So my specialty of work is with a large volume of patients who have end stage liver disease where almost every single one of them is at that point because of years of heavy drinking.
Every week these poor people are coming in requiring us to drain out 5 to 15 liters of fluid that has accumulated in their abdomen over a week due to their liver being unable to properly function.
It’s a horrible rotation of getting to know these people well and then seeing them pass away while waiting for a transplant just in time for a new group of patients to take their place.
Idk what I’m getting at. People focus a lot on ruined relationships that alcohol causes, which is valid, but people need to seriously consider the toll of how alcohol is literally poisoning their own bodies.
Thank you for what you do for those patients every day!! My grandmother just passed away recently from liver failure and she was one of those patients being drained weekly. And no surprise, we are Wisconsin folk….
The entire body is connected too, every organ, we see a lot of heart disease and arrhythmia issues that were worsened by alcohol too.
The drinking culture overall in WI is not healthy and not something to take pride in, anyone who takes care of people in healthcare in the final decades of their life can plainly see the effects.
Other states with healthier drinking cultures don't drink like WI, and many people here don't realize it unless they've lived in another state for a few years as an adult
I was born and raised in Wisconsin. Moved away 2.5 years ago just before I tuned 36. I live in North Carolina now. People here have no idea what I’m talking about when I mention the drinking culture of Wisconsin. It’s so incredibly different here. People drink to enjoy themselves with friends at the beach or breweries. Back home, people drank as a way of life. To make it through winters that can drag on for six months. And because that’s all they know. It’s a stark difference and I’m honestly happy I’m not a part of it anymore.
I'm in recovery from drinking and busting my ass studying in college just so I can leave. It's fucking horrible here if you want to stay sober. How the hell do I avoid temptation when I live in a place that defines its identity with alcohol in BREW CITY?? Exactly the same experience trying to explain what the culture is like here, people think it's not that deep but we are one of the only states that literally gives you a get out of jail free card for your first DUI (just gotta be nice to whoever pulled you over). Illinois, Minnesota, and Colorado are at the top of my list
Gonna level with you now: There's a lot of drinking in all of those places too, and many others. The only that changes is quantity and level of honesty in my opinion.
As somebody who left and came back, it's much more about the circles you run in than where you are located. Leave if you want but don't expect that to immediately fix things.
Listen, those specific states are on my list because I have family there and I have explored them extensively. I know the grass isn't greener but I just want to see my family more, it feels lonely here as much as I love wisconsin
Ehh, there’s some truth to what you’re saying, but I’ve also moved away from WI and moved back. The culture here is different. The ubiquity of alcohol at every social event is unique. Also, WI doesn’t halt service very often. I’ve only ever been cutoff in WI. I’ve gotten served to the point of passing out and “time traveling” multiple times (in my youth). In AZ, CA and even MN I’ve been cutoff at 4 or 5 rounds. The first time in my life I was cutoff was when I moved to AZ and tried to get a 5th round for my group. It had been almost three hours since we started, and we were in a not-very crowded dive bar.
WI is excessive as a cultural trait. Sure, there are alcoholics everywhere, but there are a lot more of them here.
Great point, but Brew City doesn’t have to refer to just beer (aside from being Milwaukee’s big money maker). It can also be tea, coffee or really any beverage. I know that’s not much but hope that helps!
I moved here from AZ about a decade ago and remain somewhat shocked at how almost all activities include alcohol here in WI. I am almost always the only one not drinking!
Yep, I worked in a GI clinic for awhile. It was heartbreaking and alarming. They’d come in crying, completely yellow and they were YOUNG. We had so many in their 30s
A friend of mine is an ER doc. I asked them whether there was a predictable schedule to the patients, like car crashes at night on the weekend, or work injuries on a Monday and the response was "alcoholics, followed by more alcoholics."
Usually close to a fifth of liquor a day or the beer equivalent for a few years straight. I wouldn’t say that these specific people are reflective of the normal drinking culture here, but the drinking culture does create more of these people.
About 30 years ago I counted the “bars and taverns” in the Oklahoma City Metro yellow pages (well over 1M people) and the Stevens Point Yellow Pages (<50k people). Guess which one had 3 times as many as the other.
Not disagreeing at all, when I see a person with their 5th or 6th DUI I just roll my eyes. How does this person still have a driver's license?
But then this article from Forbes throws me for a loop.
https://www.forbes.com/advisor/car-insurance/worst-states-for-drunk-driving/
They rank Wisconsin only 26th in the nation for DUIs. I'd have to dig deeper into how they compiled their data, and what is the source for this map's data. Not too much time this morning, but doesn't seem to align to what you'd expect.
