Honestly, it depends on who you ask.
According to public health, "too much" alcohol is more than two drinks a week (that used to be 7 drinks per week for women) because it’s a level 1 carcinogen.
According to certain religions and philosophies any amount of alcohol is too much.
According to your friend who has 20 drinks a week, probably anything higher than that. Or your relative that drinks on occasion, anything higher than that.
And since drinking "too much" often receives moral judgement from others, it’s really up to each individual to decide what they consider to be drinking “too much” alcohol.
Recently I coached a woman (let’s call her Cindy) who told me she has three glasses of wine a night. She told me that her friend Mary (not her real name) said three glasses a night is nothing, because Mary drinks way more than that.
Depending on your own drinking patterns you might also think “Three glasses isn’t very much” OR “Three glasses a day?? Definitely an alcoholic!”, or something in the middle.
Cindy was looking to justify her three glasses of wine habit left and right. And as an Intuitive Drinking coach I wasn’t making that call for her. My job isn’t to qualify people’s drinking (unless I feel that it borders on alcohol use disorder).
But she recognized that some days she has more than three and feels terribly guilty about it. Not to mention physically awful. Which is why she reached out to me.
It happened to me once. I felt really guilty about my drinking one Saturday morning and messaged someone. I hadn’t drank more than I normally would on a Friday or anything, but I wasn’t feeling great about my drinking in general. Something felt off and I definitely felt I was drinking "too much".
Sadly, many people who drink in the ‘grey area’ will never reach out to a counselor because they believe doing so must mean they’re an “alcoholic”, which is a term loaded with moral judgement and stigma. Most grey area drinkers (grey area drinking is the spectrum between light and heavy drinking) will do anything to avoid being referred to this way, including reaching out to a therapist. So they rather internalize their feelings about their drinking or try hard to change their drinking habits on their own. And many people do! I actually changed my drinking habits a while after talking to a therapist.
Grey area drinkers are steeped in a drinking habit, but many can change on their own.
How do you know if you're drinking "too much" alcohol?
So what is “too much”? How do you know if you’re drinking “too much”? As an Intuitive Drinking coach, I don't judge your drinking based on the units you drink per day or week. I'm more interested in learning about you and your drinking habit. So here are a few questions you can ask yourself to help you answer this question:
How do you feel about your drinking generally?
Do you have desires to drink less?
Do you sometimes dream about being able to say no to a drink?
Are you feeling like you’re in a drink-guilt-regret cycle?
Do you think about your drinking a lot?
It’s not that you have a problem necessarily, it’s that you’ve developed a habit with a thing that is VERY luring and rewarding.
You've likely learned to associate different situations or events with drinking: socializing, relaxing, food pairing, boredom, being on vacation, etc.
I'm not saying this is bad, just that the association exists.
I personally really enjoy having drinks with friends. This is an 'association' I'm perfectly ok with keeping. It doesn't mean that I need to (or want to) get shit faced with my friends (SO over that!).
And the first step to changing your drinking habits is having this awareness.
At some point last year I created a guide called "Women's Guide to Making Peace with Drinking". If you'd like one, you can request it here. I share four steps to start your journey to drinking less.
To conclude, if you're someone who often asks themselves "Am I drinking too much?" try to ask yourself this question instead "What is it about my drinking that I'm not happy with?" or "What would my drinking look like in an idea world?".
Because it's likely that you feel deep down (or now so deep down) that something is off about your drinking.
Comments