Five barriers to defining responsible drinking

Abstract ‘Responsible drinking’ remains a poorly defined construct despite decades of use among diverse stakeholders including industry, academics, governmental agencies, and addiction advocacy groups. To move the field closer to a consensus definition of responsible drinking that is useful for educational and research purposes, we describe five primary barriers that discourage the construction of a shared definition of responsible drinking. These barriers include the lack of foundational empirical evidence, the social construction of the term, the possibility that different targets require different definitions, the political implications of responsible drinking, and the possibility that there is no safe level of alcohol consumption. We conclude this article by offering suggestions to overcome these barriers through further research.