How bad is a glass of wine per night?

You aren't going to get a very objective view of what constitutes alcoholism on here.

Because some people have prior negative experience of it.

And others like to revel in the fact that they are teetotal. For them a thimbleful of alcohol every six weeks is alcoholic territory.

It's something you have to work out for yourself. So little point in asking the question if you aren't ready for the extreme answers.

FWIW I don't think 2 glasses of wine a night is at all likely to put you in "problem alcoholic" territory. But like any drinking on a daily basis it puts you on a platform where it could become problematic should you decide to say double the volume when life gets tough.

I think the term 'alcoholic' is unhelpful, and whether you think OP is one is neither here nor there. It's much easier and more helpful to gauge whether someone is drinking more than the recommended safe levels than it is to try to make some diagnosis.

I think if you're asking you're concerned in some way!

However, if you can keep to your current weekly limit I'd say that's OK. The thing you have to watch out for is it escalating gradually.

I don't drink myself, but those around me do, and your consumption is similar to theirs and they are all very nice balanced people. So FAR! These are people in their 50s/60/s and have been drinking since they could get away with it 😊

Once a year maybe get a liver function test to keep an eye on that aspect of it.

Everyone has to have something. For me it's chocolate and dessert, for others it's shopping, meals out, mad hobbies, whatever. Some people do dangerous things as a pastime too, like motorbike riding, skiing, sports and so on. Now you could say that lots of those things are "healthy" but not if you end up with a broken back or dead.

There are different levels of alcohol addiction. There are functional alcoholics - which is probably where you are. None think they have a problem. But things can escalate and become non-functional.

I think being surrounded by ‘worse’ alcoholics has distorted your view. You ARE an alcoholic. But you can’t fix your problems if you don’t accept you have one because you’re not waking up on a park bench having pissed yourself. Where are you now, seems much easier to get yourself out of, don’t have to wait until you reach rock bottom to realise you’ve got a problem. Make good choices. Swap it out for some juice.

I think you’re an alcoholic. I think it would be best to accept this/ not be in denial and seek help if you’re unable to make changes yourself.

Wine with dinner becomes a habit and unfortunately, as enjoyable as it is, it's not harmless. I think a lot of us have slid into this habit before, particularly during lockdown! I know what you mean about being on holiday, I have wine every day when I'm away because it's a holiday, BUT replicating it at home or during a normal working week is a bit of a slippery slope.

You could be doing surprising long term damage if you keep drinking most days, even just a glass or two. It's easy for that to become more, especially when you're free pouring. Maybe try to keep it to Friday-Sunday and watch the quantity each night.

I know I sound like such a bore, but you'd be so surprised how much better off your skin, weight, mental health, and bank balance will be if you halve the amount of wine you drink each week.

OP, defensiveness when someone suggests you have a problem with alcohol, and the reaction of “it’s ridiculous to suggest I might be an alcoholic because I’m not like THOSE really bad alcoholics over there” is for me also a red flag for problematic drinking and self-deception. My father says “come on now I like drink but I’m not an alcoholic, it’s not like I drink in the morning or stagger around the streets”. But he is an alcoholic.

DH and I shared a bottle a night during the child-rearing curfew years. Didn’t really think about it.

Now I have about 2 glasses 3 nights a week, sometimes 4 nights, but mostly have 3 alcohol free days a week.

The French seem to do OK with a glass a night with dinner. And they drink less overall than we do.

Pick bottles that are much less ‘hot’: look for 12’ rather than 14’ . French Red is often less alcoholic than the strong S American brands, and there are plenty of white wine options coming in at 11’.

Read some bottles.

Every night fucks with your sleep. How you feel the next day becomes your normal. Not to mention the empty calories and the increased need for carbs then day after. You don't notice because it creeps up on you.

i took some leave this year and we travelled for a couple of months. I had at least one beer/glass of wine a day (and thoroughly enjoyed it!). But I did notice that my sleep, anxiety.. everything felt so much better as soon as I stopped. I try not to drink at home at all so I really noticed the impact then the benefit - so while I think it’s absolutely fine, I do think you’d feel a lot better without it.

As you can see, you get wildly different views on here. At the end of the day, the safest amount to drink is zero but we often make compromises for things we enjoy. I might enjoy salty, fatty, sugary food so i might take the view that although they not ideal things to eat, since I enjoy them I will take on that additional risk but I will minimise it by eating those things irregularly, being active and maintaining a healthy weight. I might enjoy riding my horse - there's some risk associated with that but I accept it because I enjoy it. The safest thing to do would be to not ride the horse at all but I might not choose that option.

