Alcohol: What is a Problem?

Unlike smoking, drinking alcohol is not always detrimental to health. Drinking in moderation is associated with lower risk of coronary heart disease.

Alcohol addiction is defined as 'the continued use of alcohol despite significant alcohol-related problems, involving a pattern of repeated drinking that usually results in tolerance, withdrawal and compulsive alcohol using behaviour'.

'Tolerance' means needing to drink more and more alcohol to achieve the same effect. Withdrawal symptoms are those that develop within hours or days of stopping drinking and include sweating, high pulse rate, hand tremors, insomnia, anxiety, nausea and vomiting.

Someone who is addicted to alcohol may fail to fulfil major obligations at home, work or school as a result of drinking, or drink in physically hazardous situations i.e. when driving or operating machinery.

The recommended units of alcohol are 14 units a week for women and 21 units a week for men. These guidelines now incorporate a daily limit of three units for women and four for men with two alcohol-free days a week, to highlight the risks of binge drinking.

One unit is a small glass of wine, half a pint of beer or a measure of spirits, but the number of units per drink can vary with the alcohol percentage.

Over 90% of adults in Britain consume alcohol. The amount of alcohol we drink has risen steadily in the last fifty years, and 6.4 million people now drink more than twice the recommended levels each week. Between 1950 and 1979 the level of alcohol consumption in the UK doubled.

Men have always drunk more than women, but young women are now more likely to binge drink. 1 in 3 adult men and 1 in five adult women now exceed the weekly recommended drinking limits. The number of women drinking over sensible limits has doubled from 9% to 17% since 1984.