When it comes to drinking alcohol, what quantity is considered normal? What is considered as drinking alcohol in excess? How many bottles or glasses of alcohol should we drink per day?

Everybody is aware that drinking alcohol in excess will harm our health. There are a lot of question that people ponder on silently when thinking about the safe limits of drinking alcohol.

The effects of alcohol cannot be seen immediately. It usually takes so years to be seen. You may be drinking above normal now without seeing any effects, but it will surely come to pass after some years.

In order to know how much alcohol you drink, u should be able to calculate the units of alcohol in your drink. The units of alcohol will help you to know the quantity of pure alcohol that is found in your drink, no matter the size of it and volume of the drink.

The NHS has recommended that

Women should not drink more than 2-3 units of alcohol every day or for most of the days in a week
Men should not drink more than 3-4 units of alcohol every day or for most of the days in a week

In General, men should not drink more than 21 units of alcohol per week and women should not drink more than 15 units of alcohol per week. Both men and women should have 2 days free from drinking alcohol every week.

How to determine the units of alcohol that are found in your glass or bottle of drink

In order to calculate the units of alcohol, you will need two values:

1 Total volume of drink in ml: the total volume of drink is usually written on the bottle of the alcohol. for example 350 ml, 750 ml. 1000 ml. If the drink is in a glass, you will need to estimate its volume in the glass e.g. 100 ml.

2 The alcohol by volume: it is abbreviated as ABV, abv or alc/vol. it is a measure of how much ethanol (alcohol) is found in a given volume (bottle, can) of an alcoholic beverage. It is expressed as a volume percent.

An alcoholic beverage that has “10% ABV”, “vol 10%” or says “10% alcohol by volume “ means that of the total volume of drink, 10% of it is pure alcohol.

The formula for calculating the number of units of alcohol found in your drink is as follows:

(Total volume of drink in ml × alcohol by volume in %) ÷ 1000

Example 1, to calculate the units of alcohol in a 330 ml bottle of beer that has an ABV of 5 %:

(330ml × 5%) ÷ 1000 = 1.65 units

Example 2, if you have a bottle of KING’S CASTLE blended Scotch whisky that has 43% VOL and 75CL (cl stands for centiliter and 1 centiliter equals 10 milliliter so the volume in ml is 750):

(750 ml× 43%) ÷1000 = 32.25 units.

This means that if you have whisky you will need to drink it in “shots” or in very small quantities per day in order not to exceed the recommended 3 /4 units of alcohol per day.

Example 3, if you happen to share a glass of wine or you are at a party and you are offered a small glass of red wine that has 12% ABV and the volume of red wine in the glass is 125 ml:

(125 ml × 12%) ÷ 1000 = 1.5 units