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Brews You Can Use

Alright, my last BYCU of the Lenten season. Good Friday is obviously a poor day to celebrate drinking, and it's not like I want to start priming all of your drinking pumps on Holy Thursday or Saturday.

That being said, I'm often tempted to have a glass of wine Good Friday evening. I'm not sure why. I've always kind of felt, "Hey, as of 3:00, the suffering is over. Time to unwind." It's one reason I continue my Lenten pledges until 3:01 on Good Friday, but of course, the Catholic practice is to continue the contemplative mourning until Easter, so I try to abide that as well (hence, a glass or two of wine . . . not gin or vodka).

The best drinking article of the week comes from The Atlantic: Millennials are Drinking Less. The gist of the article is basically, "Based solely on anecdotal evidence, it appears that Millennials are starting to practice moderation in their drinking."

Well, yeah. Millennials are typically considered to be those persons born between 1981 and 1996, making them ages 22 to 37 (which means I have three Millennial children and four Z Generationals; not unusual . . . my three brothers are baby boomers, but I'm considered an X-Generation baby).

It's not surprising that they're getting more moderate in their drinking habits. Everyone except the debauched starts to moderate their alcohol intake as they mature, especially once they hit their 30s. So in that way, the article is a dud.

But it also says that alcohol intake is slowing in general, across the culture. So much so, the manufacturers are beginning to shift into low alcohol and no alcohol beverages: As more young people opt for wellness-oriented lifestyles, brands are offering more nonalcoholic products.

The article also offers a definition of "heavy alcohol use" that I'd never seen: "For men, that's drinking five alcoholic beverages in a short period of time five or more times in a month; for women, it's four drinks." That actually seems like a fair definition. Typically, definitions of "heavy drinking" or "binge drinking" are ridiculous, but telling me that I need to drink more than 25 drinks in a month to be considered a "heavy drinker"? That strikes me as pretty reasonable. And I fall below it, easily, even when I'm on vacation. In my heaviest months, I'd say I have five drinks weekly, putting me in the 20-24 monthly drink range, and in many months, I fall well below that (zero drinks so far this month; probably only 12 or so in March).

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