes about 80% of the population of France.

[oneeyedpigeon]

Where do you live? I'm fascinated by your use of the word 'drinker', as if people who ever drink any alcohol aren't in the vast majority. Where I live (UK), pretty much everyone drinks alcohol at least weekly. Most people drink socially, within healthy boundaries (3-4 units per day is the current guideline), occasionally overindulging, often detoxing for a period of time. Whilst there are social problems caused by alcohol abuse, there is no way that in our society we would 'look down' on each other for consuming alcohol, nor define anyone as a 'drinker'. In my whole life I've met 2 people who are not 'drinkers', and one of them has a very rare drink from time-to-time.

As to your point, yes, of course hardly anyone who ever drinks never drinks more than one unit of alcohol per day; that is practically impossible. But many will drink on average, no more than one unit per day.

[anigbrowl]

I drink one bottle of beer with dinner each day. Now and again I have two or even three, but that's only a few times a year.

Certainly, when I was younger I used to engage in more recreational/social drinking, ie going to a bar or a party, but I got tired of it.

[mikeash]

I'm not sure I understand. Are you saying that light drinkers inevitably become heavy drinkers, and thus the benefits of light drinking are irrelevant?

[Dewie]

That might depend heavily on the kind of culture that you live in.