The Many Different Strengths of Alcohol

In Britain the majority of people go out for an after work drink on a Friday night, and many of these stay out and have a few more drinks afterwards! They will go through beer, wine, vodka, gin, rum and whatever else they can get their hands on. But do they know what they are putting into their bodies? A good few of these people will have no regard at all for this. Sometimes this can lead to people becoming alcoholics, dependant on alcohol as they do not realise the effect it is having on their bodies. This can lead to them needing to undertake alcohol detox in a bid to rid themselves of their addiction.

There will be some who believe that each drink will have the same effect, and this attitude leads to them getting drunk more quickly as they do not understand the different strengths of alcohol.

Alcohol is officially measured in “units”, with 1cl of pure alcohol equating to 1 unit. Half a pint of beer is 1 unit, a small glass of wine is also. This is the government way of measuring alcohol intake. However the simpler way, and the way that is mainly used on bottles and cans, is through percentages.

This is measured in ABV, which means “Alcohol by volume” and this shows the amount of pure alcohol in a drink as a percentage. There is a large difference in ABV for all types of drinks.

Beer can vary in strength, some of the local brewed ales and more traditional lagers are around 3.5-4%, while some of the newer continental brands are usually around 5%, sometimes more, meaning that anybody who doesn’t know about ABV will be assuming that they will not get drunk very slowly on beer, when in fact their alcohol intake is around the same as a strong cider if they have gone for a foreign beer of a certain strength.

Some wines are up to 12% ABV, meaning that drunkenness occurs much quicker. This is why it is often the drink of choice for alcoholics, as they can cheaply get hold of quite a large bottle of high strength alcohol and it will have an effect.

Spirits are very potent, with their ABV being very high, a 30ml shot of whiskey, vodka, rum, tequila etc can be anywhere between 25% and 50% alcohol. Mixing these with soft drinks can disguise the taste, but it will not disguise the effect it has. A few of these shots can make somebody into an incoherent mess, and this can lead to many more problems, so it is important for drinkers to make sure that they know exactly how much alcohol they are putting into themselves.