Is My Drinking a Problem? 5 Checks You Can Run This Week

Your drinking may be a problem if you regularly drink above federal limits, if you have tried to cut back and could not, or if alcohol is already costing you sleep, health, money, or relationships. You can run five checks in under 30 minutes this week to see where you stand, and none of them require a diagnosis first. This article walks through each one, then explains when to call a doctor and what to ask.

For the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), binge drinking means four or more drinks for women or five or more drinks for men on one occasion, and heavy drinking means eight or more drinks a week for women or 15 or more a week for men. A person who meets either definition is drinking more than the CDC’s moderate guideline of one drink or less a day for women and two or less a day for men, and a person who meets both, week after week, has a pattern worth bringing to a clinician (CDC, Alcohol Use and Your Health, page dated January 2025).

Why this question is hard to answer alone

Most people judge their own drinking by comparison. They compare themselves with a friend who drinks more, or with how they drank in college, and conclude they are fine. Comparison is a poor measuring tool. A better one is a count, a measurement, and a list of consequences, written down rather than estimated. The five checks below are built that way. They are meant for adults who are wondering about their own drinking or a family member’s, and they are a starting point for a conversation with a professional, not a verdict.

Check 1: Count last week against the CDC definitions

Open your phone calendar and go back seven days. For each day, write down the number of standard drinks, using your best honest count. Add them up. Then compare the total with the CDC’s heavy drinking line: eight or more drinks in the week for women, 15 or more for men. Also look at your single biggest day. If it reached four drinks for a woman or five for a man, that day counts as binge drinking under the CDC definition.

Do this for two separate weeks if you can, because one unusual week can mislead. If both weeks are at or above the lines, treat that as a signal to keep reading rather than a reason for shame.

Check 2: Measure your actual pour

The count in Check 1 is only as good as the definition of a drink. The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) defines a US standard drink as any beverage containing 0.6 fluid ounces, or 14 grams, of pure alcohol. That is about 12 ounces of regular beer, 5 ounces of wine, or 1.5 ounces of 80-proof spirits. A 750 ml bottle of table wine holds about five standard drinks, and NIAAA notes that many light beers have about 85% as much alcohol as regular beer, roughly 4.2% versus 5.0% alcohol by volume on average (NIAAA, Rethinking Drinking).

Do this today: pour your usual glass of wine or your usual spirits into a kitchen measuring cup and read the line. Home pours are often larger than the standard amounts above, so a nightly “one glass” may be more than one standard drink. If it is, multiply your Check 1 total by the real ratio and recount.

Check 3: Look for the symptom pattern

Clinicians do not diagnose alcohol use disorder from a drink count alone. They ask about a set of symptoms over the past 12 months. NIAAA’s Rethinking Drinking site says that having even a couple of symptoms, which you might not see as trouble signs, can signal a drinking problem. Read each item below and mark the ones that fit your last year.

Loss of control: You drink more or for longer than you planned, or you set a limit and miss it more often than you keep it.

Failed attempts to cut back: You have tried to reduce or stop and could not keep it up.

Time and recovery: A large share of your week goes to drinking, planning to drink, or recovering from it.

Cravings: You find it hard to think about much else when you want a drink.

Role problems: Drinking interferes with work, school, parenting, or home responsibilities.

Continued use despite harm: You keep drinking even though it strains relationships, worsens anxiety or low mood, or causes health problems.

Tolerance and withdrawal: You need more to get the same effect, or you feel shaky, sweaty, nauseated, or anxious when the alcohol wears off.

Write down how many you marked. The number is not a score you can look up here, but it is exactly the information a clinician will want to hear, and it makes the first appointment shorter and more useful.

Check 4: Test whether you can pause, safely

A common self-test is a planned break from alcohol. A short break can show how much drinking is tied to your routine, your sleep, and your mood. It can also show you how hard it is to stay away, which is useful information.

There is one important exception. If you drink heavily every day, or you have felt shaky, sweaty, or confused when you have gone without alcohol before, do not stop suddenly on your own. Alcohol withdrawal can become dangerous, and it should be managed with medical advice. Our guide on signs alcohol withdrawal needs medical detox explains the warning signs. If you are in that group, skip this check and go straight to the doctor conversation below.

For everyone else, choose a start date, tell one person, and keep a daily note of sleep, mood, and cravings. If you cannot get through the break, or the notes show things getting worse rather than better, that is a reason to ask for help.

Check 5: Check what drinking is doing to your body

Drinking problems often show up in the body before anyone names them. NIAAA notes that drinking a lot on a single occasion slows the body’s ability to ward off infections, even up to 24 hours later, that alcohol misuse over time can lead to pancreatitis, and that numbness in the arms and legs or painful burning in the feet can occur in people with severe alcohol use disorder (NIAAA, Alcohol’s Effects on the Body).

Ask yourself whether you have noticed frequent stomach upset, poor appetite, or weight change. Our articles on loss of appetite after drinking alcohol, nausea after drinking, and stomach pain after drinking explain what those signs can mean and when they need a doctor. If you recognize several of them, add them to your notes.

When to see a doctor or go to the ER

Some situations should not wait for the end of a self-assessment. Call a doctor in the next few days if you marked several items in Check 3, if your weekly total is above the CDC heavy drinking line for two weeks in a row, or if you have been unable to cut back.

Go to an emergency room or call 911 for vomiting blood, black or bloody stools, severe belly pain, confusion, seizures, hallucinations, or chest pain. These can be signs of a medical emergency, and they should not be put down to a hangover. Our article on vomiting blood after drinking covers the first hour in detail.

If drinking is tied to thoughts of suicide or of harming yourself, call or text 988, the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, at any hour, or call 911 if you are in immediate danger. This site is an educational resource, not an emergency service. Our guide to when to go to the ER for a mental health crisis lists six signs that mean you should not wait.

What to ask at your next appointment

Bring your notes: Show your Check 1 and Check 2 totals and your Check 3 list, and ask, “Based on this, do I need an alcohol use assessment?”

Ask about screening: Ask which screening questionnaire the office uses and what the result means for you in plain language.

Ask about safety: Ask whether you could have withdrawal symptoms if you stop, and whether you need medical supervision to do it.

Ask about next steps: Ask what level of care fits your situation and what the first appointment would involve.

Medication may be part of treatment for some people, and a clinician can explain the general options without anyone needing to guess ahead of time. You can also reach SAMHSA’s National Helpline, a free, confidential, 24/7 treatment referral and information service (SAMHSA National Helpline).

Choosing a level of care after the checks

If your checks point to a problem, the next decision is how much support you need. Some people do well with outpatient care and regular appointments, while others need a structured program or medical detox first. Our guide on inpatient or outpatient alcohol treatment and how to decide walks through that choice, and our inpatient treatment self-assessment can help if low mood or depression is part of the picture.

If you would like to talk it through with someone, you can call 866-644-7911 to speak with our team about options. The call is confidential, and you do not need to have decided anything first.

The takeaway

Five checks, about 30 minutes: count the week, measure the pour, mark the symptoms, test a pause if it is safe for you, and check your body. Whatever the numbers show, you will walk into the next conversation with facts instead of guesses. If you want help sorting through them, 866-644-7911 is staffed to answer questions, and the first call is a conversation, not a commitment.

This article is for educational purposes only and is not medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. It does not replace care from a licensed health professional. If you are in crisis, call or text 988 or call 911.