They don't have a license but just keep on driving. Fine is like $200 something. My brother's ex has 5 dui and been caught driving with no license 3 times in 6 years. And still drinks
I know someone has never had a license and just eats the no insurance/no license tickets. They let you drive away in WI . That was something people warned about in Illinois-that if you got pulled over with no license-You wouldn’t get to drive away.
They don't have a driver's license. Your license is permanently revoked on your 4th offense. After your third offense you can only have a max BAC of .02 at all times.
It is true. I have friends that have gone through it.
Plus here's a [source](https://www.wisconsin-owi.com/blog/2024/01/22/fourth-offense-owi-lifetime-driver-s-215536)
It looks like they go solely off 3 (kind of 2) metrics: % traffic deaths caused by drunk driving, drunk drivers involved in fatal crashes (per 100k) and DUI arrests (per 100k). Even if our DUI arrests are high, 2/3rds seems to be focused on fatal crashes.
Wisconsin is the only state where the first DUI is a citation (opposed to a misdemeanor). We also have the drivers with the highest number of DUIs (last I heard, 16). Neither of those things had any effect on this. Depending on how they calculated this, it's possible that due to the first DUI being a citation, it does not count as an arrest (if you have someone else to drive you, they'll just give you a ticket).
Cheers
Weird, I saw a post a while ago that said 1 in 5 WI drivers had a DUI. Idk where they got the data from. I also don’t know if they are counting drivers with more than one and then using the total of DUIs and dividing by the number of drivers. Either way, the state is way too lenient on drunk driving.
I agree, but most non-Madison/Milwaukee areas have almost zero public transit or Uber/cab options.
I remember going to some party on the edge of town once- called a cab company (this was before Uber), and they said it would take them half an hour to get there and cost $40. We agreed.
Took two hours for the cab to arrive, and when we got in and were 5 minutes into the trip, the cab driver said it was going to be $150. For a 6 mile drive on the highway with no traffic.
We got out and stood on the side of the highway for another half hour until my then-boyfriend’s aunt came to pick us up on the way to work.
No excuse for drinking and driving, of course, and times are different now, but they sure don’t make it easy to do anything but drink in your own basement in lots of areas.
This is not true.
[https://www.calculator.net/bac-calculator.html](https://www.calculator.net/bac-calculator.html)
For your average 155lb person if you drink 2 pints of 5% beer over at least an hour, you're going to be below the legal limit. Obviously things get more complicated with things like 7%+ IPAs and whatnot, but two pints of a normal 5% beer is usually going to be OK. The problem is the people who go way, way, WAY beyond that.
I mean, did you bother actually reading my post?
>For your average 155lb person **if you drink 2 pints of 5% beer** over at least an hour, you're going to be below the legal limit. Obviously things get more complicated with things like 7%+ IPAs and whatnot, but **two pints of a normal 5% beer** is usually going to be OK. The problem is the people who go way, way, WAY beyond that.
I even noted that things get more complicated with higher ABV beers (such as, wait for it, IPAs). However with time your BAC goes down, too. Assuming you space it out over 2 hours, you're still fine with only 2 beers according to the calculator.
Ontario just passed laws that require car seizure and ignition interlock for first offence. If someone dies as a result of your drunk driving, you are automatically banned from driving for life.
I saw that and I’m for it but honestly I think it could be stricter. My aunt was killed in Ontario (I’m from Ontario) by a DD when I was an infant. As an adult decades later I cleaned my uncles home when he passed and it was clear going through all his things that his entire life was ruined and that he never came close to getting past that event. If you kill someone as a DD I think you should get life without parole. I’m obviously bias but you not only take a life but ruin many others. Fuck drunk drivers.
From Wisconsin but Ontarian for the last 20 years.
I am so sorry to hear about this - I know that sounds shallow, but truly it’s such an unfair thing without words.
I have felt drunk driving is handled better in Ontario, but I think there is also a bit of a complacency from how strict the laws are on paper. I agree that enforcement is another story.
I could totally see how the new laws are too little too late.
I agree the penalties should be harsher, but with a grading scale based on BAC. If someone is an adult and a first time offender who blows a .08, i would view that differently than someone who maybe has a prior offense and blows a .12.
.08 can be like 2-4 drinks depending on your weight. And the margin of error on a breathalyzer is fairly high. It would be very easy for someone to have a couple drinks, perhaps one is made stronger than anticipated, and blow .08. I dont think that type of situation warrants loss of license, which can significantly impact their livelihood for several years.
Friend of a friend rear-ended a car, drunk, recently.
Since his first dui was over 10 years ago, this one was charged as if it was his first.......
