Alcohol and your health
Drinking less alcohol can improve sleep, support a healthy weight, and reduce the risk of disease or injury. Find support and feel better by drinking less.
How alcohol affects your health
Even in small amounts, drinking alcohol can be harmful to your physical and mental health.
Drinking alcohol can increase anxiety, disrupt your sleep, and make it harder to manage stress. Over time, it can also lead to depression, memory problems, and may even damage your brain. Alcohol increases your risk of getting some common cancers, like breast or bowel cancer. You can use the Cancer Institute's Alcohol and cancer risk tool to help you understand how your alcohol intake affects your risk of cancer.
Alcohol can be high in kilojoules (energy), which may contribute to weight gain over time. It also doesn’t provide the nutrients your body needs, so it’s not considered part of a healthy diet. The less you drink, the lower your risk of harms from alcohol.
Alcohol guidelines for adults
The National Medical and Research Council has guidelines to reduce health risks from drinking alcohol. These are based on evidence of how alcohol can affect your health.
The guidelines recommend that healthy adults drink:
- no more than 10 standard drinks per week,
- no more than 4 standard drinks on any day and
- the less you drink, the lower your risk of harm from alcohol.
If you have a health condition, talk to a health professional for advice as these guidelines may be different for you.
A standard drink contains 10 grams of pure alcohol, no matter the type of alcohol, or whether it’s mixed with anything.
Some drinks have a higher alcohol content than others.
For example, a standard drink of
- full-strength beer (4.9% alcohol) is 285 mL (a middy)
- white wine (11.5% alcohol) is 100 mL
- spirits (40% alcohol such as vodka or whiskey) are 30 mL.
A serving of alcohol in a pub or club is often larger than a ‘standard’ drink, for example 100 mL of wine is one standard drink but a typical serve may be 150 mL; a 375 mL can of full-strength beer (4.9% alcohol) has about 1.4 standard drinks.
You can learn more about standard drinks or use the standard drinks pouring tool on the Your Room website to learn how many standard drinks are in common glasses.
New energy statement on alcohol products
Alcohol is high in kilojoules. A new energy table is being added to packaged alcohol such as beer, wine and spirits. The table will show:
- how much energy (kilojoules) is in the product per serve and per 100mL
- the number of standard drinks in the container.
Learn more about how to read food and drink labels to check ingredients, kilojoules, and portion sizes.
The guidelines recommend children and young people under 18 years of age do not drink alcohol. Avoiding alcohol helps reduce the risk of injury and other health harms.
To learn more about the risks and harms of alcohol for young people, visit Your Room.
The Australian guidelines recommend that not drinking is the safest option if you’re:
- planning a pregnancy
- pregnant, or
- breastfeeding.
During pregnancy, alcohol can cross over to the baby. Alcohol can harm the developing baby and it can cause lifelong health problems.
When breastfeeding, the alcohol enters the milk, and takes time to break down.
For more information:
- Mothersafe or call (02) 9382 6539 or 1800 647 848
If you’d like support to stop drinking or make healthy changes during pregnancy, visit Get Healthy in Pregnancy. This free health coaching service is for all pregnant women in NSW aged 16 and over.
Try these ideas to help you reduce alcohol.
- Drink water to quench your thirst before you drink alcohol.
- Alternate your alcoholic drinks with plain or fizzy water and sip slowly.
- Try switching to non-alcoholic wine and beer or lower alcohol drinks like light beer.
- Mix wine with soda or mineral water.
- Set a limit and count the number of drinks so you can keep track of how many you’ve had.
- Wait until your glass is empty before you top it up.
- Consider being the designated non-drinking driver on some social occasions.
Water is the best drink for good health.
Getting help to drink less
It can be a good idea to think about how alcohol affects your daily life. It may be time to get help to drink less if:
- alcohol affects your work, relationships, finances, hobbies or social life
- drinking alcohol feels more important than other parts of your life
- you are drinking large amounts of alcohol frequently
- you get anxiety, have problems sleeping or feel ‘off’ in the stomach after drinking
- you find it hard to have days without alcohol, or you get sick if you don’t drink.
You can see if your drinking habits are putting you at risk using the Alcohol Risk Assessment Tool on the Your Room website.