Am I Drinking Too Much?

"Am I drinking too much?" is one of the most common questions people have about alcohol and their health, and one of the hardest to answer, because "too much" has no single number attached to it. This article can't give you a definitive answer; that would be medical advice, which isn't ours to give. What it can do is point you to a sensible place to start. One of the most useful is comparison: how you stack up against the people around you, and against the guidelines from bodies like the World Health Organization (WHO).

First, how much alcohol is in a drink?

Before you can compare anything, it helps to measure the same way. Alcohol is counted in grams of pure alcohol, because a small strong drink and a large weak one can hold exactly the same amount. Here is roughly what common servings contain. Values are approximate and depend on strength and pour.

So a couple of glasses of wine in an evening is somewhere around 30 to 50 grams of pure alcohol, depending on the size of the pour.

How much does the average person drink?

An average won't tell you whether your own drinking is fine, but it does give you a reference point, and most people have never actually seen one. Here is the average daily consumption by country, measured in grams of pure alcohol per day. The figures come from national and international data (2026.1).

If your country isn't listed, regional averages give a rough stand-in (for example, around 31.5 g/day for men in Europe, or 25.8 g/day in the Americas), so you still have something to compare against.

The codes in the Guideline source column are the national bodies that set each limit: DHS/RKI (Deutsche Hauptstelle für Suchtfragen and the Robert Koch-Institut) for Germany, the USDA Dietary Guidelines for the United States, the NHS (National Health Service) for the United Kingdom, the Ministry of Health for Russia, SZÚ (Státní zdravotní ústav) for Czechia, INSP (Institutul Național de Sănătate Publică) for Romania, and Santé publique France for France.

Two useful things stand out. First, the averages are higher than most people guess: 38.5 grams a day for men in Germany is roughly two and a half glasses of wine, every day. Second, in almost every country the average sits above the recommended limit, which brings us to the next point.

Average is not the same as recommended

It is tempting to read an average as a green light, as if drinking "about as much as everyone else" must be fine. But the average describes what is normal, not what is advisable, and the two are often far apart. The right-hand column above shows each country's low-risk guideline, and in most cases the population average is well over it.

The guidelines themselves vary because they are set nationally, not by one global rule. Each limit comes from that country's own health authority, shown in the Guideline source column, not from the WHO. The WHO's own position is blunter still: from a purely health standpoint there is no completely risk-free level of drinking, and less is always lower risk. That is context, not instruction.

First, find your own average

Here is the catch that trips most people up: you cannot compare a single day against an average. A birthday, a wedding, a Friday night out: of course you drink more than usual on those, and measuring yourself by that one evening tells you nothing. The country figures above are daily averages, so the only fair comparison is your own daily average.

And an average only means something over time. One week is quiet, the next is full of occasions. To reach a figure you can trust, you have to track your drinking over a longer stretch, and a quarter, roughly three months, is a good rule of thumb. Only once the quiet weeks and the heavy ones land in the same pot does a stable personal average emerge, and that is the number worth holding up against the ones in this article.

Where Relimie fits in

Doing that by hand is tedious, and this is exactly what Relimie is for. You log your drinks as you go, and over the weeks it works out your real daily and weekly average and places it against two lines: the average for people like you, and the recommended guideline. You set a baseline at the start and watch how your actual average settles around it.

🎁 Free baseline comparison: Relimie sets your baseline from your country's average and shows how your real drinking measures up against it and the guideline, for free, on your device, with no account and no cloud.

Once a few weeks are on screen you can see the trend in your Analytics and decide what, if anything, you would like to change. You are comparing yourself to a statistic, not to a diagnosis.

A note on the numbers

These averages are drawn from national and international consumption data, and figures inevitably differ slightly between sources such as the WHO and the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), partly because some count every adult and others count only people who actually drink. The guideline limits come from each country's own health authority, shown in the Guideline source column. They are meant as a shared reference point, not a precise personal measurement.

Frequently asked questions

How long should I track before I compare?
Long enough for the busy weeks and the quiet ones to even out. A single night out says nothing about your average, so aim for a longer run: around three months is a sensible benchmark before your personal average is stable enough to hold against the figures here.

How many grams of alcohol a day counts as "a lot"?
There is no official line, which is exactly why the question is hard. As a rough guide, many national low-risk guidelines land somewhere between 10 and 20 grams a day, and the WHO holds that less is always lower risk. A practical way to read it: if you are drinking noticeably more than both your country's average and its guideline, you are drinking more than most people around you.

Is the average amount a safe amount?
No. An average simply describes what is common, and in most countries the average is already above the recommended limit. Normal and advisable are not the same thing.

Does Relimie tell me if I drink too much?
No. Relimie doesn't give medical advice and doesn't diagnose. What it does is statistical: it shows your real intake next to your country's average and its guideline, so the comparison is clear and the conclusions are yours.

Want to see where you actually stand? Set your baseline in Relimie, read the User Guide to get going in a minute, or browse more mindful drinking articles.