What is a Unit of Alcohol?
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What is a Unit of Alcohol?
People here often express their drinking in units. I suppose I should know what that is, but I don't have a clue. I expect it's a way of quantifying different delivery systems equally but I'm still in the dark. I know 6 beers are a lot. Six Canadian beers are even more, but only one bottle of whisky will turn you blotto. But then one beer is a unit, one fifth is a unit, and so is a quart.
So what does it mean to drink 30 units or 12 units? Is that a lot? What quantity is actually being measured in one unit?
So what does it mean to drink 30 units or 12 units? Is that a lot? What quantity is actually being measured in one unit?
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This is what I got when I Googled- unit is a Brit/other thing, not American so it's not familiar to me (and seems like a guesstimate when you talk about a typical bar pour!)
What is a unit of alcohol?
One unit of alcohol is 10 ml (1 cl) by volume, or 8 g by weight, of pure alcohol. For example:
One unit of alcohol is about equal to:
Half a pint of ordinary strength beer, lager, or cider (3-4% alcohol by volume); or
A small pub measure (25 ml) of spirits (40% alcohol by volume); or
A standard pub measure (50 ml) of fortified wine such as sherry or port (20% alcohol by volume).
In the Us, standard measures are by oz so an 12 oz beer equals 1.5 oz liquor equals 5 oz wine. You see a slight variation in these numbers but this is the rule I have read - notably, some places here will put a marker on the place on the wine glass where the pour should stop tho plenty don't. And of course at home, we can do whatever we want to make "one" drink....
What is a unit of alcohol?
One unit of alcohol is 10 ml (1 cl) by volume, or 8 g by weight, of pure alcohol. For example:
One unit of alcohol is about equal to:
Half a pint of ordinary strength beer, lager, or cider (3-4% alcohol by volume); or
A small pub measure (25 ml) of spirits (40% alcohol by volume); or
A standard pub measure (50 ml) of fortified wine such as sherry or port (20% alcohol by volume).
In the Us, standard measures are by oz so an 12 oz beer equals 1.5 oz liquor equals 5 oz wine. You see a slight variation in these numbers but this is the rule I have read - notably, some places here will put a marker on the place on the wine glass where the pour should stop tho plenty don't. And of course at home, we can do whatever we want to make "one" drink....
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Originally Posted by August252015 
One unit of alcohol is 10 ml by volume [of pure alcohol].
Also, I don't know why I didn't google this myself. I usually do, but sometimes I space out assuming only a human would know the answer. It's a generational thing, I guess. lol
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Hi DriGuy,
Yes Units of alcohol is a UK thing and actually quite helpful. Is what you call a fifth in the US pure ethanol?
If you factor in the percentage strength a 40% bottle of vodka here for example is 0.75 litres × 0.4 strength × 100 units per litre = 30 units. A bottle of wine is 0.75 × 0.13 ×100 = 9.75 units etc.
Out of interest the UK recommended healthy limit is about 14 units a week... Not much by most of our past standards...
Yes Units of alcohol is a UK thing and actually quite helpful. Is what you call a fifth in the US pure ethanol?
If you factor in the percentage strength a 40% bottle of vodka here for example is 0.75 litres × 0.4 strength × 100 units per litre = 30 units. A bottle of wine is 0.75 × 0.13 ×100 = 9.75 units etc.
Out of interest the UK recommended healthy limit is about 14 units a week... Not much by most of our past standards...
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I always calculated everything in "beers" even hard alcohol
Speaking of drinking nomenclature, even though I was using hard alcohol too, I never knew what a "handle" was until I joined SR. I always just calculated by rate of drinking by "a bottle," half a bottle, 2/3 bottle, and so forth. To me, a bottle was the standard size bottle, which I think is 750 mls.
Speaking of drinking nomenclature, even though I was using hard alcohol too, I never knew what a "handle" was until I joined SR. I always just calculated by rate of drinking by "a bottle," half a bottle, 2/3 bottle, and so forth. To me, a bottle was the standard size bottle, which I think is 750 mls.
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Join Date: Apr 2018
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Not proud but I learned all about units having to do a course after being done for drink driving. This was mainly to teach you how to work out how long after drinking you “might” be able to drive again and be under the UK legal limit. I was quite shocked to realise that if I drank a full 750ml bottle of red wine at 13.5abv and had my last glass at 10pm it would be 11 hours before I should drive again making it safe at 11am. I was setting off for work at 7am everyday....
