Health Canada
Rethink Your Drinking
Rethink Your Drinking is a
Southwestern Ontario public health alcohol
awareness campaign. It encourages men
and women, ages 25 to 44, to rethink the
way they drink when they drink alcoholic
beverages. When it comes to drinking,
everything matters, including how much,
how often and when you drink. Heavy
drinking or being under the influence can
put you at risk for injury, future illness (e.g.
chronic disease) and death.
During the summer of 2012, the Centre
for Addiction and Mental Health completed
a bar-goer study of people who visited
Windsor-Essex downtown bars. The
researchers aimed to understand drinking
behaviours of young adult bar-goers and
alcohol-related harms. The goal was to help
our community improve the safety of young
people as they go to the downtown bar
district.
The average bar-goer was about 22
years of age. It was found that:
• About 32 per cent of the men and 38
per cent of the women did not attend
school.
• About 44 per cent of the men attended
university and 23 per cent attended
college.
• About 42 per cent of the women
attended university and 20 per cent
attended college.
The study reported that almost 60 per
cent of men and 35 per cent of women
reported drinking before going to a bar. This
is called pre-drinking. Pre-drinking usually
happens in a home. One of the reasons why
You should not drink at all if
you’re:
Driving a vehicle or using tools or
machinery
Taking medicine or other drugs that
interact with alcohol
Doing any kind of dangerous
physical activity
Living with mental or physical health
problems
Living with alcohol dependence
Pregnant or planning a pregnancy
Responsible for the care of others
Making important decisions
Low-Risk Drinking Guidelines
www.rethinkyourdrinking.ca.
Find out your drinking risk at
www.checkyourself.ca.
Students can learn how to be
safe and aware at
www.drinkwise.ca.
a person may drink before going to a bar
could be to save money. However, this study
showed that men who pre-drank had an
average of 10 drinks at the bar, while the
men who did not pre-drink had an average
of less than five drinks at the bar. Not
surprisingly, pre-drinkers got drunk more
often.
Another type of heavy drinking is
binge drinking. Binge drinking is defined as
having five or more drinks in one sitting at
least once a month. Pre-drinking and binge
drinking can lead to poor decisions and
risky behaviour (e.g., getting behind the
wheel, unprotected sex or picking a fight).
It’s important for everyone who drinks
to know how much pure alcohol is in a
drink. For example, in a standard drink
there are 13.6 grams of pure alcohol. This
amounts to:
• 341 ml (12 oz) bottle of five per cent
alcohol beer, cider or cooler
• 43 ml (1.5 oz) shot of 40 per cent hard
liquor (vodka, rum, whiskey or gin)
• 142 ml (5 oz) glass of 12 per cent wine
In 2011 and 2012, the percentage of
men and women in our community who
drank in excess of th