Shocking (but very old) news

According to this BBC article, people have been drinking too much for hundreds of years now.

The title of the article seems a little misleading, though. It's called "Binge-drinking an age-old problem," but get a load of this:

John Clark, curator of the Medieval London gallery, said: "Most people, including children, drank ale made from malted barley without hops.

"The [sic] even drank ale for breakfast, and got through up to a gallon, or four-and-a-half litres, a day each.

That doesn't sound like binge drinking to me. That's more like...I don't know...lifestyle drinking. I thought the whole point of binge drinking was that you did it in, you know, binges. As opposed to drinking steadily throughout the day, every day.

The article also contains such stunning revelations as the fact that people who drank a gallon of beer a day got...beer bellies! Wow. Hard-hitting news.