What Knowing Moderate Drinking Limits Can Do For You
Knowing what moderate drinking limits are (also known as safe drinking limits) can help a person stay in control of their thoughts and behaviors.
Definition of Moderate Drinking Limits
For Women: No more than 7 standard drinks in a week, nor 3 of the 7 in a day
For Men: No more than 14 standard drinks in a week, nor 4 of the 14 in a day.
A standard drink is defined as 5 ounces of table wine, 12 ounces of beer or 1.5 ounces of liquor (e.g., vodka). Often “drinks” served at parties or in bars or restaurants contain more than one standard drink.
What Knowing Moderate Drinking Limits Can Do For You
1. Helps you to keep your own drinking under control.
2. Helps you avoid the unnecessary, unproductive and down right destructive exchanges that can occur when you try to make sense out of the actions and behaviors of someone who has exceeded moderate drinking limits — especially the “per day” limit.
The 2nd reason can be especially important. When a person exceeds the “per day” limit (which is almost always consumed on a per occasion basis), they run the risk of drinking more than their brains and body can process. This, in turn, causes them to engage in drinking behaviors (e.g., getting into fights, arguments about the drinking, driving while impaired, having unprotected or unwanted sex). Check out “Why BAC Can Keep Rising After a Person Stops Drinking.”
Knowing that it is a person’s exceeding moderate drinking limits – especially the per day limits – that is causing the drinking behaviors is what can help you avoid a whole lot of endless, pointless talk or angst about nothing you have any control over — namely, the drinking behaviors. When a person drinks more than their brain and body can processes, they affect the very areas of their brain needed to think straight and act responsibly.
By keeping this in mind, you will know that as a person exceeds his/her limits, there is…
- no point in having a ‘serious’ discussion,
- no point getting into a fight about their drinking behaviors, and
- definitely every reason not to get in the car with them (yes, a woman consuming 3 or a man consuming 4 drinks in a two hour period will likely register a .08 BAC).
For more information on drinking patterns and tips for cutting down, check out NIAAA’s website, “Rethinking Drinking.”
Lisa Frederiksen
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