The NHS suggests drinking no more than 14 units a week and to have at least a couple of days off. If you are over that then the advice is to cut down. However, it's a continuum - 10 units is better than 14 but 15 units doesn't suddenly become wildly more risky because it's over the guidelines. It sounds like you would benefit from cutting down so perhaps think of ways you could do that whilst still being able to enjoy a few glasses a week.

I think what I actually said was that it was part of the overall impact of lifestyle and diet, and probably not the largest one, not that it was healthy. There are benefits, though as another poster has postulated they can also be achieved in other ways.

When major food companies are actively working on reducing acrylamides I think it's reasonable to assume there's a risk though. Cancer Research UK is not the only authority on cancer, treatment or causes, good though it undoubtedly is :)

I used to drink dangerously heavily. I now have two or three medium glasses about five days a week.

I guess I'm not the best person to judge it. But what I do think is whatever you're drinking, if you can gradually reduce it is always a good plan.

Its also a lot more complex than your simple analysis too.

When crusty bread appears on the cancer research website then maybe I will take note but alcohol is most certainly on there as a cause.

There is no "safe" level of alcohol consumption and it is classified as a class 1 carcinogen.

I can see the effects even 1 glass of wine has on my sleep/stress levels/heart rate according to my Garmin and its really quite shocking.

If you want to carry on thinking its fine thats entirely your choice but its simply not true to say that moderate drinking is healthy.

2.5 bottles a week is about 10 bottles of wine a month.

Yes, that is an awful lot and it will be having a detrimental effect on your health even if you cannot feel it right now.

This is not good for you, no matter which way you look at it. Using wine to cope with stress is a very unhealthy road to go down.

Good for you. The fact that you had liver damage with that amount is scary -if that was the cause of it.

Which is why I said take your pick :)

Its clearly a lot more complex than your simple analysis. Take a country with a very high life expectance, like Japan,. The per capita alcohol consumption there is similar to the USA, but the Japanese live 8 or so years longer. Some of the Scandinavian countries have high per capita consumption of alcohol, but live 3 or 4 years longer than if you are in the UK

I think its more reasonable to say that diet and lifestyle, have a big effect on life expectancy, and moderate consumption of alcohol as part of that is unlikely to be the biggest factor. Clearly extreme alcohol consumption brings its own health issues.

And lets not forget that the acrylamides in crusty bread, toast and biscuits can also cause cancer :)

It’s really really bad.

Given the fact that you mention boredom as a reason, and that you have to exercise self-control to maintain your current amount, this could get out of hand before you realise it.

I was probably drinking a glass of wine 4 nights a week. In my case they were small as I hate warm wine and kept them small to avoid them warming up. I enjoyed it, could go days in between with no issue, all good. So definitely no judgement from me on that score.

However, I’m now on weight loss injections and as a result have gone off alcohol completely- I’ve drunk 4 alcoholic drinks in 8 weeks. I’ve realised how many calories were involved in my drinks and reflected on the fact that my liver showed alcohol damage when I had blood tests. I’m now on slimline tonic- posh stuff, garnished with fruit instead. Makes it feel like a “grown up drink” (squash/Diet Coke/ water didn’t feel like a relaxing adult thing for me).

I’m horrified to realise that I’m sleeping better, my skin looks better and I’m having fewer hot flushes. Not the side-effect of WLI I was expecting, but a real point of reflection for me.

I got out of the habit by substituting for a nice non alcoholic drink that I liked instead.

If I drank that much I'd be contantly ill - headaches, colds, that sort of thing. Do you not find that the alcohol makes it hard for you to fight off infections? Maybe I just have a feeble immune system! I also think it'd affect my weight quite badly - wine is high in calories and it's also very bad for your teeth.

Whatever your thoughts on addiction and dependence, wine is a pretty difficult substance for your body to deal with and it's not great to make it contend with it every day or even multiple times a week.

Indeed.

"A 2024 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association followed more than 135,000 drinkers age 60 and over and found that even moderate alcohol intake was associated with a higher death rate – with much of that increase seen in cancer and cardiovascular disease". alcohol not quite so great for heart it seems....

https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2025/08/moderate-alcohol-consumption-drinking-health-benefits-impacts-research

But you can get the anti oxidants from grapes alone. Why would you drink alcohol for the anti oxidants when it also causes cancer?

Thats like me saying I regularly snort coke but its ok because I always have an orange at the same time so it's great for the vitamin c!