A drinking problem isn't defined by quantity, it is when you have a problematic habit/dependence that you can't quit at will. There are plenty of people who enjoy a few drinks several days a week but can just cut back or stop completely when they want/need to because they don't have alcoholism.

I used to drink 3 beers almost every night. I cut down on it to lose weight and now have a single beer 2-3 nights a week and no alcohol other nights. Some weeks I have none. If I had an actual "drinking problem" i.e. alcoholism, I wouldn't have been able to do that.

My measurement for this sort of thing is, "if there's none in my house tonight and I get a hankering, how willing am I to go out looking for it?"

Yeah. When I run out, I just add it to my grocery list and pick up some more the next time I go to the supermarket. Can't remember the last time I left my house specifically to buy alcohol.

With enough quantity it's a problem in itself even without alcoholism.

That's like saying "repeatedly banging your head on the wall is not a problem; it's only a problem if you can't stop at will".

The latest science says no amount of alcohol is good for you. And there's plenty of evidence that any amount of alcohol is bad for you. Of course there is pleasure that comes with imbibing alcoholic drinks, unlike banging your head on the wall, but you are still damaging your body with every sip.

Unfortunately the words "alcoholic" and "addict" are difficult for people to accept and associated with only the worst cases. But I think addiction is far more common than we think.

I used to drink occasionally, maybe once a week, to slight excess which one might call "merry" or "tipsy". I would always sleep badly and feel terrible the next day. I would also eat essentially an extra meal after drinking (usually consisting of junk food). This would happen every single time and I observed that this commonly happened to others too on a regular occurrence. Knowing that these bad effects would ensue, continuing to drink made me an addict: I knew it was bad for me, but I did it anyway.

Substances affect different people differently. I can have 3-4 drinks in an evening without changing my eating or sleep habits at all and without feeling any different the next day.

Some people experience drinking-related issues other than alcoholism and I just don't want to conflate those issues with alcoholism. I know some actual alcoholics. It's different.

Before kids I had an active social life that could definitely be construed as a “drinking problem”. I’d argue that the benefits to my social life outweighed the harm to my health. IMHO, “problem” drinking is defined as the inability to stop drinking, i.e. a true addiction.

If you are regularly in social situations where you feel you can't participate without having several drinks, you have a drinking problem. It's still a problem even if it's driven by external pressure rather than an addiction.

By this definition, people who embrace high levels of alcohol consumption despite their obvious effects don't have a drinking problem, which seems a bit tentative to me. I would say someone like George Best very much had a drinking problem.

It is.

Depends on the beer. Measuring one beer as we donin Bavaria, in at least half litres, and meaning by multiple times a week more than three days, maybe. By measuring beer in 0.3 and 0.2 litres, ans assuming the average US beer, even doing so 5 days a week propably doesn't get into abuse territory by the alcohol amount alone.

In US culture/science, one "drink" or "beer" is 0.5oz of alcohol. Beer is often 12oz of 4% alcohol. Wine is 6oz of 9%. Liquor is 1oz or 50%, etc.

There are stronger drinks, but in this scientific context should be considered multi-drinks.

People not understanding this unit scale causes a lot of problems, like teens having 20-30oz pours of alcohol like it's (also ugh) soda or juice.

I wonder if European science and US science get muddied due to different "drij" sizes.

I can't speak for all of Europe, but in Austria no-one speaks of "drinks" when talking about alcohol consumption. This concept of a standard "drink" size is foreign to me and I know it only from US literature.

The average beer is closer to 5%, few wines are as low as 9% and nearly all mainstream liquor is exactly 40%.