Blackout Wednesday — have you heard of it? That’s the nickname for the day before Thanksgiving, a night increasingly associated with heavy drinking.
A 2023 study found that liquor orders on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving jumped 156 percent in 2022. Beer sales rose 85 percent, and cocktail orders climbed 69 percent.
The consequences can be devastating. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 868 people were killed in drunk-driving crashes during Thanksgiving holiday periods from 2019 to 2023.
Public health experts warn that even a single night of binge drinking can have lasting, sometimes deadly effects. The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism says that crossing the binge-drinking threshold increases the risk of alcohol poisoning, blackouts, overdoses, unsafe sexual behavior, and injuries such as falls, burns and drownings. It also dramatically raises the likelihood of impaired-driving crashes.
Alcohol impacts nearly every tissue in the body. Research shows that even one binge-drinking episode can weaken the immune system and trigger acute pancreatitis in people with underlying conditions. Over time, repeated binge drinking contributes to chronic diseases, liver damage, and increased risk of several cancers — including liver, breast, colorectal, and head and neck cancers.
Mothers Against Drunk Driving is encouraging people to stop this “tradition,” which it says only started to gain notoriety a little over a decade ago.
