We’re constantly bombarded with the official “safe drinking” guidelines of “3-4 units a day” for men and “2-3” for women. But you have to wonder exactly who this information is aimed at. Are there actually any people, except perhaps for a few creature-of-habit pensioners, for whom that represents a realistic consumption pattern?
In my experience, people either scarcely drink at all, or their dedication to it is sufficient that they will routinely exceed the guidelines, even if they don’t actually consume more than about 28 units in a week. Remember that even a couple of pints of Holts or Robinson’s bitter is above the daily recommendation. The people who actually stop at one or one and a half don’t tend to drink at all on most days of the week. And if people decided to cut down they would probably not bother at all on some occasions rather than dropping to that level.
So in reality these “guidelines” don’t bear much relation to how people behave in real life, and seem calculated to denormalise as many responsible, moderate drinkers as possible.