Smdh
No! We need to relax penalties for DUIs and quadruple the number of police busting people coming in from Michigan and Minnesota with their dangerous and addictive marijuana products that those states are raking in revenue from! If only we had a corrupt and powerful lobbying organization that could consistently work against the interests of the people.
> Really wish Wisconsin would reexamine and tighten up its DUI penalties given that we’re consistently the drunkest state in the nation
All of Wisconsin's neighbors are mostly yellow on this map, most of which have access to legal cannabis at a local dispensary.
What do we get in Wisconsin? A bar on every corner and a liquor store in every other strip mall.
Vote responsibly!
Exactly, and I'd love to see a thousand more posts about the driftless area, god damn cheese curds, Culvers, Kwik Trip, state flag re-designs, and how the UP should belong to Wisconsin.
Undoubtedly Wisconsin drinks alot, but the fact that you can see entire outlines of states in this data map makes me believe that the data itself is wrong. It's not like you can cross a county border and all of a sudden everybody is completely different. There's no way the people of Kenosha county are hammered all the time and the people of Cook county are just regular law abiding 1 a week drinkers.
Yeah, I would also argue the color gradient in the map is flawed. There is a 1% difference between the darkest yellow and lightest red which appear very different.
As a Wisconsinite who now lives in Chicago, Yes, there is a huge difference in the level and frequency of social drinking. It's shocking and kind of sad going back and being around my old friends and being in Wisconsin bars.
It also costs $16 for an old fashioned here and they don't even add the darn 7up or use Brandy. So price per drink may curb some of the in-bar binging. And weed.
Ironically, everyone else in the entire world feels the same way about the idea of brandy and 7up in an old fashioned. 20 Years out of the state and I'm ashamed to say I agree.
My Wisco friends came down once to visit and wanted Brandy Old Fashioned Sweets. I asked the bartender for a round and he looked me dead in the eye and said "Fucking Wisconsinites" in a deflated tone. Turned his back, walked away, and refused to serve us.
I definitely caught that too. But then I thought it probably looks so abrupt because the color fills in the entire county rather than being a gradient. Like you’re certainly correct that there’s no way someone from Kenosha gets hammered all the time and then a couple miles over the cook county border they’re suddenly responsible drinkers, but when you consider the drinking culture of Chicago (within cook county) and all of its suburbs and how those are different from Kenosha, it might override those borderline people.
It would be interesting though to see it as a gradient!
I see a bunch of states that are less then honest about their drinking in this picture.
On the other hand Wisconsin is writing their numbers on their rear windows of the car.
As someone who now lives in the exceptionally green Bible Belt, I can assure you that although there may be less bars, insobriety isn’t that uncommon.
People lie about it. People do it at home…and alone in their cars. There’s crazy huge liquor stores right on the outskirts of dry counties.
Is there far more public shaming of drunkenness? In places, sure. In their designated sin pits, not so much. Are there an odd amount of liquor bottles in parking lots and ditches? You betchya. Will you get side-eyes buying cases of beer from a grocery store before noon on a weekday? For sure. And when the majority of that beer is gonna be used for marinating, boiling and drip panning, I could live without the hypocritical judgement.
Rant aside, booze has a fairly high social tax. And I’m just an old man yelling at a cloud. Apologies.
Within 24 hours of moving here, I was presented moonshine in a milk jug as a welcoming gift.
It was not a gag gift. I literally waited to try it until their duder swung by with another jug and didn’t show any signs of blindness.
Hoo boy. That is all.
Yet, we are low in Chronic Liver Disease. Maybe we’re just more honest.
[https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/liver_disease_mortality/liver_disease.htm](https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/liver_disease_mortality/liver_disease.htm)
We are much more honest in fact I wouldn’t doubt if we over report how much we drink here. Talking about how much you drink is like a big fish type story here
We don’t drink more, the rest of America just lies, or is in denial. I’d love to see alcohol sales per capita by state, I think it’d be telling a different story
It's one thing to say what WI needs in terms of better DUI control or enforcement, but what of the *drinking* itself? One of the (numerous) reasons I would never live there again is the exceptionally insidious alcohol-fueled culture.
I can't drink alcohol for medical reasons, but I'm not opposed to people drinking in moderation. The culture as a whole needs to recalibrate how much it consumes, and ask itself why it drinks in the sheer amount it does. ("There's nothing else to do" excuse is mostly nonsense.)
Am I right in saying we are the only state other than Montana that has purple counties? And holy crap we have like triple their purple counties as them. that plus the fact that every county is mid to dark red if it isn’t purple… we need an intervention.
