Alcohol

Has not consumed a full serve of alcohol in the previous 12 months.

A central nervous system depressant made from fermented starches. Alcohol inhibits brain functions, dampens the motor and sensory centres and makes judgement, coordination and balance more difficult.

Alcohol available for consumption (previously called ‘apparent consumption of alcohol’) refers to the total amount of alcohol either produced in Australia or imported into Australia, that will be sold to people living in Australia. The definition assumes that all alcohol that was produced or imported was made available in the same financial year. No corrections are made for beverages that may have been wasted, used in cooking, cellared, or otherwise not consumed, and beverages that were purchased overseas and brought into the country duty-free are not included.

Alcohol cessation medicines are used to help people stop alcohol consumption or maintain abstinence from alcohol.

Recommendations released by the National Medical and Research Council (NHMRC) to reduce the risk of alcohol-related harm. The full guidelines state:

• Guideline 1: To reduce the risk of harm from alcohol-related disease or injury, healthy men and women should drink no more than 10 standard drinks a week and no more than 4 standard drinks on any one day. The less you drink, the lower your risk of harm from alcohol.
• Guideline 2: To reduce the risk of injury and other harms to health, children and people under 18 years of age should not drink alcohol.
• Guideline 3: To prevent harm from alcohol to their unborn child, women who are pregnant or planning a pregnancy should not drink alcohol. For women who are breastfeeding, not drinking alcohol is safest for their baby (NHMRC 2020).

Alcohol-induced deaths include deaths that were identified as being directly due to alcohol use (that is, where an alcohol-related condition is recorded as the underlying cause of death). These can include both those due to acute toxicity (for example, alcohol poisoning) and consequences of chronic use (for example, alcoholic liver cirrhosis), as determined by toxicology and pathology reports.

Alcohol-related deaths include deaths where the person died either from or with alcohol use related conditions. This includes death directly due to alcohol use (as defined above) and deaths where alcohol use contributed to, but did not directly cause, the death (for example, a motor vehicle accident where a person recorded a high blood alcohol concentration or chronic alcohol use in someone who died from cancer).

Hospitalisations where the principal diagnosis relates to alcohol. This includes diagnoses for acute harms from alcohol (for example, alcohol poisoning) and diagnoses related to chronic use of alcohol (for example, alcoholic liver disease and alcoholic polyneuropathy).

The amount of alcohol present in the bloodstream.

A person who has consumed a full serve of alcohol in their lifetime, but not in the previous 12 months.

A person who has never consumed a full serve of alcohol in their lifetime.

The main substance that the client stated led them to seek treatment from an alcohol and drug treatment agency.

Consumption of more than 10 standard drinks per week or more than 4 standard drinks on a single day at least once a month. Drinking less than this amount of alcohol keeps the lifetime risk of dying from an alcohol-related disease or injury to below 1 in 100 for healthy men and women (NHMRC 2020).

Contains 10 g of alcohol (equivalent to 12.5 mL of alcohol). Also referred to as a full serve.

The period of contact between a client and a treatment provider or a team of providers. Each treatment episode has 1 principal drug of concern and 1 main treatment type. An episode is closed when treatment is completed, there has been no further contact between the client and the treatment provider for 3 months or when treatment is ceased.