How much is too much? Identifying when your drinking habits have got out of hand and how exactly your health is undermined

First of all, it’s important to establish how many units of alcohol health practitioners reccommend men and women should drink per week and if you are massively in excess of these crucial guidelines.

According to the NHS, the idea of counting alcohol units was first introduced in the UK in 1987 to help people keep track of their drinking.

Units are a simple way of expressing the quantity of pure alcohol in a drink.

One unit equals 10ml or 8g of pure alcohol, which is around the amount of alcohol the average adult can process in an hour.

This means that within an hour there should be, in theory, little or no alcohol left in the blood of an adult, although this will vary from person to person.

The number of units in a drink is based on the size of the drink, as well as its alcohol strength.

For example, a pint of strong lager contains three units of alcohol, whereas the same volume of lower-strength lager has just over over two units.

To keep health risks from alcohol to a low level men and women are advised not to drink more than 14 units a week on a regular basis.

You should spread the consumption of these 14 units across three or more days if you regularly drink as many as 14 units a week.

Using units is a simpler way of representing a drink's alcohol content – usually expressed by the standard measure alcohol by volume (ABV).

ABV is a measure of the amount of pure alcohol as a percentage of the total volume of liquid in a drink.

You can find the ABV on the labels of cans and bottles, sometimes written as "vol" or "alcohol volume", or you can ask bar staff about particular drinks.

For example, wine that says "12% ABV" or "alcohol volume 12%" means 12% of the volume of that drink is pure alcohol.

You can work out how many units there are in any drink by multiplying the total volume of a drink (in ml) by its ABV (measured as a percentage) and dividing the result by 1,000.

For a quick way of calculating your alcohol consumption in units per week you can avail of Alcohol Change UK's unit calculator.

Drinks and units according to NHS guidelines

A 750ml bottle of red, white or rosé wine (ABV 13.5%) contains 10 units; single small shot of spirits (25ml, ABV 40%) constitues 1 unit; an alcopop (275ml, ABV 5.5%) constitues 1.5 units; small glass of red/white/rosé wine (125ml, ABV 12%) is 1.5 units; a bottle of lager/beer/cider (330ml, ABV 5%) has 1.7 units; and a can of lager/beer/cider (440ml, ABV 5.5%) has 2.4 units.

You might be surprised to discover that a single glass of red, white or rose wine (175ml) amounts to 2.1 units, while a pint of higher-strength lager/beer/cider (ABV 5.2%) equates to three units and a large glass of any kind of wine can be as much as 3 units.

What expert in alcohol consumption research Prof David Nutt has to say

Drink?; The New Science of Alcohol and Your Health by David Nutt, a director of the Neuropsychopharmacology Unit in the Division of Brain Sciences at Imperial College London, was published in 2020 and is a must-read for those struggling to understand how excessive drinking impacts the body.

Professor Nutt’s book explores different aspects of alcohol’s impact on the human body and mind from the initial reactions to the hangovers the following day.

A chapter on quality of life lists some possible positive effects of drinking, such as increased creativity and confidence, and help with shakes and tremors due to stress and some medical conditions.

A long chapter covers addiction: what it is, how it develops, detoxing, and a variety of possible treatments, both medical and psychological.

Using any drug, including alcohol, over long periods of time alters our brains, and these changes then make it very difficult to stop using the drug. And alcohol is far from a harmless drug to use.

Men are three times more likely than women to show signs of alcohol dependence in the UK.

There are some danger signs on the way to [alcohol] addiction. These include using alcohol to overcome stress or anxiety and dealing with negative emotions. Drinking on most days, and getting huge pleasure or a “buzz” from drinking are also worth noticing.

In his book, Nutt’s key aim is helping us to get “the maximum benefit out of drinking, with the least amount of harm”.

Nutt also invites readers to consider what type of drinker they might be from straightforwardly enjoying alcohol as a social lubricant, to using it in order to fit in, drinking in order to find excitement or using alcohol as a coping mechanism during stressful times, whereby drinkers see their habit as a form of self-medicating.

Other chapters of the book cover “AAA: alcohol, accidents and aggression” and its attendant impact on mental health.

The final section discusses the social problems caused by excessive drinking, and what British society could do in order to address them.

Professor Nutt’s message is broadly that if you drink, you should only do so fully armed with the facts about the health risks involved.

Prof Nutt has said: “Alcohol is the best drug for socialising that we know of. And the whole history of humanity is socialising – we’re an enormously social species and alcohol facilitates that.”

He added: “The problem is that about 10-15% of people really struggle to control their drinking and quite a few people drink more than they should without knowing it.”

For information on the damage caused to the body by excessive or problem drinking click here.

For advice on how to tackle an addiction click here.

If you are looking for your nearest branch of Alcoholics Anonymous in Northern Ireland click here.

For more about Professor David Nutt click here or to order his book Drink? The New Science of Alcohol And Your Health click here.