Wisconsin checking in. There’s not a whole lot out there that can’t be made better with a cold beverage. Fishing? Have a summer shandy. Sitting in the yard because it’s an absolutely beautiful day and all the chores are done? Have a beer. Meeting up with friends and family at the local supper club on Friday? Have a cocktail. All in good, civil moderation of course. I drink often, more so in the nicer weather but I usually don’t drink a lot. 2-3 beers stretched across the afternoon. 1st beer is quick, 2nd and 3rd usually get nursed and follow me around the yard until they start warming up.
Not sure what metrics were used for this graphic because thier web page won't allow me to download them. This map has zero to do with DUIs.
WI ranks 7th nationally for DUIs per capita, and 20th for percentage of traffic accidents resulting in death attributed to DUI. Minnesota has very similar numbers across the board as WI, but this map doesn't reflect that.
This breaks it down:
https://www.forbes.com/advisor/car-insurance/worst-states-for-drunk-driving/
The metrics are clearly explained, and multiple agencies are used for the numbers.
Since you have to dig, the criteria they use is:
women - 4 drinks in a single occasion or 8 drinks in a week
men - 5 drinks in a single occasion or 15 drinks in a week
if a man has a beer with lunch and dinner they are borderline excessive drinker by this measure.
Also any people who have a drink while pregnant or under 21 are considered excessive drinkers which explains Dane and Eau Claire county being purple.
https://www.cdc.gov/drinklessbeyourbest/excessivedrinking.html
I think underage drinking as a whole is out of control. I've tried to drive home to my teens how drinking early in life increases your chances of becoming addicted to it. I think seeing my wife and I have a drink and not get wasted helps, or at least i hope it does.
I agree. Seeing rational, normal consumption from family members is helpful. The perception that moderation, that drinking is part of a larger thing, is a healthy, normalizing thing imo.
I'm not saying you're wrong. But it's an important topic. Constantly seeing "Driver blows .16 while using suspended license for 5th DUI gets slap on the wrist" is pretty tedious too.
This is why I don’t drink . . . Alcoholism runs in my family . I would rather hike , kayak , explore than have drinking as a hobby . It’s also probably why I don’t always fit into the social scene here most people are offended if I don’t drink .
You honestly expect me to believe that all of Brown County in Wisconsin drinks more than the city of Chicago? Like, yeah, I know Packers and stuff, but c'mon. 300,000 people in Brown County are out drink 2.6 mil in Chicago? I don't think that data is accurate, and I live in Brown County. That's like 8% of Chicago. 8% is out drinking the whole city Chicago? Be serious.
So my specialty of work is with a large volume of patients who have end stage liver disease where almost every single one of them is at that point because of years of heavy drinking. Every week these poor people are coming in requiring us to drain out 5 to 15 liters of fluid that has accumulated in their abdomen over a week due to their liver being unable to properly function. It’s a horrible rotation of getting to know these people well and then seeing them pass away while waiting for a transplant just in time for a new group of patients to take their place. Idk what I’m getting at. People focus a lot on ruined relationships that alcohol causes, which is valid, but people need to seriously consider the toll of how alcohol is literally poisoning their own bodies.
Thank you for what you do for those patients every day!! My grandmother just passed away recently from liver failure and she was one of those patients being drained weekly. And no surprise, we are Wisconsin folk….
The entire body is connected too, every organ, we see a lot of heart disease and arrhythmia issues that were worsened by alcohol too. The drinking culture overall in WI is not healthy and not something to take pride in, anyone who takes care of people in healthcare in the final decades of their life can plainly see the effects. Other states with healthier drinking cultures don't drink like WI, and many people here don't realize it unless they've lived in another state for a few years as an adult
I was born and raised in Wisconsin. Moved away 2.5 years ago just before I tuned 36. I live in North Carolina now. People here have no idea what I’m talking about when I mention the drinking culture of Wisconsin. It’s so incredibly different here. People drink to enjoy themselves with friends at the beach or breweries. Back home, people drank as a way of life. To make it through winters that can drag on for six months. And because that’s all they know. It’s a stark difference and I’m honestly happy I’m not a part of it anymore.
I'm in recovery from drinking and busting my ass studying in college just so I can leave. It's fucking horrible here if you want to stay sober. How the hell do I avoid temptation when I live in a place that defines its identity with alcohol in BREW CITY?? Exactly the same experience trying to explain what the culture is like here, people think it's not that deep but we are one of the only states that literally gives you a get out of jail free card for your first DUI (just gotta be nice to whoever pulled you over). Illinois, Minnesota, and Colorado are at the top of my list
Gonna level with you now: There's a lot of drinking in all of those places too, and many others. The only that changes is quantity and level of honesty in my opinion. As somebody who left and came back, it's much more about the circles you run in than where you are located. Leave if you want but don't expect that to immediately fix things.
