There is harmful drinking, and you possibly fall into that range, depending how strong the drinks are and how large the serving size is.
If you drink 5 glasses of wine, and the glasses are 150 ml, and the wine is 12.5% you're drinking a bit over 9 units per week so that's ok. But if the glasses are 175 ml and you drink 7 of them a week you're drinking 15 unit a week, and that's a little bit over the recommended level.
There's a dose dependant response, so the more you drink the more harm is caused. There are also genetic factors for some of the harms. And increasing a low risk might not be something you're worried about.
But then there's also dependant drinking. That has a few markers: are you preoccupied with alcohol? Do you seek alcohol if you don't have any? Have you built up a tolerance to alcohol? Do you continue to drink alcohol even though you know it's causing you harm?
> Harmful drinking is defined as a pattern of alcohol consumption causing health problems directly related to alcohol. This could include psychological problems such as depression, alcohol-related accidents or physical illness such as acute pancreatitis. In the longer term, harmful drinkers may go on to develop high blood pressure, cirrhosis, heart disease and some types of cancer, such as mouth, liver, bowel or breast cancer.
> Alcohol dependence is characterised by craving, tolerance, a preoccupation with alcohol and continued drinking in spite of harmful consequences (for example, liver disease or depression caused by drinking). Alcohol dependence is also associated with increased criminal activity and domestic violence, and an increased rate of significant mental and physical disorders. Although alcohol dependence is defined in ICD-10 and DSM-IV in categorical terms for diagnostic and statistical purposes as being either present or absent, in reality dependence exists on a continuum of severity. However, it is helpful from a clinical perspective to subdivide dependence into categories of mild, moderate and severe.
There is harmful drinking, and you possibly fall into that range, depending how strong the drinks are and how large the serving size is.
If you drink 5 glasses of wine, and the glasses are 150 ml, and the wine is 12.5% you're drinking a bit over 9 units per week so that's ok. But if the glasses are 175 ml and you drink 7 of them a week you're drinking 15 unit a week, and that's a little bit over the recommended level.
There's a dose dependant response, so the more you drink the more harm is caused. There are also genetic factors for some of the harms. And increasing a low risk might not be something you're worried about.
But then there's also dependant drinking. That has a few markers: are you preoccupied with alcohol? Do you seek alcohol if you don't have any? Have you built up a tolerance to alcohol? Do you continue to drink alcohol even though you know it's causing you harm?
https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/cg115/chapter/Introduction
> Harmful drinking is defined as a pattern of alcohol consumption causing health problems directly related to alcohol. This could include psychological problems such as depression, alcohol-related accidents or physical illness such as acute pancreatitis. In the longer term, harmful drinkers may go on to develop high blood pressure, cirrhosis, heart disease and some types of cancer, such as mouth, liver, bowel or breast cancer.
> Alcohol dependence is characterised by craving, tolerance, a preoccupation with alcohol and continued drinking in spite of harmful consequences (for example, liver disease or depression caused by drinking). Alcohol dependence is also associated with increased criminal activity and domestic violence, and an increased rate of significant mental and physical disorders. Although alcohol dependence is defined in ICD-10 and DSM-IV in categorical terms for diagnostic and statistical purposes as being either present or absent, in reality dependence exists on a continuum of severity. However, it is helpful from a clinical perspective to subdivide dependence into categories of mild, moderate and severe.