Alcohol - most of us enjoy drinking it and see it as part of our business success, not failure. Some organizations (especially sales) like to actually tout the amount of alcohol their work force is able to consume during employee conferences as a badge of honor. While there is nothing wrong with alcohol consumption in moderation, the reality is that many individuals (especially recent college grads) have a skewed and incorrect view of what "moderation" is. This could directly lead to a decrease in your overall performance as you work to climb the corporate ladder and your company's bottom line.
Most of us think we already know the dangers of excessive alcohol consumption. The two major risks that we associate with it are the chance of developing alcoholism and doing serious damage to our liver, which could lead to a shorter life expectancy, and drinking and driving, which can also lead to a life expectancy shortage (of either actual life from death or quality of life from jail time based on this indiscretion).
However, the biggest and most unrecognized risk of excessive alcohol consumption often goes unnoticed mainly because individuals don't have a firm grasp and understanding of what the actual term EXCESSIVE means. Many people associate excessive alcohol consumption with those individuals who "don't know when to stop" as they consume drink after drink in amounts that would probably floor most people. We think of those individuals who go home and drink a six pack every night and then double it during a Sunday of football, while watching their favorite team take the field.
We look at our weekly lives in which we may consume no beer during the week but go hard and "blow it out" on the weekends as a natural cadence due to the demand of work and stress that the week can put on us. Or we may look at our practice of having 4-6 beers or 2-3 cocktails on any given weeknight outing as being normal and harmless to our long term health.
However, this is completely incorrect. While alcohol companies have done a much better job of the promoting the designated driver through their slogan of "drink responsibly," they have refused to even acknowledge what the true concept of drinking responsibly means. This is more than just handing one's keys to a neighbor or taking a cab home at the end of the night, but is a call to review one's overall consumption amount to prevent potentially long term damage.
The natural healthy amount of alcohol that one should consume at any given time is 1-2 beers. Anything more than that is excessive and could lead to a slow development of alcoholism and future health problems. Drinking 4-6 beers (2-3 glasses of wine) consistently doesn't seem like a lot to some, but over time, this will consistently raise one's tolerance level. As one tolerance level rises, of course, one has to consume more and more to keep their "buzz" and could slowly develop alcoholism over time. This is the reason many people develop alcoholism in their early to mid forties because it has crept up on them over time.
Where does this ignorance come from one may ask? Well, most of it comes from the social circles that we developed in college and continued to foster as we got older. College is a time of excessive drinking - crazy excessive drinking. Typical college students drink amounts of alcohol that are well beyond the social norms to impress others and appear cool. The problem with this leads to one of two scenarios: 1. When the person graduates, moves into the real world, and begins to interact with others socially, he or she may have the sense that these are still normal amounts to consume, as many of people they continue to hang out with (other recent college graduates) do the same. Or 2. The volume of consumption in college may have been so excessive that "cutting down" on the amount is still higher than the acceptable norm for healthy consumption. The later is the category that most individuals fall into and suffer damage as a result.
As mentioned, while excessive damage to the liver and drunk driving are the two most recognizable dangers of excessive alcohol consumption, a third effect does not get anywhere near as much promotion but probably affects more people than any of these two combined. This effect not only has the ability to affect how successful an individual could be throughout his or her life, but could also lead to a decrease in the bottom line of a company that encourage excessive alcohol consumption by its employees.
It's due to something called Korkasoff Syndrome. Korkasoff Syndrome (KS) is a medical condition that is experienced by individuals who consume amounts of alcohol that are above moderation levels. It causes an individual to have great difficulty or the inability to recall information from their memory due to the effects of long term excessive alcohol consumption. This disease is developed slowly over time, however, and is prefaced by episodes known as "blackouts," in which a person cannot recall things they said or did during a drinking episode. These episodes could slowly reduce one's mental capacity and make it more difficult to learn and retain information, as one attempts to be successful in his or her job. Ever wondering why a certain fact didn't come to the forefront during a debate about the best course of action for an endeavor or why you couldn't recall that correct turn of phrase during an important presentation or speech? Chances are if you consistently drink more than 1-2 drinks during any outing, this inability could be the initial effects of KS and will get worse with time. One has to wonder, how much money a company could lose as they promote high alcohol consumption and slowly decrease the ability of their employees to do or say the right thing at the exact time to be successful. The amount of potential loss sales /efficiency/effective strategy (and subsequent revenue and profit) could be huge.
While I am definitely not saying their is anything wrong with drinking, (anyone who knows me definitely knows this isn't the case), one has to look at the consumption amount to make sure that one is not doing harm to one's inability to always be at the top of his/her game. In a world in which the difference between winning and losing can be razor thin, one has to take advantage of every competitive advantage possible and eliminate/cut back those things that are not.
It not only will help you be more successful in your work life in the long run but also should help prevent waking up next to someone they may not be as attractive as you remembered after that third beer.
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