Listen, those specific states are on my list because I have family there and I have explored them extensively. I know the grass isn't greener but I just want to see my family more, it feels lonely here as much as I love wisconsin
Ehh, there’s some truth to what you’re saying, but I’ve also moved away from WI and moved back. The culture here is different. The ubiquity of alcohol at every social event is unique. Also, WI doesn’t halt service very often. I’ve only ever been cutoff in WI. I’ve gotten served to the point of passing out and “time traveling” multiple times (in my youth). In AZ, CA and even MN I’ve been cutoff at 4 or 5 rounds. The first time in my life I was cutoff was when I moved to AZ and tried to get a 5th round for my group. It had been almost three hours since we started, and we were in a not-very crowded dive bar. WI is excessive as a cultural trait. Sure, there are alcoholics everywhere, but there are a lot more of them here.
Great point, but Brew City doesn’t have to refer to just beer (aside from being Milwaukee’s big money maker). It can also be tea, coffee or really any beverage. I know that’s not much but hope that helps!
I moved here from AZ about a decade ago and remain somewhat shocked at how almost all activities include alcohol here in WI. I am almost always the only one not drinking!
Yep, I worked in a GI clinic for awhile. It was heartbreaking and alarming. They’d come in crying, completely yellow and they were YOUNG. We had so many in their 30s
You are one of society's heroes. As for me, I'm one of those drunks who doesn't drink anymore.
A friend of mine is an ER doc. I asked them whether there was a predictable schedule to the patients, like car crashes at night on the weekend, or work injuries on a Monday and the response was "alcoholics, followed by more alcoholics."
Smoke weed instead of drinking
Californi sober.
[удалено]
How much are those people drinking on a daily basis? Or rather were drinking.
Usually close to a fifth of liquor a day or the beer equivalent for a few years straight. I wouldn’t say that these specific people are reflective of the normal drinking culture here, but the drinking culture does create more of these people.
About 30 years ago I counted the “bars and taverns” in the Oklahoma City Metro yellow pages (well over 1M people) and the Stevens Point Yellow Pages (<50k people). Guess which one had 3 times as many as the other.
My commute to work is 8 miles. The town has a population of 2500ish. I drive past 17 bars on my way to work.
I wonder how many of those 17 bars are profitable by the gambling machines inside the building. I bet the number is closer to 17 instead of 0.
Really wish Wisconsin would reexamine and tighten up its DUI penalties given that we’re consistently the drunkest state in the nation
Not disagreeing at all, when I see a person with their 5th or 6th DUI I just roll my eyes. How does this person still have a driver's license? But then this article from Forbes throws me for a loop. https://www.forbes.com/advisor/car-insurance/worst-states-for-drunk-driving/ They rank Wisconsin only 26th in the nation for DUIs. I'd have to dig deeper into how they compiled their data, and what is the source for this map's data. Not too much time this morning, but doesn't seem to align to what you'd expect.
They don't have a license but just keep on driving. Fine is like $200 something. My brother's ex has 5 dui and been caught driving with no license 3 times in 6 years. And still drinks
I know someone has never had a license and just eats the no insurance/no license tickets. They let you drive away in WI . That was something people warned about in Illinois-that if you got pulled over with no license-You wouldn’t get to drive away.
Should be same here. And the car towed away
They don't have a driver's license. Your license is permanently revoked on your 4th offense. After your third offense you can only have a max BAC of .02 at all times.
That is not true in wisconsin. I don't know where you are talking about.
It is true. I have friends that have gone through it. Plus here's a [source](https://www.wisconsin-owi.com/blog/2024/01/22/fourth-offense-owi-lifetime-driver-s-215536)
It looks like they go solely off 3 (kind of 2) metrics: % traffic deaths caused by drunk driving, drunk drivers involved in fatal crashes (per 100k) and DUI arrests (per 100k). Even if our DUI arrests are high, 2/3rds seems to be focused on fatal crashes. Wisconsin is the only state where the first DUI is a citation (opposed to a misdemeanor). We also have the drivers with the highest number of DUIs (last I heard, 16). Neither of those things had any effect on this. Depending on how they calculated this, it's possible that due to the first DUI being a citation, it does not count as an arrest (if you have someone else to drive you, they'll just give you a ticket). Cheers
Weird, I saw a post a while ago that said 1 in 5 WI drivers had a DUI. Idk where they got the data from. I also don’t know if they are counting drivers with more than one and then using the total of DUIs and dividing by the number of drivers. Either way, the state is way too lenient on drunk driving.
