No wait, we are No. 2

I was wrong. We probably are No. 2.

North Dakota is No. 2, at any rate, and has been since 1999.

But let's look at the stats carefully before we come to the conclusion that we're the second most drunk state in the union.

The data came from annual surveys conducted by state governments on behalf of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The question posed is this: "Considering all types of alcoholic beverages, how many times during the past 30 days did you have 5 or more drinks on an occasion?"

Among North Dakotans surveyed in 2005, 18.9 percent said at least once. That's down from the peak in 1999 when 35.7 percent said the same thing. I suspect there was some change in the question between 2001 and 2002, though, because of the dramatic decline in binge drinking everywhere.

But the general trend is this: Fewer North Dakotans are binge drinking, which closely tracks national trends.

Prior to 2002, the CDC also gather data on how often people were binge drinking. When it came to binging five or more times a month, West Virginia was tops in 2001, followed by Delaware and Arkansas. North Dakota was No. 26.

When you go to four times or less a month, we shoot up to No. 1 and stayed there with three times or less, two times or less or once a month.

Which looks like a lot of us like to whoop it up, up to four times a month. I'm assuming that's going to be every Saturday, though we must have drawn the line at drinking on Sunday.

But there's another category of data and it paints a slightly different picture.

Heavy drinking is defined as having two or more drinks a day for a man and one or more for a woman.

Here, North Dakota is virtually the same as the national average. Wisconsin has been No. 1 since 2003 while North Dakota is solidly in the middle. In 2005, we were No. 25, in 2004 No. 21 and in 2003 No.26.

Here the trend is the same as before: Fewer North Dakotans are drinking heavily.

You're probably wondering where I'm coming from with all this.

Full disclosure: I do drink and, once in a while, I do fit that description of the binge drinker.

But my problem is with the fixation on that No. 2 ranking. It has the potential to inflate a health issue into a public scare. I remember back in the late 1980s when my mom read a story in the paper about this chemical called Alar that was used in apples to make them look nicer. The story said Alar could cause cancer. So for a couple of months, we didn't dare eat apples and neither did a lot of our neighbors.

Quess what? It turned out that you'd have to drink 5,000 gallons of apple juice a day to get cancer from Alar. But, thanks to bad research amplified by the news media, people like my mom really thought they were in danger.

So, now that I'm a member of the news media, I'll be damned if I do the same thing to my readers.

That being said, drinking too much is still a bad thing. Here's how the CDC defines it. See if you fit the description:

A person may be said to be “drinking too much” or engaging in “excessive drinking” if they exceed either the guidelines for daily alcohol consumption, or the guidelines for average daily alcohol consumption. Among men, excessive drinking may be defined as more than 4 drinks per day, or an average of more than 2 drinks per day over a 7 or 30 day period. Among women, excessive drinking may be defined as more than 3 drinks per day, or an average of more than 1 drink per day over a 7- or 30- day period (NIAAA, 2004). However, current guidelines specify that certain individuals (e.g., youth under age 21 years, pregnant women, and persons recovering from alcoholism) should not drink at all. Among these individuals, any alcohol consumption may be too much. In addition, anyone who chooses to drink should be aware that individual reactions to alcohol can vary greatly. Therefore, when in doubt about whether it’s appropriate to drink, and if so, how much, it is always best to consult one’s own personal physician.

Also, for those that don't want to go through the CDC Web site, I've done some homework so here it is.