The Risks of Binge DrinkingJanna: Hi, I'm Janna from Nashville, Tennessee. My question is I tend to drink heavily on the weekends sometimes more than 12 drinks at a time what harm can I be causing my body?Suzanna Thomas: So what you're doing by drinking heavily on the weekends Janna is loading alcohol into your body faster than your body can metabolize the alcohol, we call that bench drinking. And a lot of people think that as long as you dont drink everyday bench drinking on the weekends is okay. In fact what we know from research is its not how often you drink its the pattern in what you drink and bench drinking is the most dangerous pattern. So its put your body at risk for things like breast cancer and pancreatitis and liver damage the other forms of cancer. It also increases your risk of heart attack and stroke. Most importantly though it increases your risk of developing alcohol problems, so what we recommend is if you drink is best to follow the USDA guidelines as well as the guidelines of a National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. They say that men between ages 21 and 65 should drink more than two drinks per day and women over the age of 21 and men over the age of 65 should drink no more than one drink per day.