Cocktails, wine, and beer are as ubiquitous as street-corner Santas during the holidays, and it can be hard to resist the peer pressure when Girls Night Out turns into Girls Gone Wild. Try these sneaky tricks when you’ve had enough, says David Hanson, PhD, an alcohol expert from the State University of New York at Potsdam:
Carry around a drink that looks like alcohol, such as tomato juice, lemonade, or water with ice. Or pretend your Diet Coke is spiked with rum.
Conveniently lose the drink. If someone presses a drink on you, after she leaves just set it down and walk away.
Use humor, like a funny turndown: “I can’t tonight—I’m performing neurosurgery in the morning.”
Practice smiling and saying, “No thanks.” The more you do it, Hanson says, the easier it gets.
When you toast a bride and groom with a flute of champagne or down a glass of your favorite red wine on the weekends, it can actually be good news for your body: One glass a day (or less) can make your heart stronger and may boost your memory. But have a few too many, and your risks for breast cancer, uterine cancer, and osteoporosis rise fast. So when it comes to drinking, should you or shouldn’t you? Here, experts make sense of the contradictions and help four drinkers (and one abstainer) find the healthiest imbibing strategy. 
