Gray Manis, LSCW, Offers Advice On How to Drink Responsibly

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Transcript:
My name is Gray Manis, and I'm a licensed clinical social worker and licensed clinical alcohol and drug counselor, and an assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Kentucky. These definitions for binge drinking and heavy drinking come from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. Binge drinking, which is a huge problem, especially for college students, constitutes having five or more drinks in a two hour period for men, four or more drinks in a two hour period for women. When we're talking about heavy drinking, for men, you don't want to have more than four drinks in a day or 14 drinks in a week. On the other hand, heavy drinking for women would be three or more drinks in a day and seven or more drinks in a week.
For someone who wants to drink responsibly, there are several things that you can do, one of which is if you're out with a group of people, keep an eye on your drink. Because we know that especially with parties and at bars, sometimes people have been known to spike people's drinks. You always want to have a plan to be able to get home and have a plan not to drive and to have a designated driver or be able to call an Uber or Lyft to pick you up.
It's important that you either eat something before you drink or eat while you're drinking. It's also a good idea to have a round of water in between drinks. It's a good idea to have one drink, no more than one drink per hour. Last but not least, you don't ever want to mix alcohol with other drugs of any kind.
My experience is that people that don't have a problem with drinking alcohol don't ever really think about having to cut back or think about it being a problem. It's just not on their radar. That said, I think for someone who thinks they might have a problem, I think exploring that with a therapist first might give them an opportunity to decide whether or not they need to go to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting or some type of other support, group for recovery, or whether they need to be in a more intensive level of care, or take one of the anti-craving medications that are available for alcohol use disorder.