A large proportion of us drink alcohol every week, whether in a social setting, with a meal at home or even just relaxing and unwinding at the end of a hard day. Whether it’s a cool beer or a glass of wine, alcoholic intake has knitted itself into the very fabric of our everyday lives.
But do any of us actually realise how much alcohol we are drinking and more importantly, are we are drinking too much - and will it affect us in the workplace?
So how much is too much?
It can be a difficult question to answer. Knowing ‘how much is too much’ can be confusing. Most of us will feel that we know when we’ve overdone it, but sometimes drinking can ‘creep up’ on us and, over time, we can find that we’re drinking more than we would like.
So what are the safe parameters? How can we gauge where our consumption level lies and whether we are safely within those parameters?
According to ‘low risk’ drinking guidelines from the country’s Chief Medical Officers, it’s safest not to drink more than 14 units per week, spread over three or more days and with a few days off.
The guidelines for men and women state that:
You are safest not to drink more than 14 units per week. 14 units means roughly six pints of lager or one and a half bottles of wine. You can use this handy calculator to work out the number of units in your drinks.
*It is best to spread this drinking over three days or more during the week.
*A good way to help you keep the risk low is to have several alcohol-free days each week.
*If you are pregnant or planning a pregnancy, the safest approach is not to drink alcohol at all, to keep risks to your baby to a minimum.
You can also check how healthy your drinking is with this quick quiz
It can be surprising…
Broadcaster Adrian Chiles famously focused on how much he was drinking himself in a BBC documentary Drinkers Like Me. He discovered he was drinking up to 100 units a week and a doctor told him he had signs of liver damage.
Chiles has since dramatically reduced his alcohol consumption and admits that before the documentary he never thought he had a problem. In an interview with Saga International, Chiles recalled: “I was sort of doing it very skillfully.”
He added: “We’re all on a spectrum: if you drink a little bit, then you’re a bit addicted. If you drink an awful lot, you’re very addicted. It’s an addictive drug – that’s the end of it.”
A shift in the guidelines
Before 2016, the low-risk guidelines had last been revised in 1995. Much has been learned since then on the back of more research about the risks associated with alcohol.
This has produced two principle changes to the guidelines:
A shift from daily to weekly guidelines. Not everyone drinks every day – some of us only drink on the weekend, some of us only drink on certain evenings of the week, and so on. Therefore, in terms of simplicity of message and to best reflect how we drink as a society, it was decided that weekly guidelines provide an easier benchmark for people.
The drinking guidelines now recommend the same low-risk level for men and women. This is because, while long-term alcohol-health risks are generally higher for women than men, men face much higher risks of immediate harm, like injuries.
The guidelines aim to provide us all with a general framework, based on the latest science, to help us to make informed choices about our drinking.
Sticking to no more than 14 units a week isn’t a guarantee that our health won’t be negatively impacted by alcohol, and drinking above 14 units doesn’t mean you definitely will have health problems either.
But, as a general rule, if we drink at low levels, then we keep the risk of harm to low levels too. (Department of Health. UK Chief Medical Officers’ Low Risk Drinking Guidelines. 2016)
Support to make a change
If you’re looking to cut down your alcohol consumption there are useful tools to help you. You can download for free the Try Dry app to help you drink more healthily. You can also find tools to help you measure your drinking on the CADAS resources page
If you feel that you want to to reduce the amount you are drinking, we can help you. If you are affected by a colleague's drinking, we can also support you.
Please Contact Us for more information or complete the enquiry form
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