Home Page

Controlling your drinking means looking at the bigger picture (Alcohol problems 2nd page

The role of alcohol in your life (Alcohol problems 3rd page)

Your assumptions and beliefs about alcohol (Alcohol problems 4th page)

Managing High-risk Situations (Alcohol problems 5th page)

Anxiety Assertiveness Depression Info Base Full Contents

Philosophy of Counselling Types of Therapy FAQs

Contact Me

Coaching

Fancy a Drink?

You're not alone. In 2004 the Office of national Statistics interviewed a representative sample of over 3,500 people aged 16 or more. About a quarter (26%) of those interviewed said that they had drunk on at least three days a week in the last twelve months. Ten per cent said they had a drink almost every day in the last year. Slightly more, 15%, had not drunk any alcohol at all in the last year.

Men were more likely than women to drink frequently – 34% of men said that they drank on at least three days a week, compared with 21% of women.

This tells us how often people were drinking but not how much. You may have heard alcohol consumption referred to in 'units' (in this survey over 8 in 10 had heard of 'units'). 

Click Here for the Next Page or use the Buttons on the left to skip to a specific section.

Know your units

It's often said that half a pint of beer is one unit and this is true if the percentage alcohol by volume (ABV) of the beer is 3.5%. However, many beers have an ABV of 5% or even more. Take the example then of a pint of one of my favourite tipples - Abbot Ale, which is 5% by volume.

The formula for calculating the number of units in a drink is:

volume of drink in millilitres [ml] x alcohol by volume [ABV]

Thus a pint of this beer (568 mls) with an ABV of 5% (five hundreds i.e. 0.005) gives us

568 x 0.005 = 2.84 units

So one pint is not far off 3 units in this case.

Another example: half a bottle (375 ml) of red wine with an ABV of 13%.

375 x 0.013 = 4.9 units

So half a bottle of this wine is in fact nearly 5 units.