ORLANDO, FLA. (Ivanhoe Newswire) — It’s five o’clock somewhere but it seems more and more people are blurring the lines and not knowing when to say ‘No’ to the next drink. According to a nationwide survey, the frequency of alcohol consumption among adults rose 14 percent and women increased heavy drinking days by a whopping 41 percent. It’s leading some to call the changing habits gray area drinking. It’s not rock bottom, but not exactly healthy either. How do you know if your drinking falls into the gray?
Some are calling the recent change in drinking habits gray area drinking. That’s the area between healthy alcohol consumption and problem drinking.
Heavy drinking for women is more than three drinks on any one day or more than seven in a week. For men, it’s more than four a day or 14 in a week.
But gray-area drinking is harder to define.
What are the red flags? If work performance suffers, or your relationships are strained, you might be in the gray area. If you worry about your drinking, or if you quit drinking for a time but have a hard time staying ‘on the wagon’, those are also signs of gray area drinking.
If you’re concerned experts say track your drinks. There are at least a dozen apps to help monitor consumption including one that connects to a breathalyzer.
We did check and the app that uses a breathalyzer device is free, but the breathalyzer costs a hundred dollars.
If you decide to quit booze all together, you don’t have to go it alone. Support groups like alcoholics anonymous, the mindfulness support group tempest, or women for sobriety can help people get on a path to better health.
Sources:
https://www.thetemper.com/gray-area-drinking/
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/05/25/us/shooting-robb-elementary-uvalde
https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/01/us/uvalde-texas-elementary-school-shooting-wednesday/index.html
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/5/31/texas-town-to-begin-burying-its-children-after-school-shooting https://apps.apple.com/us/app/drinkcontrol-alcohol-tracker/id456207840
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.msint.quitedrinking&hl=en_US&gl=US
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.thehungrywasp.iamsober&hl=en_US&gl=US
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bactrack.bactrack_mobile&hl=en_US&gl=US
https://womenforsobriety.org/community/
Contributors to this news report include: Marsha Lewis, Producer; Roque Correa, Videographer and Editor.
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