How can I be in the top 5% of drinkers at 20 units a week?!

[Pooshy]

I've been tracking how much alcohol I drink since the start of the year in an effort to cut down

It's working and I think I probably drink about half as much as I used to, around 20 units a week on average. Still over the women's recommended limit of 14, but this is better than I was

However the app I'm using says I'm in the top 5% of drinker so that means only 5 people out of 100 drink more than me

Surely that can't be right... how many unit do you drink a week usually?

I'm a real lightweight, I would be drunk if I drank two large glasses of wine. I tend to drink one of those mini bottles of wine over two days and the of fruit cider. The cider bottles are a pint, I think. They last me three days.
No alcohol mon to Thurs unless it's a birthday or something similar, so very rarely.

Between 0-4 units per week here. Maybe one or two small glasses of wine at the weekend, that's it.

Seen too many barely functional alcoholics in my life to drink regularly or to excess!

I'd say about 90% of my socialising doesn't involve alcohol. A lot of mine is during the day, meeting friends for coffee (I work part time), having parents over on a Sunday afternoon, meeting friends for dog walks on weekend mornings, going out for a family lunch at the weekend. Also a lot of my evenings out I have to drive. So it would be entirely possible that I wouldn't have a night out that involved drinking till April.

0 units here unless I'm having a night out. I like a drink but alcohol is expensive and as a single mum I can't afford to buy it every week.

I like a drink but alcohol is expensive

I think this is also a factor in people with young families not drinking so much. When my DCs were younger I always had better things to spend my money on than drinking. Now they’re all grown up and I’ve climbed the ladder at work I have a lot more disposable income. I will generally stick 3 or 4 bottles of wine in with my online food shop now. And of course if it’s there it’s easy to think oh I’ll pour myself a glass.

I agree with what a pp said that there is this image around wine drinking that it’s more “acceptable” than sitting and sinking half a bottle of spirits or several super strength lagers. For me it’s definitely a bit of a habit. I drink red and there is nothing that can really replace that taste wise (I’ve tried several non alcoholic reds and they’re shit!). So when it comes to the evening and I fancy a glass it’s hard to find something else to have instead.

I wanted to clarify my earlier post that I don’t know anyone who doesn’t drink. What I actually mean is that I don’t know anyone who, bar religious reasons or pregnancy, doesn’t drink entirely through choice.

I only know one person who doesn't drink entirely through choice but I know a few who have given up because they realised it was impacting on their health.

In a normal month I'll maybe have:

• two weeks where I drink either nothing or 1-2 glasses of wine one night with my tea
• one week where I go out for a meal and have 3-4 G&Ts
• one week where I go out-out (with work, usually) and drink 6-10 drinks (usually single gins but sometimes doubles), so between 6-20 units depending on how much, but nothing the rest of the week.

I really like hipstery craft beer so I will occasionally buy a can of a nice sour beer which can be a couple of units because they're often strong, but that's not regular.

So 20 units every week seems a lot to me. When are you drinking them? Is it a couple of glasses of wine every night, or weekend drinking?

Half a bottle of wine at the weekend, occasionally a glass or two mid week. Not sure how many units that is?

Hmmm, I think even people on here are underestimating how many units they drink.

I have a small glass of red wine most nights, and that amounts to 12 to 14 units a week.

If that was a regular or large glass of wine most nights it would be well over 20 units a week.

The poster who said they drink about 1 and a half bottles of wine a week, that's probably around 14 to 16 units.

I agree blackink - I also think that a lot of people who do drink lie to themselves and minimise how much they drink when it comes to reporting it. (Isn't there a big gap between the number of units people self-report as drinking, and the number of units of alcohol sales, meaning that we know there is a discrepancy?)

It doesn't help that the unit system is quite confusing and keeps changing!

(I'm not saying people on here are lying about drinking nothing stronger than water, before you all jump down my throat. I'll be the first to acknowledge that Mumsnet seems to have a lot of members with incredibly boring lives ).

Used to be 3/4 bottles of wine a week so erm over 20units even if it was only 7units a bottle.

Now I’ve given up the wine and have a vodka and coke, the whole bottle is 26.3units and I’ve had it just over two weeks and it’s not empty

nothing mon-fri, then i go a bit mad on saturdays. Nothing on Sunday.

This week is going to be diff though - i went out last friday, had quite a few glasses of champagne, then today im out again where i will maybe have a few, then im out again at an event on weds. Its going to be a heavy week, so i wont have anything this weekend.

I'll be the first to acknowledge that Mumsnet seems to have a lot of members with incredibly boring lives ).

Yes because not drinking alcohol makes your life boring

None, most weeks. I'll have a glass of something nice I fancy once every few weeks but it's usually just the one glass. I don't like feeling groggy and definitely don't like the headaches I get if I have more than a couple of drinks.

30 units a day?

A bottle of 13% wine contains 10 units
A bottle of 14% wine contains 11 units

I don't really drink anything! I'll go out about once a month with my friends and have a couple of gins, but I never drink at home or when out for lunch or dinner, the thought just doesn't really cross my mind!

The graph in this article is from the US, but I'd say it's similar to the UK. The fact is that the curve is extremely steep. Especially once you get away from the teetotal and very occasional drinkers. The top decile are responsible for a huge amount of the sales of alcohol - without them, Seagrams and DiAggio and other drinks companies would go out of business. They market booze as normal and fun but depend on the unhealthy levels of consumption by a small percentage of the population. www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/09/25/think-you-drink-a-lot-this-chart-will-tell-you/?utm_term=.f759cbf3a900

Most weeks it's 0. If I drink, it's normally 1-2 glasses of wine - that's about 1-2 times a month. V v rarely more than that.

In the UK a small percentage of drinkers are responsible for a lot of the alcohol sales as well. That is hardly surprising. If someone is drinking say 3 bottles of wine a day.
But in the UK more people drink alcohol regularly than in the US.
www.drinkaware.co.uk/research/data/consumption-uk/

What many people do not realise is that prohibition in the US had a massive impact on alcohol drinking habits there, and still has.

I drink wine/Prosecco twice a month when catching up with friends, about 2-3 large (host poured at home rather than bar) glasses each time. So a bottle or so a month roughly. Occasionally more if we go out out for a birthday meal etc and are sharing bottles round the table. I don't like beer or spirits and hate the idea of shots.

DH doesn't drink and I couldn't manage a bottle myself and feel it's a waste so never drink at home, except for my treat bottle at Christmas which I have over a couple of days.

I do love good wine with food but now I'm a bit older I just can't cope with any kind of hangover so I always stop at the 2/3 glass mark. Even then I find I don't sleep as well at night after drinking.
Most of my friends are the same (aged 40-55). One doesn't drink at all for health reasons and only one of the group regularly drinks quite a lot of wine with her husband at home and socialises with a much more boozy crowd. They do tend to have "epic nights" posted all over social media but her skin is the worst of all of us and she looks more knackered and red faced. She's also the one with the teenager who is known for doing really stupid stuff while "silly drunk" and stealing booze from people's homes, no idea why I think it's totally true that bigger drinkers stick together partly because of their habits and partly to self justify their levels.
I'm not being pearl clutching, I drank like a pirate in my 20s but I think I just used up all my tolerance then and can't handle it now! I do lots of socialising but it doesn't need to revolve around alcohol.

I think Americans consume similar levels per capita, but the culture is different. Perhaps more secretive. Bragging at work on Monday about how legless you got on Saturday isn't OK at all.

That's such an interesting graph @JustGettingStarted ! I know the US has some different attitudes to drinking than the U.K. but it's still quite a surprise how steeply it goes up.