Without a fix for too long, alcoholics suffer withdrawal - and some die from it. Studies of Boston's homeless population over the past decade have shown that more suffer seizures and die when they can't get a drink.

A study of 14 homeless people who died between 1998 and 1999 found nearly all died on Sunday or early Monday morning, according to Healthcare for the Homeless, the study's author. Three years earlier, a study of 1,700 emergency calls from shelters to police found that 25 percent of the calls were for seizures, with 75 percent of the calls on a Sunday or Monday. Damn, that's grim - I won't even joke about the upswing in homeless alcoholics with minty fresh breath, all the better to panhandle with my dear.

Back to the Times - moderate drinking isn't just okay, it's downright beneficial for many:

The cardiac benefits of low-dose alcohol are evident in study after study. All over the world, moderate drinkers have healthier hearts than teetotalers, with fewer heart attacks from fatty plaque clogging the heart's arteries and blocking blood flow.

In countries like the United States where heart disease is a major cause of death, this translates into a survival advantage: moderate drinkers live considerably longer on average than nondrinkers.

....¶In a study of more than 80,000 American women, those who drank moderately had only half the heart attack risk of those who did not drink at all, even if they were slim, did not smoke and exercised daily. Moderate drinking was about as good for the heart as an hour of exercise a day. Not drinking at all was as bad for the heart as morbid obesity.

¶In thousands of middle-aged Danish men with high cholesterol, moderate drinkers had 50 percent less risk of developing heart disease from blocked arteries than abstainers.

¶Among more than 100,000 California adults, moderate drinking after age 40 was associated with reduced death rates during every subsequent decade of life - in some people by as much as 30 percent.

Alcohol's BIG BUT:

But for every one of alcohol's health benefits there is an equal and opposite risk if a single glass turns into three or four.

The hazards of drinking begin with the small but significant increased risk of breast cancer among women who are moderate drinkers.

Even among those with no family history of breast cancer or other risks, studies have repeatedly found that women who regularly have a drink a day have a 10 percent higher risk of breast cancer than nondrinkers. Heavy drinking raises the risk even higher.

Moderate drinking may also cause a small rise in strokes caused by bleeding into the brain.

And once drinking rises from moderate to heavy, health risks escalate. "You begin to see trouble at three to four to five drinks a day," said Dr. Rimm. Heavy drinking raises the risk of high blood pressure, heart failure and half a dozen forms of cancer; it may cause diabetes, pancreatic failure, liver failure and severe dementia.

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