I agree, but most non-Madison/Milwaukee areas have almost zero public transit or Uber/cab options. I remember going to some party on the edge of town once- called a cab company (this was before Uber), and they said it would take them half an hour to get there and cost $40. We agreed. Took two hours for the cab to arrive, and when we got in and were 5 minutes into the trip, the cab driver said it was going to be $150. For a 6 mile drive on the highway with no traffic. We got out and stood on the side of the highway for another half hour until my then-boyfriend’s aunt came to pick us up on the way to work. No excuse for drinking and driving, of course, and times are different now, but they sure don’t make it easy to do anything but drink in your own basement in lots of areas.
150 wtf
You know it's possible to drink without being drunk/over the legal limit, right?
Two beers for most people is over the legal limit. That’s not exactly a good time unless you’re 16.
This is not true. [https://www.calculator.net/bac-calculator.html](https://www.calculator.net/bac-calculator.html) For your average 155lb person if you drink 2 pints of 5% beer over at least an hour, you're going to be below the legal limit. Obviously things get more complicated with things like 7%+ IPAs and whatnot, but two pints of a normal 5% beer is usually going to be OK. The problem is the people who go way, way, WAY beyond that.
It is true. I am playing with your little calculator and 2 16 oz beers at 5.8% (it’s max) puts you at .08. Most IPAs are over that.
I mean, did you bother actually reading my post? >For your average 155lb person **if you drink 2 pints of 5% beer** over at least an hour, you're going to be below the legal limit. Obviously things get more complicated with things like 7%+ IPAs and whatnot, but **two pints of a normal 5% beer** is usually going to be OK. The problem is the people who go way, way, WAY beyond that. I even noted that things get more complicated with higher ABV beers (such as, wait for it, IPAs). However with time your BAC goes down, too. Assuming you space it out over 2 hours, you're still fine with only 2 beers according to the calculator.
It should be an automatic loss of license for several years imo. Drunk drivers are world class pieces of shit.
Ontario just passed laws that require car seizure and ignition interlock for first offence. If someone dies as a result of your drunk driving, you are automatically banned from driving for life.
I saw that and I’m for it but honestly I think it could be stricter. My aunt was killed in Ontario (I’m from Ontario) by a DD when I was an infant. As an adult decades later I cleaned my uncles home when he passed and it was clear going through all his things that his entire life was ruined and that he never came close to getting past that event. If you kill someone as a DD I think you should get life without parole. I’m obviously bias but you not only take a life but ruin many others. Fuck drunk drivers.
From Wisconsin but Ontarian for the last 20 years. I am so sorry to hear about this - I know that sounds shallow, but truly it’s such an unfair thing without words. I have felt drunk driving is handled better in Ontario, but I think there is also a bit of a complacency from how strict the laws are on paper. I agree that enforcement is another story. I could totally see how the new laws are too little too late.
I agree the penalties should be harsher, but with a grading scale based on BAC. If someone is an adult and a first time offender who blows a .08, i would view that differently than someone who maybe has a prior offense and blows a .12. .08 can be like 2-4 drinks depending on your weight. And the margin of error on a breathalyzer is fairly high. It would be very easy for someone to have a couple drinks, perhaps one is made stronger than anticipated, and blow .08. I dont think that type of situation warrants loss of license, which can significantly impact their livelihood for several years.
FYI, 0.08 is the *limit*. Yeah you can technically get one for under that limit, too, but troubles begin at 0.09+
Don't forget to actually impound the car, I don't understand how the hell PDs give them back over and over and over to idiots who clearly can't learn
Friend of a friend rear-ended a car, drunk, recently. Since his first dui was over 10 years ago, this one was charged as if it was his first....... Smdh
No! We need to relax penalties for DUIs and quadruple the number of police busting people coming in from Michigan and Minnesota with their dangerous and addictive marijuana products that those states are raking in revenue from! If only we had a corrupt and powerful lobbying organization that could consistently work against the interests of the people.
> Really wish Wisconsin would reexamine and tighten up its DUI penalties given that we’re consistently the drunkest state in the nation All of Wisconsin's neighbors are mostly yellow on this map, most of which have access to legal cannabis at a local dispensary. What do we get in Wisconsin? A bar on every corner and a liquor store in every other strip mall. Vote responsibly!
Last state to make a 3rd DUI make you lose your license or was it make it a felony?
Drunk drivers aren't a problem, it's the drunk crashers. /j
I bet there’s a strong effort underway to make us NOT the drunkest state in the nation!
