alcohol abuse |

Drug and alcohol worker at Buoyancy, Guna Green, gave a demonstration workshop called “The ‘Standard Drink’ Game”, the aim of which is to sharpen up people’s sense of what a standard drink actually is. The term ‘Australian Standard Drink’ has been devised to indicate a drink that has 10 grams of alcohol. Obviously the size of different kinds of alcoholic drinks that will contain just 10 grams of alcohol will vary greatly. One regular pub glass of mid-strength beer will contain about 10 grams of alcohol, whereas a single nip of spirits will contain about 10 grams of alcohol.

During the demonstration, we discovered that when people hear the term ‘standard drink’, they initially assume it means ‘normal drink’, that is, the size of drink that one normally gets served in a pub or bar. In fact, one regular pub glass of full strength beer and one glass of wine, as normally served in a resturant, both contain considerably more than 10 grams of alcohol, thus each is more than the Australian Standard Drink.

Thus there may be a conceptual difficulty with having people grasp the term ‘standard drink’ and its intended use. Thus, in the ‘Stardard Drink Game’, we found that people attempted to pour a drink similar in size to that which they were accustomed to receiving in a pub or restaurant, rather than one that might have just 10 grams of alcohol.

Listen to interview with Guna Green and Adam Forbes>>