Today I Learned: A Gym Session Isn't a 'Get Out of Jail Free' Card for Drinking

Even though my gym keyfob has gone untapped for months, I’ve been feeling pretty good about my health. I go on walks and eat my vegetables. The fact that I haven’t had alcohol in years has also helped assuage the guilt. Without the fog of a hangover, my mind feels sharper, my body less sluggish.

Intuition says I’m doing okay. But what about science?

According to various outlets reporting on a recent study in Sports Medicine, my intuition has been wrong. Allegedly. The outlets and their resident health experts assert with clickbait soundbites that when it comes to being fit vs. abstaining from alcohol, there is one clear winner. Exercise. They cite the study as evidence as they clink their glasses.

I respect the rigor of science. But soundbites aren’t science. And it’s noteworthy, to me at least, that I have more stamina and strength in the sobriety of my late-trentahin years than I did as a young bar-hopper. So, to figure out the discrepancy between the headlines I’ve been reading and the life I’ve been experiencing, I’ve had to dig into the study myself.

To examine the relationship between cardiorespiratory fitness and alcohol intake, researchers analyzed data from 25,000 subjects, collected over a span of several decades. The goal was to know if exercise would decrease the risk of premature death in drinkers.

Reading the opening lines alone, the sexy exercise-is-enough soundbites lose their sizzle: “There is no safe lower limit for alcohol intake, and even small amounts increase the risk of premature mortality.” In other words, abstaining from alcohol is actually one of the best things you can do for longevity. 

But if you can’t—or don’t want to—abstain, is exercise enough of a corrective measure? The researchers observe how “fitness significantly modified the alcohol-mortality relationship” in the study’s participants. Notably, those in the bottom 20 percent of unfit people, including those who had quit, reduced, or never started drinking, had a much higher mortality than those who were fit and abstained from alcohol. As such, the scientists concluded that fitness (or lack thereof) “is a better predictor of mortality than contemporary changes in alcohol intake.”

Here’s where the flashing neon warning signs come in. The conclusion doesn’t mean that one becomes more immune to alcohol’s drawbacks the more they work out. In fact, the study never claims that exercise fixes the damage that alcohol does to your body.

Of course, it’s tempting to accept a seemingly clear-cut headline about a study as scientifically backed truth. But it would be irresponsible to interpret the study’s results as being permissive, let alone encouraging, of alcohol consumption at all.

Going back to its opening lines, the article says that any amount of drinking is harmful. It is also careful to qualify that being extremely unfit is harmful. The researchers’ definition of “fit” includes the top 80 percent of fit people. Meaning, while of course this includes the hardbody gym devotee, it is also large enough a group to include the softbody gym avoider who likes to walk and eat vegetables.

The conclusion, therefore, shouldn’t be that you can keep drinking if you just exercise enough. It should be that both abstaining from alcohol and regularly engaging in physical activity are the keys to longevity. It’s less exciting, but—if you won’t take it from me, take it from the scientists—true in practice.

And so, without guilt, I will let my gym keyfob continue to languish at the bottom of my bag. A healthy life can and should be approached from many different angles.

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