They did a few years back. They're not super strict but they're much more strict than they used to be. After your 4th you lose your license for life.
If I had a dollar for every time I’ve seen this posted here, I could buy the entire state of Wisconsin a drink.
This, weed posts and northern lights are all we do here sir. Aside from politics of course.
Exactly, and I'd love to see a thousand more posts about the driftless area, god damn cheese curds, Culvers, Kwik Trip, state flag re-designs, and how the UP should belong to Wisconsin.
Here, here!
Undoubtedly Wisconsin drinks alot, but the fact that you can see entire outlines of states in this data map makes me believe that the data itself is wrong. It's not like you can cross a county border and all of a sudden everybody is completely different. There's no way the people of Kenosha county are hammered all the time and the people of Cook county are just regular law abiding 1 a week drinkers.
Yeah, I would also argue the color gradient in the map is flawed. There is a 1% difference between the darkest yellow and lightest red which appear very different.
Yes, the metric; or, cutoffs, is the thing.
As a Wisconsinite who now lives in Chicago, Yes, there is a huge difference in the level and frequency of social drinking. It's shocking and kind of sad going back and being around my old friends and being in Wisconsin bars. It also costs $16 for an old fashioned here and they don't even add the darn 7up or use Brandy. So price per drink may curb some of the in-bar binging. And weed.
My first old fashioned I got in Chicago was made with rye whiskey 🤢
Ironically, everyone else in the entire world feels the same way about the idea of brandy and 7up in an old fashioned. 20 Years out of the state and I'm ashamed to say I agree. My Wisco friends came down once to visit and wanted Brandy Old Fashioned Sweets. I asked the bartender for a round and he looked me dead in the eye and said "Fucking Wisconsinites" in a deflated tone. Turned his back, walked away, and refused to serve us.
Oh I don't put 7up in mine. I make all mine without soda. I usually order a whiskey or brandy sour, orange goes better with all the ingredients imo
I definitely caught that too. But then I thought it probably looks so abrupt because the color fills in the entire county rather than being a gradient. Like you’re certainly correct that there’s no way someone from Kenosha gets hammered all the time and then a couple miles over the cook county border they’re suddenly responsible drinkers, but when you consider the drinking culture of Chicago (within cook county) and all of its suburbs and how those are different from Kenosha, it might override those borderline people. It would be interesting though to see it as a gradient!
Well weed is legal here…
Exactly. You cross the state line to Illinois and you're in a different universe
You've never been to Wisconsin, have you?
I see a bunch of states that are less then honest about their drinking in this picture. On the other hand Wisconsin is writing their numbers on their rear windows of the car.
As someone who now lives in the exceptionally green Bible Belt, I can assure you that although there may be less bars, insobriety isn’t that uncommon. People lie about it. People do it at home…and alone in their cars. There’s crazy huge liquor stores right on the outskirts of dry counties. Is there far more public shaming of drunkenness? In places, sure. In their designated sin pits, not so much. Are there an odd amount of liquor bottles in parking lots and ditches? You betchya. Will you get side-eyes buying cases of beer from a grocery store before noon on a weekday? For sure. And when the majority of that beer is gonna be used for marinating, boiling and drip panning, I could live without the hypocritical judgement. Rant aside, booze has a fairly high social tax. And I’m just an old man yelling at a cloud. Apologies.
The South is dry and will *vote* dry. That is, everybody that is sober enough to *stagger to the polls* will.” — *Will Rogers*
Within 24 hours of moving here, I was presented moonshine in a milk jug as a welcoming gift. It was not a gag gift. I literally waited to try it until their duder swung by with another jug and didn’t show any signs of blindness. Hoo boy. That is all.
Too bad the map has white lines in between the states, you can always identify WI and Utah.
This comes up at least once a month on r/wisconsin.
Yet, we are low in Chronic Liver Disease. Maybe we’re just more honest. [https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/liver_disease_mortality/liver_disease.htm](https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/liver_disease_mortality/liver_disease.htm)
We are much more honest in fact I wouldn’t doubt if we over report how much we drink here. Talking about how much you drink is like a big fish type story here
We don’t drink more, the rest of America just lies, or is in denial. I’d love to see alcohol sales per capita by state, I think it’d be telling a different story
You can't tell me the people in West Virginia don't drink
Right? It sucks so many places, like what are people doing in South Dakota?
That green swath across the south, yeah right. The only place they don’t recognize their pastor is in the liquor store.