Being an alcoholic , and after 14 months getting public transport and drinking whenever I wanted as it didn’t matter anymore when I got my license back all I did was buy lower alcohol wine in the week, work out the units and time so I could drive at 7am, started drinking earlier and started working from home much more until I ended up in rehab.
The “recommendation” from NIHCE is no more than 14 units a week which should be spread evenly over a minimum of 3 out of the 7 days. xx
Being an alcoholic , and after 14 months getting public transport and drinking whenever I wanted as it didn’t matter anymore when I got my license back all I did was buy lower alcohol wine in the week, work out the units and time so I could drive at 7am, started drinking earlier and started working from home much more until I ended up in rehab.
The “recommendation” from NIHCE is no more than 14 units a week which should be spread evenly over a minimum of 3 out of the 7 days. xx
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Originally Posted by Forwards
Hi DriGuy,
Yes Units of alcohol is a UK thing and actually quite helpful. Is what you call a fifth in the US pure ethanol?
If you factor in the percentage strength a 40% bottle of vodka here for example is 0.75 litres × 0.4 strength × 100 units per litre = 30 units. A bottle of wine is 0.75 × 0.13 ×100 = 9.75 units etc.
Out of interest the UK recommended healthy limit is about 14 units a week... Not much by most of our past standards...
Yes Units of alcohol is a UK thing and actually quite helpful. Is what you call a fifth in the US pure ethanol?
If you factor in the percentage strength a 40% bottle of vodka here for example is 0.75 litres × 0.4 strength × 100 units per litre = 30 units. A bottle of wine is 0.75 × 0.13 ×100 = 9.75 units etc.
Out of interest the UK recommended healthy limit is about 14 units a week... Not much by most of our past standards...
Originally Posted by Forwards
Is what you call a fifth in the US pure ethanol?
I've often thought Everclear was just a drinking myth. I think some guys have claimed to have drank it, but I've never seen it in liquor stores. I heard it had industrial uses, like cleaning fine lenses. You would think it would be the choice of alcoholics, but I don't know how much it costs, so I was never able to do the math in dollars and/or pounds per drunk.
Anyway, I suppose a unit would be pure alcohol. Is that right?
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A US quart is 947ml in the UK which equates to about a bottle and a 1/4 of wine here as our wine is sold in 750ml bottles. The UK determination of units is a little more complex as it multiplies the alcohol content of the drink by the volume (amount you drink) to get units where what O have seen of the US system is it’s measured in “drinks” and volume only but doesn’t take in to account the alcohol %. x
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Originally Posted by DriGuy
Anyway, I suppose a unit would be pure alcohol. Is that right?
number of units = volume of drink (litres) * percentage strength (as a fraction) * 100
Another example then is a pint (568ml) of 5% strength lager:
0.568 * 0.05 * 100 = 2.84 units
'Everclear' sounds like a disaster waiting to happen. One scary story in my past involved friends who made a batch of Limoncello with neat pure analytical grade laboratory ethanol they had left over one year - not advised..
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Ha OOTT - it was a big "duh" moment for me when I learned that a handle got the name because, well...it has a handle.
And DriGuy, math is not only not my strong suit but it certainly isn't when it comes to alcohol measurements, so this unit stuff has never clicked with me
Yes, Everclear is dangerous. Any variation on it- say, moonshine in the US South- is freakin' obscene. And not uncommon on college campuses, but that's a whole different segue.
It is also a sidenote that wines have different ABV, which is noted on the label. They are typically 750 ml too tho the magnum is bigger (double?).
And DriGuy, math is not only not my strong suit but it certainly isn't when it comes to alcohol measurements, so this unit stuff has never clicked with me
Yes, Everclear is dangerous. Any variation on it- say, moonshine in the US South- is freakin' obscene. And not uncommon on college campuses, but that's a whole different segue.
It is also a sidenote that wines have different ABV, which is noted on the label. They are typically 750 ml too tho the magnum is bigger (double?).
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Also, in the UK, the NHS used to recommend that women shouldn't exceed consumption of 14 units of alcohol a week and men shouldn't exceed 21 units a week. It's now the same recommendation of 14 units for either, but I could never get my head around why it was higher for men? Always seemed silly to me. Not to sound evangelical, but the recommended consumption of alcohol a week should be 0 for all.
