By Good Housekeeping
Most people assume alcoholics fall down drunk, make fools of themselves at office parties or have a history of drunk-driving arrests.
But the fact is, people struggling with alcohol often look just like everyone else. Here's how to tell if you or someone you know has a drinking problem or are at risk of having one.
The statistics are sobering. An estimated 5.3 million American women are alcoholics or alcohol abusers.
"That means that those women are drinking too much. They're not yet dependent on alcohol but they are consuming too much of it," said executive editor Jennifer Cook.
How much puts a woman at risk? Good Housekeeping says any woman who's had more than three drinks in a single day or consumes seven drinks per week is a high-risk drinker.
"We're super-sizing our happy hour. That means that if you're ordering a mojito, or a margarita or a cosmopolitan, you think you're getting one ounce of alcohol, but you're actually getting two, which is two drinks," Cook said.
Addiction moves faster in women in part because they have a higher percentage of body fat. They also progress from use to abuse faster than men and are more susceptible to alcohol-related liver and cardiac problems.
"Surprisingly, women are less likely than men to ask for help, especially women with children. They think that they can handle it on their own and often, they can't," said Cook.
To help you gauge your own drinking, there's a government Web site called Rethinking Drinking.
So what is low-risk drinking? For a woman, it's considered to be no more than three drinks in one day or seven drinks a week. For a man, it's 14 drinks in a week.
The National Institute of Health conducted a nationwide survey of 43,000 U.S. adults - about 2 percent of the people who drink within these limits - are alcoholics or have an alcohol abuse problem.
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