About Standard Drink Sizes

Why it's important

The amount of alcohol you drink impacts your health

• Your liver can only process small amounts of alcohol.
• The rest of the alcohol can hurt your liver and harm other organs as it moves through your body.
• This is why the amount of alcohol you drink can increase your risk of getting ill, injured, or even dying sooner.

Standard drink sizes are important

• It can be hard to know how much alcohol is in a serving of beer, wine, liquor, or other type of alcohol.
• That is because different alcoholic products vary in the size and amounts of alcohol in them.
  • For example, one can of beer might not have the same amount of alcohol, or standard drinks, as a can of a different kind of beer.
• Knowing what counts as one standard drink can help you figure out how much alcohol you drink.

Standard alcohol drink sizes

In the United States, a standard drink has 0.6 ounces (14 grams) of pure alcohol. The amount of pure alcohol in each drink depends on the alcohol content, or percent of alcohol by volume (ABV).

One standard drink is equivalent to:

• 12 ounces of beer with 5% alcohol.
• 8 ounces of malt liquor with 7% alcohol.
• 5 ounces of wine with 12% alcohol.
• A shot or 1.5 ounces of liquor or distilled spirts (80-proof liquor).
  • 80 proof means the liquor has 40% alcohol.
  • Brandy, gin, rum, tequila, vodka, and whiskey are examples of types of liquor.

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Each of these drinks have about the same amount of pure alcohol.

Impacts

Drinking alcohol excessively on an occasion or over time can lead to serious health impacts.

What you can do

You can:

• Take steps to improve your health.
• Learn about proven solutions that can lower alcohol-related harms in your community.
  • Understand how these proven solutions work.