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Comment by arsome | Hacker News Reader

As pointed out by the parent comment, one strong 16 Oz can is already 2 drinks. Having 2 of those in a night or even slightly weaker ones puts you in the 3-4 drink range. I'm sure I'm not the only one with a habit of having 2 of those a few nights a week to tie a long day off.

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That would likely classify you as a "heavy drinker" by CDC definitions.

> For men, heavy drinking is typically defined as consuming 15 drinks or more per week.

You're definitely not the only one.

https://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/faqs.htm

I mean assuming you're hitting about 3.5 drinks like that, you'd need to be doing it 5 nights a week to hit 15 and qualify as heavy drinking.

When I think of "beers" in America, I usually think of Bud Light or similar lightweight lagers that are usually in the 4-5% alcohol range. Drinking 3-4 of those over a few hours with food will not get most people very drunk at all, depending on bodyweight and tolerance.

I prefer IPAs which average closer to 7% and that higher alcohol concentration seems to make a big difference. Drinking 3-4 of those can get a person quite drunk.

It seems you've been downvoted by people who get drunk on two Bud Lights, lol

I guess so! I mean hey, if you never drink and you weigh 150lbs and have an empty stomach and you chug two Bud Lights... you're gonna get drunk! But this is not the situation most people are in when we think of someone "having a few beers".

And maybe people have different ideas of "drunk"? I don't think simply feeling some effect from alcohol constitutes being drunk.

There is an interesting explanation for this. Instead of thinking of apv what matters to your body is more the “retained alcohol” over a period of time. Your body can process something like a 4% beer every hour, so drinking one 4% beer an hour isn’t going to get you that drunk as your body is keeping up. Drinking a 5% beer though you start retaining 1% of beer an hour, but with a 6% beer you retain 2% per hour (twice as much alcohol) and you get twice as drunk. So for a 7% beer you will be 3 times as drunk. Rough math and everyone will be different, but you get the idea.

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