I came here to post the same thing; it would be very odd for one drink per day to be considered "heavy drinking." There actually is a technical definition of heavy drinking available from the NIH[0] which defines it mostly in terms of binge drinking:

> SAMHSA defines heavy drinking as drinking 5 or more drinks on the same occasion on each of 5 or more days in the past 30 days.

According to the same source:

> moderate drinking is up to 1 drink per day for women and up to 2 drinks per day for men.

As a man who tends to drink one drink per day, I fall into "moderate," but I could actually drink twice as much as I do and still not be "heavy" by these definitions. Even ignoring technical definitions, I don't think I personally know anybody who would consider one drink a day to be "heavy" drinking.

I find this poll and its chosen terminology to be especially interesting given the recent discussion of an article about the health benefits of drinking daily[1].

[0] http://www.niaaa.nih.gov/alcohol-your-health/overview-alcoho...

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8279949

Usually in polls like this drinking without a stipulation of "just the one" infers "more than a unit or two of alcohol". It is rare that when I drink I just have the one.

Of course any set of definitions like this is going to put some in what they consider the wrong category. I drink a couple times a week, and avoid drinking at home unless I have guests around for that or a related event, but when I do drink there tends to be quite a bit involved. By the definitions here I'm a "regular drinker" but I think I better fit in the "heavy" category.

I'm with you--I have a beer with dinner almost every night, but it is very rare for me to have three drinks in a night.

I'd like to be able to do this. If I have just a single beer I can get quite tired/sleepy, so when I drink I tend to have a few. Actually, I was talking about this recently with a friend and quite often a hangover can be more intense if I have, say, 3 beers than if I have 6. Really strange.

The poll seems coloured/biased towards binge-drinking cultures. To say that someone who has a glass of beer with his dinner on most days is a "heavy drinker" sounds ridiculous.