BACtrack, which makes breathalyzers that connect to smartphones, recently released data on Americans’ drinking habits over the last year. Unsurprisingly, the company found that people clamor for the bottle during the light-deprived days of winter. Fourteen of the 15 biggest drinking days fell between December and March, as measured by self-administered blood alcohol content readings.
The fifteenth day was the Saturday before Cinco de Mayo, when users logged an average reading of 0.084%. (As a point of reference, the legal limit in all 50 states is 0.08%.)
Here are the other big drinking days:
- Dec. 6-7: 0.087%, 0.088%
- New Year’s Eve: 0.094%
- Jan. 18-19 (weekend before Martin Luther King Jr. Day): 0.090%, 0.088%
- Jan. 25: 0.093%
- Feb. 1-2 (Super Bowl weekend): 0.090%, 0.091%
- Feb. 15: 0.092%
- Feb. 22: 0.085%
- March 7-8: 0.088%, 0.088%
- March 14-15 (St. Patrick’s Day weekend): 0.087%, 0.094%
Americans didn’t confine themselves to drinking only on the weekends. Analyzing 300,000 anonymized blood alcohol content readings, the company said average measurements surpassed 0.06% for at least five out of seven days throughout December to March.
Of course, there are caveats. These measurements only take into account people who consumed alcohol, so they aren’t truly representative of the US population. And, given the nature of the device, users are more likely to have consumed multiple drinks than a single beer.
Looking ahead, chilling temperatures and time off from work suggest plenty of Americans will wake up with gnarly hangovers come Jan. 1.
Cheers to 2015.