The British Consume Six Billion ‘Units’ Of Alcohol Over The Christmas Holidays

According to a recent study, the average Briton will consume 26 units per day this Christmas, and if you’re like us, you’re probably wondering what the hell a ‘unit’ is.

Here’s the deal…

To better understand just how much the UK is expected to collectively drink between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Day we need to break down what a ‘unit’ is.

Used primarily in the United Kingdom, a unit of alcohol is defined as 10 milliliters (8 grams) of pure alcohol. And according to Wikipedia typical drinks in the may contain 1–3 units of alcohol.

According to a recent study, between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Day, the United Kingdom is projected to collectively drink almost six billions units of alcohol which translates into A LOT!

The study, which was commissioned by Boomerang, makers of a natural alcohol detox drink, asked 2,311 Britons all aged 18+ about how much they REALLY drink throughout the winter holidays.

Respondents were first asked, “Do you drink alcohol?” to which the majority (71%) of respondents, said ‘yes’ and 29% said ‘no’, so there’s that…

Respondents that said ‘yes’ were then asked how many units (!) they typically consume on a night out, to which the average response was found to be 16 units. (The Brits evidently think and respond in units which is almost inconceivable to most alcohol consumers around the world…but whatever).

When asked how often they found themselves drinking between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Day, the respondents averaged 156 units of alcohol overall, (which sounds like a lot to us, but we’re still trying to get are mind around this whole ‘unit’ thing).

Between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Day as many as 36,975,723 adults in the UK, which according to the Drinks Business equates to 5,768,212,788 units of alcohol collectively consumed by adult Britons over the holiday period, (again we’re still struggling with this ‘unit’ concept…but it sure sounds like a lot, doesn’t it?).

Asked why they drank so much compared to normal the top five reasons were found to be:

1. It’s Christmas (so why not?) – 89%
2. Everyone else was drinking (so why not?) – 71%
3. It’s nice to be able to drink without having to worry about work the next day (so why not?) – 56%
4. There was more alcohol in the house than usual (so why not?) – 34%
5. We had a constant flow of people in the house (so why not?) – 32%