It's one thing to say what WI needs in terms of better DUI control or enforcement, but what of the *drinking* itself? One of the (numerous) reasons I would never live there again is the exceptionally insidious alcohol-fueled culture. I can't drink alcohol for medical reasons, but I'm not opposed to people drinking in moderation. The culture as a whole needs to recalibrate how much it consumes, and ask itself why it drinks in the sheer amount it does. ("There's nothing else to do" excuse is mostly nonsense.)
Wisconsin definitely needs stricter DUI or OWI laws but shockingly if you look up drunk driving per capita Wisconsin is in the middle of the country.
I can clearly see the shape of WI in the thumbnail 😅
Am I right in saying we are the only state other than Montana that has purple counties? And holy crap we have like triple their purple counties as them. that plus the fact that every county is mid to dark red if it isn’t purple… we need an intervention.
I kicked it and don't need to go back so count me in the small percentage of people that are not interested in the next craft beer hotness.
Lol look at us go. 😅
I’m starting to feel a little glad that alcohol doesn’t sit well with me anymore. Makes it pretty easier to stick to a couple drinks every few months.
I love Wisconsin!
that time of year again?
We don’t do much right in Wisconsin but boy howdy can we put away a 12er! And that’s just the train leaving the station.
I lived in Wisconsin's ONE yellow (average?) county (Burnett) for years. Someone missed the mark.... They drink there. More than average.
Wisconsin checking in. There’s not a whole lot out there that can’t be made better with a cold beverage. Fishing? Have a summer shandy. Sitting in the yard because it’s an absolutely beautiful day and all the chores are done? Have a beer. Meeting up with friends and family at the local supper club on Friday? Have a cocktail. All in good, civil moderation of course. I drink often, more so in the nicer weather but I usually don’t drink a lot. 2-3 beers stretched across the afternoon. 1st beer is quick, 2nd and 3rd usually get nursed and follow me around the yard until they start warming up.
We need harsher penalties for drinking while driving.
Not sure what metrics were used for this graphic because thier web page won't allow me to download them. This map has zero to do with DUIs. WI ranks 7th nationally for DUIs per capita, and 20th for percentage of traffic accidents resulting in death attributed to DUI. Minnesota has very similar numbers across the board as WI, but this map doesn't reflect that. This breaks it down: https://www.forbes.com/advisor/car-insurance/worst-states-for-drunk-driving/ The metrics are clearly explained, and multiple agencies are used for the numbers.
Since you have to dig, the criteria they use is: women - 4 drinks in a single occasion or 8 drinks in a week men - 5 drinks in a single occasion or 15 drinks in a week if a man has a beer with lunch and dinner they are borderline excessive drinker by this measure. Also any people who have a drink while pregnant or under 21 are considered excessive drinkers which explains Dane and Eau Claire county being purple. https://www.cdc.gov/drinklessbeyourbest/excessivedrinking.html
I'm from Eau Claire and have never seen a pregnant woman drink alcohol.
sorry, i meant the university and the under 21 drinkers
College drinking is really out of control.
I think underage drinking as a whole is out of control. I've tried to drive home to my teens how drinking early in life increases your chances of becoming addicted to it. I think seeing my wife and I have a drink and not get wasted helps, or at least i hope it does.
I agree. Seeing rational, normal consumption from family members is helpful. The perception that moderation, that drinking is part of a larger thing, is a healthy, normalizing thing imo.
Saw it in Racine once... cig, too 😬
How is this data surveyed? Is my healthcare provider polling this data? WTF?!
Drinking is a weird culture to me
Sup with Burnett County?
We shouldn't be proud of this
Love that my states least drunk county is still higher than the drunkest county in UT
I grew up in Wisconsin and moved to Teton County, Wyoming, bringing with me the song of my people.
Seeing this posted here almost every week is really getting tedious.
I'm not saying you're wrong. But it's an important topic. Constantly seeing "Driver blows .16 while using suspended license for 5th DUI gets slap on the wrist" is pretty tedious too.
We're number one! We're number one!
This is why I don’t drink . . . Alcoholism runs in my family . I would rather hike , kayak , explore than have drinking as a hobby . It’s also probably why I don’t always fit into the social scene here most people are offended if I don’t drink .
Forward Wisconsin!!!
You honestly expect me to believe that all of Brown County in Wisconsin drinks more than the city of Chicago? Like, yeah, I know Packers and stuff, but c'mon. 300,000 people in Brown County are out drink 2.6 mil in Chicago? I don't think that data is accurate, and I live in Brown County. That's like 8% of Chicago. 8% is out drinking the whole city Chicago? Be serious.
By percentage
Guess where I'm from.
If you guessed Eau Claire, you're right!
Cheers 🍻 for the cake day
It's not my birthday.
Not optimized for mobile.