that chart does not make sense to me unless >10% of
Americans are AA. I can't think of anyone, besides non-drinking Alcoholics, that have less than 1 drink/wk
Most people I associate with don’t drink anything on an average week.
It’s likely that you’re in a bit of a bubble if you can’t think of anyone who doesn’t drink in an average week.
I wouldn't necessarily assume that I'm in the majority, but it's not as though my behavior in this area is particularly abnormal.
That being said, of people I'm close to, my parents are a good counter-example. They split one beer every month or so.
PS. It's not uncommon for me to drink 3 glasses of wine a year. Although recently I've been more social, so it's been 1-2 glasses of wine every 1-2 weeks. I don't go out of my way to drink alcohol, but I also don't avoid it.
Often quoted as "How could Nixon have won? Nobody I know voted for him"; referring to George McGovern's loss to Richard Nixon in in the 1972 presidential election.
Edit: Assuming the standard definition of drink that's roughly equivalent to one light beer or one shot
Then there is the cramping. Replenishing electrolytes when you leak as much of them as I do is hard. There is a really good chance I will get a moderate to severe cramp if I drank the night before. I think you are underestimating how significant a drink can be to someone training hard. Especially someone older, such as myself. You have to make a very large number of assumptions to arrive at your conclusion that is obviously incorrect for many athletes hobbyist or otherwise. Some guys can pull it off, and there are a few in my gym who can drink hard, come in hungover and survive a hard training session. That isn’t me or most people I know (anecdotally).
Just a thought if you're noticing a single drink that much.
That substance is not exactly harmless.
Even so, in the past few years, I typically consume less than one drink per week. I used to have a nightcap or a beer with dinner pretty frequently. The dinner beer tapered off because I found it made me too sleepy to be on the ball with the evening routine with the kids. The nightcaps started to feel like pointless calories.
So these days, I might have a beer or whiskey on the weekend when I watch a movie with my wife. But I rarely drink during the week, and often don't on the weekend.
Granted, part of that is from having no ability to socialize the past year. I imagine my consumption will tick up soon. But I still don't expect it to get to more than one or two drinks per week.
My neighbors and I have been doing Friday night happy hours for almost a year, always outside. Many with a fire going and outside movies shown on the side of my RV. The 6 of us look forward to these.
Personally, I couldn't care less what others think of this or how "sustainable" this is.
I have member of my family that despise the taste of alcohol.
Then, we have people like myself, and my father, whom self medicate.
(I hate the taste of all alcohol. I only drink it for the effect. To the problem drinkers out there, don't even think about going to hard alcohol. Stick to low alcohol beer, and wine. Box wine can have as little as 9% alcohol. Naltrexone seems to help with the cravings if you need to stop.)
I once used to visit my friend in a rehab (he pulled it off and now is sober). There were no people over 55 actually, though some 40-somethings looked seventy on the outside. "Oh, either you get sober or you die way, way earlier than the general population," said the nurse when I asked her where the old-timers are.
To fit the pattern, my grandpa, a functional alcoholic, died at 57. His brother, who was much more careful with his drink, lived to 87.
I'm not morally opposed to it and I'm certainly not an alcoholic, I just don't care much for or about it. It's kind of a low level toxin and it feels like it.
Is this really that strange? I know a lot of people that very rarely drink and certainly don't habitually, but will have a drink on occasion.
I grew up in what's called the "Bible Belt", so that may have something to do with my not drinking. I had what might be a common experience--as a child expressing curiosity about a beer a relative was drinking, being offered a sip, and spitting it out in disgust, with no interest in a second taste.
Much later, a friend invited me and other friends over to a very nice dinner with appropriate wine served with each course. It was good, and all seemed well... until I noticed that I was singing Tom Lehrer's "Masochism Tango" at high volume. The next day what freaked me out was that at every stage I thought myself under control, but clearly I had lost it. I did not want a repetition.
Since then I found that there is good tasting beer; I tried a little at a restaurant where they brewed it themselves--but I only tried it the once and didn't finish it. Later I heard that occasional red wine was supposedly good for one's health, and for a while ordered a glass periodically, but I couldn't make myself finish it. Haven't had any for a long time, and now the prescriptions I take preclude further drinking. (Maybe aging baby boomers on prescription drugs bend the curve?)