NEWS YOU CAN USE: Most Heavy Drinkers Are Not Alcoholics.

UPDATE: Tom Maguire is unimpressed with their definitions:

Talk about defining deviancy down! A guy who has two beers a night and cuts loose on Saturday by having a third is an excessive drinker? Even though he never even gets tipsy? But, fortunately, he is not an alcoholic! Imagine my surprise.

Well, I suppose their classification scheme can be justified if the available categories are “No health consequences” and “Possible adverse health consequences”. But I think most people would consider there to be a large grey area between “Not bad for your health” and “Doing real damage to your health”. And I would guess that fifteen drinks in a week (or one wild night of five drinks during a month) is well within most people’s conception of that grey area. Or put another way, someone who drinks too much once a month won’t be considered by anyone to be an alcoholic.

What does Stephen Green say, anyway?

Yeah, the medical establishment seems to be of two minds on alcohol. But I’m sure they’ll come down on the nanny side, because that’s where the federal funding is.