As the writer points out, seven drinks over the course of a multi-hour fine dining experience with friends is far different from a college freshman downing seven shots of tequila in his or her first hour of partying.

Other variables that matter:

* physical - weight, body fat, alcohol tolerance, fatigue, illness

* sex - men and women respond differently

* experience level - has the person ingested alcohol before in a variety of ways?

* emotional state - is the person using alcohol to self-medicate? to "get drunk" deliberately?

* social context - drinking at a social occasion is quite different from drinking alone

There are probably several other factors that a person could name.

The point is, there's no exact threshold above which red lights go on and drinking becomes "excessive" or "binge". It's a matter for the individual to judge, in a social context.

PS: 5 shots in a row classifies someone as a binge drinker. But for most people 7 glasses of wine over 2 hours results in the same level of intoxication.

edit: What I'm trying (probably poorly) to get at is that almost anyone who kills a bottle of wine in an hour knows that they're drinking heavily.

PS: His comment was simply that 5 drinks in a short period is not exactly reasonable definition for binge drinking.

In a fasting individual, it is generally agreed that 10% to 20% of a dose of alcohol is absorbed from the stomach (the volume of alcohol affects the absorption) and 75% to 80% is absorbed from the small intestine. Because of this peak blood alcohol concentrations are achieved in fasting people within 0.5 to 2.0 hours, (average 0.75 - 1.35 hours depending upon dose and time of last meal) while non-fasting people exhibit peak alcohol concentrations within 1.0, and in extreme cases up to as much as 4.0 hours (average 1.06 - 2.12 hours). http://www.intox.com/t-Physiology.aspx

PS: Again, this assume 'standard' glass of wine many people poor more than twice that into a single cup and call it a glass. If your actually going to drive play it vary save and or drink beer with alcohol content printed on the label.

Modern wine glasses (especially the ones sold supermarkets in the UK) are ⅓ of a bottle each.

Wine, which was 15 years ago 7-10% alcohol is more commonly 14% today.

Thus our 'glass of wine' is regularly 4 of your parents or grandparents'.

My cabernet sauvignon or pinot noir glasses could probably hold an entire bottle of wine each, if I wanted to fill them up, but that'd be ridiculous. The proper pour remains about a sixth of a bottle - bigger wine glasses just mean the public's grown more aware of the effect of glass shape on taste.

No disagreements on the increased alcohol content in wine over the last generation or so - blame Robert Parker and his popularization of a certain type of dark full-bodied red. 'Good' has gotten associated with 'boozy'.

While 'the number of drinks imbibed is the wrong way to measure drinking' is an interesting point, I wish he had actually spent time discussing the actual research / anecdotes that he mentions, which should have been the meat of his article.

I usually expect more from the atlantic.

Because these studies never apply to 100% of the subjects.

Drinking enhances your emotions. If you're emotionally unstable, getting drunk could well lead to an outburst of feelings and depending on how well you can manage your expressiveness, lead to ill-advised sexual encounters or violence.

If you're emotionally in balance, chances are you can keep that balance getting drunk.

There are probably health issues to drinking too much, but fixing social issues by throwing a blanket maximum number of drinks indiscriminately over everybody.

http://www.drinkpacer.com

unfortunately once I get into this state I also stop using the app.. so... it's a work in progress :)

and yes, native android/ios apps are planned :)

I don't think anyone is arguing that, his point seems to be that there is a discrepancy between the effects ascribed to it, are not the actual effects.

Up next from this genius: "I smoke but I don't have cancer, so suck it, ALA!"

FD: I have had a binge or two myself in the last month, I'm just not impressed with this article.