In this installment of The How Quit Drinking Mini Series, we're going to go over a question that many people ask but don't really understand the answer to.

How much is too much alcohol?

Truth is, there are millions of people all over the world who drink casually who are NOT alcohol dependent. Still, some of these people actually end up drinking "too much." So that's the question we're going to try to answer as succinctly as possible in this issue.

The following information is based on extensive research by the NIAAA (National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism).

For men, this is a foggy area. They say that if you drink 4 or fewer drinks per day, you are considered in the safe area. However, there is a qualification to this of not more than 14 drinks per week. So therefore, if you drank everyday, you could only have 2 drinks per day to be considered in the safe area. Drinking 4 drinks per day for a week would put you at 28 drinks for the week...twice the recommended limit.

For women, it's 3 or fewer drinks per day but only 7 drinks per week. So if you had 2 drinks per day every single day of the week, that would put you at 14 drinks for the week...or twice the recommended limit.

Now, these studies do not take into consideration the person's body type. Obviously, a 250 pound Texas linebacker is going to be able to drink more than a 140 pound office clerk. So you need to factor in your body weight as well.

That's where you alcohol to body weight chart comes in or what they call blood alcohol content.

Here is the chart:

http://www.drunkdrivingdefense.com/general/bac.htm

Simply look up your weight and the corresponding column for how many drinks you can have before you are legally drunk. This will naturally be different for each person.

See you soon with more info.