It’s a big world and there’s a lot of drinking going on, but the citizen’s of one country are getting drunk more than the citizens of any other country. The winner (?) of this dubious distinction is the United Kingdom.
British people are getting drunk more often than any other nation in the world, and not just tipsy but completely intoxicated. This is according to the 2019 Global Drug Survey published Thursday which analyzed the behavior of 123,814 people from 36 countries.
On average, respondents said they got drunk 33 times in the last 12 months with drinkers from the UK reporting being drunk 51 times in last year. The U.S. was not far behind, with respondents claiming to have been intoxicated 50 times in the last year, followed by Canada's drinkers who overindulged 48 times in the last year and Australia's respondents who got drunk 47 times.
Meanwhile, on the opposite end of the spectrum, people in Chile reported getting drunk just 16 times a year while in Germany and Colombia respondents indulged 33 times in the last year.
Commenting on the results, Adam Winstock, an addiction psychiatrist and founder of the Global Drug Survey, told CNN that British drinkers did not know where to draw the line.
"We have never grasped moderation – it's not part of our culture or conversation," he said. "We need to learn that more fun with better health and fatter wallets can follow from a bit less, a bit less often."
Winstock noted, while people are often told that drinking too much is bad for their health, current guidelines are not distinguishing the difference between "being a little drunk and a lot drunk, and doing it three to four times a year versus weekly," The Guardian reported.
What nearly half the participants did agree upon though, is wanting to drink less in the next 12 years to come – a decision that could benefit people from all nations.
"Deaths due to alcoholic liver disease and cancer due to excessive alcohol consumption are on the rise along with obesity and poorer mental health," he said. "Drinking too much makes all these worse – drinking less make them better."
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