Exciting news for alcoholics both functioning and otherwise: A new study suggests that while drinking can decrease your lifespan, even for the heaviest drinkers, it may only take roughly two years off your total runtime.


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The study challenges preconceived notions about the potential health benefits of light to moderate drinking. On the contrary, even just consuming an average of two drinks per week over a lifetime can shorten your life expectancy (admittedly only by three to six days), whereas one drink a day for an entire lifetime could reduce it by two and a half months.



Meanwhile, heavy drinking — defined as consuming roughly 35 drinks a week, or five drinks a day — could take as many as two years off your life.


Wait, that’s all?



Many commenters felt similarly, expressing surprise that after all of that buildup about reduced life expectancy, the most people can expect to lose is a measly two years. One Twitter user called it an “excellent deal,” while another joked, “Hahaha that’s all? I need to start doubling up on my booze ration.”


The best take undoubtedly goes to a guy named Tim, who replied, “The good news is it’ll be the two months at the very end which probably won’t be the best anyway.”


The focus on life expectancy doesn’t cover all of the other effects on your health — you could live to a fairly average age but be combatting liver failure or memory loss, for example, so it’s not all rainbows and puppy dogs.


Ultimately, it’s a case of weighing the short-term payoff against the longer-term reward, and most people would choose enjoying a drink with friends every now and then over living for an extra week or month when they’re 78. Who knows what world even awaits us that far in the future? Maybe the apes will have taken over by then and none of this will matter. Then you’ll really regret declining all of those drinks.