Drink Diary

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Before you start to use the Drink Diary, take Swanswell’s Fast Alcohol Screening Test (FAST) here to find out if your drinking is at a harmful level. If the FAST determines you are at risk, do not attempt to reduce your drinking on your own and contact your GP as soon as possible. For additional support, go here.

How to use the Drink Diary

1.  Write the date in the ‘Day/date’ column

2.  Write all the alcoholic drinks you’ve consumed that day, e.g. two 125ml glasses of chardonnay, two 50ml glasses of gin and tonic, in the ‘How much did you drink?’ column

3.  Write:

·  when you had each drink in the ‘When?’ column, e.g. 18:30 or 6:30pm

·  where you were in the ‘Where?’ column, e.g. at home on the sofa

·  who you were with in the ‘Who were you with?’ column, e.g. Tracy and Claire (work friends)

4.  Use the ‘What’s in your drink?’ guide on our website, to note down how many units you’ve consumed per drink in the ‘Units’ column.

5.  Add together all the units and write the total in the ‘Total’ column

6.  At the end of the week, add up the total units from each day to get your weekly total. Do this every week and you look back at your previous drink diaries and see how much progress you’ve made

Take into account the measure of alcohol we’ve provided in the ‘What’s in your drink?’ guide. You need to know how much your glasses hold, and how much you actually pour into them. For example, how much gin do you have with your tonic? If you know your glass sizes, you can make a rough estimate, or if you want to be precise, actually measure how much alcohol you’re pouring.

The brands we’ve used in the guide may be different from those you drink. However if the type of drink is the same, the numbers units will be roughly the same. For example, you can use the units given in the guide for a 175ml glass of Jacob’s Creek Chardonnay, if you’ve actually had a 175ml glass of Brancott Estate Chardonnay. You can also use the following formula to work out units:

Working out units: / Volume of drink in ml (x) alcohol content / E.g. / 750 ml bottle of wine (x) 12% alcohol content / = 9 units
1000 / 1000

Drink Diary 1

Day/date / How much did you drink? / When? / Where? / Who were you with? / Units / Total
Monday
…../…../…..
Tuesday
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Wednesday
…../…../…..
Thursday
…../…../…..
Day/date / How much did you drink? / When? / Where? / Who were you with? / Units / Total
Friday
…../…../…..
Saturday
…../…../…..
Sunday
…../…../…..
Total for the week:

Drink Diary 1