AUSTIN, Texas — I'm a little suspicious of Forbes ranking Austin as the hardest-drinking city in the United States.
Not that I'm complaining. Although I realize people shouldn't drive around drunk any more than they should drive around texting, it's nice to be rated tops in something other than most hours spent stuck in traffic.
Seems like every time you turn around, some rating has Austin at the top of the heap when it comes to most hours people are stuck behind the wheels of their cars. So I'm glad we're topping out in happy-hour congestion instead.
It's just that the measuring stick seems a little lame.
See, Forbes used a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey to come up with its findings. In other words, drunks were asked by the CDC how many drinks they had.
Everybody knows you can't believe a drunk when you ask him how much he's had to drink. That's like asking, say, John Edwards about his girlfriend. If you don't believe me, ask a cop. He'll tell you that every time you ask a drunk how many drinks he's had, the answer is always "two."
Another problem with this study: The CDC defines binge drinking as having at least five drinks at one occasion. The survey found that about one out of every five adults in Austin took part in binge drinking under that definition.
Five or more drinks on one occasion isn't binge drinking. That's Tuesday.
Ah, for the good old days, when binge drinking was defined as waking up on a motel room floor next to five people you had never seen before.
It wasn't binge drinking back in the day unless it took three days to find your car.
It wasn't binge drinking unless you drove to another state to get married by an Elvis impersonator — to your cousin from Oklahoma. My, how they've lowered the bar. And when I say bar, I'm not talking about the Continental Club.
Here's another part of the study I wonder about: The people who did the study think it's a big deal that 61.5 percent of the people here said they'd had a drink in the past 30 days. So what? What were the other 38.5 percent doing? Slackin'?
The other problem I have with this study is that it doesn't take into account that drinking around here is seasonal. We have two seasons in Austin: football or drinking season, and nonfootball or on-the-wagon season.
See, there are two reasons why Austinites drink too much. They drink because the Longhorns are winning. Or they drink because the Longhorns are losing. And those bidness geeks over at Forbes didn't even take that into account.
John Kelso writes for the Austin American-Statesman. E-mail: jkelso AT statesman.com.