Heavy Drinkers account for Half of Liquor Consumption

By Andrew Starke

There are approximately 1.8 million adult heavy drinkers in Australia who consume 22 or more glasses of alcohol in a seven day period, according to new research from Roy Morgan.

A Roy Morgan Liquor Consumption Report found that these heavy drinkers – about 11 percent of the population - account for just over half of all alcohol volume consumed.

The definition of a heavy drinker is someone who has consumed 22 or more glasses of alcohol in the past seven days, which is an average of more than 3 glasses per day.

Over three quarters of these heavy drinkers are male (approximately 1.4 million) and only one quarter (approximately 400,000) are female.

However the types of alcohol they drink is different with beer making up 60 percent of total volume consumption for men (compared to 15 percent for women), whereas for women, 42 percent of their volume is from wine (compared to 18 percent for men).

Heavy drinkers, regardless of their gender, are also much more likely to smoke cigarettes than the population - 39 percent of male heavy drinkers smoke compared with 23 percent of the total male adult population, while 45 percent of female heavy drinkers smoke tobacco in some form whereas only 20 percent of the female adult population smokes.

Heavy drinkers are also more likely to be employed than the adult population – 77 percent for males and 67 percent for women when compared with 62 percent for the 18 plus population.

It is interesting to note that heavy drinkers are also equally represented across all of the socio economic groups.

“There has been some debate in the public arena around Australia having a problem drinking culture,” said Roy Morgan Research account director, Trish Kelliher.

“These numbers show that the vast majority of Australians have a responsible relationship with alcohol. However the fact that there are close to 1.8 million Australians consuming on average more than 3 glasses a day signals that there is still some way to go in getting the message through about responsible consumption.”

“What is striking is that women who are heavy drinkers are more than twice as likely to smoke as the total female adult population. That nearly half of female heavy drinkers smoke has significant public health implications.”

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[Wed 14/07/2010 02:20:52]