Drinking guidelines
The Chief Medical Officers’ guideline for men and women is:
- To keep health risks from alcohol to a low level, it's safest not to drink more than 14 units a week on a regular basis.
- If you regularly drink as much as 14 units per week, it's best to spread your drinking evenly over 3 or more days. If you have 1 or 2 heavy drinking episodes a week, you increase your risks of death from long term illness and from accidents and injuries.
- The risk of developing a range of health problems, including cancers of the mouth, throat and breast, increases the more you drink on a regular basis.
- If you wish to cut down the amount you drink, a good way to help achieve this is to have several drink-free days each week.
Find out how much you drink
Use the unit and calorie calculator to find out how many units of alcohol you drink per week and how many extra calories you consume.