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Originally Posted by DriGuy
I think a fifth is the 750ml bottle. Sometimes you can buy it by the quart, which is exactly a quart, I suppose. It also comes in what they call a half gallon, but I'm not sure if it's an actual half gallon or not.
No. As I recall it was either 40% and sometimes 50%. There was/is something called Everclear, which was 100%. I suppose as in the States, the UK measures purity in "proof." Everclear being 200 proof. I have no idea why purity is measured by proof, rather than percent.
I've often thought Everclear was just a drinking myth. I think some guys have claimed to have drank it, but I've never seen it in liquor stores. I heard it had industrial uses, like cleaning fine lenses. You would think it would be the choice of alcoholics, but I don't know how much it costs, so I was never able to do the math in dollars and/or pounds per drunk.
Anyway, I suppose a unit would be pure alcohol. Is that right?
No. As I recall it was either 40% and sometimes 50%. There was/is something called Everclear, which was 100%. I suppose as in the States, the UK measures purity in "proof." Everclear being 200 proof. I have no idea why purity is measured by proof, rather than percent.
I've often thought Everclear was just a drinking myth. I think some guys have claimed to have drank it, but I've never seen it in liquor stores. I heard it had industrial uses, like cleaning fine lenses. You would think it would be the choice of alcoholics, but I don't know how much it costs, so I was never able to do the math in dollars and/or pounds per drunk.
Anyway, I suppose a unit would be pure alcohol. Is that right?
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In the UK, any alcohol bought in a shop will have the alcohol units stated on it. It’s not a bad system. If all of us had stuck to 14 units a week, we’d be fine.
It’s a very small amount, though, in terms of quantity, and 14 units is about one and a half bottles of wine. Someone who drinks every day has no chance of sticking to that limit.
I was curious where the 14 figure came from. It’s based on twenty years of research into alcohol-related health problems. Rates of throat, bowel and breast cancer in particular start to increase after 14 weekly units, and these shoot up after 28 weekly units. The research also dismissed the claim that a small amount of alcohol is beneficial.
OK, the 14 units is meaningless for us as we’ve crossed a line somewhere in the past into dependency, but it’ll help others. I don’t think we can tell others not to drink at all, but we can encourage safe and responsible drinking amongst those without a problem. To say only zero levels of alcohol is safe amongst such groups isn’t realistic.
It’s a very small amount, though, in terms of quantity, and 14 units is about one and a half bottles of wine. Someone who drinks every day has no chance of sticking to that limit.
I was curious where the 14 figure came from. It’s based on twenty years of research into alcohol-related health problems. Rates of throat, bowel and breast cancer in particular start to increase after 14 weekly units, and these shoot up after 28 weekly units. The research also dismissed the claim that a small amount of alcohol is beneficial.
OK, the 14 units is meaningless for us as we’ve crossed a line somewhere in the past into dependency, but it’ll help others. I don’t think we can tell others not to drink at all, but we can encourage safe and responsible drinking amongst those without a problem. To say only zero levels of alcohol is safe amongst such groups isn’t realistic.
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Originally Posted by GrayJ
Also, in the UK, the NHS used to recommend that women shouldn't exceed consumption of 14 units of alcohol a week and men shouldn't exceed 21 units a week. It's now the same recommendation of 14 units for either, but I could never get my head around why it was higher for men? Always seemed silly to me. Not to sound evangelical, but the recommended consumption of alcohol a week should be 0 for all.
Guidelines, tho, aren't really applicable to us alcoholics as we tend to have blown thru them at some point well before we quit drinking.
And "data" like red wine being good for the heart and French people living longer....also good ways for us alcoholics to justify our (over) consumption
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I like the construction of the alcohol unit. The one thing that confused me about the unit was calling it a "unit." Alcohol may be the only liquid measured in units. All other liquids are measured in liters or the accompanying tens or tenths of liters. Although at this point, I'm way past counting my units, as I measure my alcohol intake as simply "off."
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Originally Posted by Hodd
I don’t think we can tell others not to drink at all, but we can encourage safe and responsible drinking amongst those without a problem. To say only zero levels of alcohol is safe amongst such groups isn’t realistic.
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