Learn how many standard drinks are contained in common glasses.
In Australia, a standard drink is any drink containing 10 grams of alcohol.
If you want to know how many standard drinks you’re drinking, check the label. By law, it must show the approximate number of standard drinks contained.
But in real life, knowing exactly what constitutes a ‘standard’ drink is difficult.
Different types of alcoholic beverages contain different amounts of alcohol. A glass of alcohol may contain more than one standard drink, depending on the size of the glass and the type of alcohol.
It is important to understand what a standard drink is so that when you are drinking you can manage how much alcohol you consume.
When it comes to cancer risk, there is no safe level of drinking. Reduce your drinking to reduce your risk.
If you do drink, keeping track of standard drinks can help you stick to the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC)
guidelines:
GUIDELINE 1
For healthy men and women, drinking no more than two standard drinks on any day reduces the lifetime risk of harm from alcohol-related disease or injury.
GUIDELINE 2
For healthy men and women, drinking no more than four standard drinks on a single occasion reduces the risk of alcohol-related injury arising from that occasion.
Use this tool to see if you can correctly pour a
standard drink.
These guidelines are currently being updated, with new draft guidelines recommending people have no more than 10 standard drinks a week to reduce their life-time risk of disease. Cancer Council Victoria recommends alcohol free days to reduce your risk of cancer. The more alcohol free days the better when it comes to reducing cancer risk.