For most Australians, alcohol begins at 14.

Almost every teenager will by that tender age have taken their first sip. Of those who keep up the habit, nearly one in 10 will become dependent on or abuse what is our nation’s recreational drug of choice.

Eighteen to 25 year olds traditionally hit the bottle hardest, making the most of their youth before settling down. A fifth of these young Aussies spend around two or three nights a week binge drinking, with between five and 10 standard drinks normal for each of these sessions.

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That’s according to National Alcohol and Drug Research Centre senior researcher Professor Maree Teesson, who told The New Daily that while most of us do not have a drinking problem, a small but worrying number do.

The “Peter Pan effect” is a growing trend, the professor said. Young men are increasingly extending their wild party days into their 30s, delaying long-term responsibility in favour of nights at the pubs and clubs and getting “stuck in that younger pattern”, she said.

Regardless of your age or stage of life, there is plenty of plonk to go around. Nearly 184 million litres of pure ethanol sloshed around our nation in 2012-13, or 9.9 litres per person aged over 15, which is enough booze to drink 2.2 standards every day of the year.

The average is thrown out a little by those who don’t drink at all, numbering almost 15 per cent of the population, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) reports. The figures are also inflated slightly by wastage and by the wine we pour into our pasta instead of drinking, but are still the most reliable estimate of just how much we really do consume.

So, are you ‘normal’?

No more than two standard drinks at any one time is considered “safe”, Professor Teesson said. You are unlikely to suffer health consequences if you stick to this limit, which is roughly two beers, 1.5 glasses of wine or two nips of spirits.

Surprisingly, health experts have shied away from setting an acceptable upper limit, despite two drinks being a guideline far removed from the reality of a night at the local.

“There’s not [an upper limit], and I really wish there was,” Professor Teesson said.

“Two is so far from what our normal experiences are.”

The average Australian probably drinks the equivalent of 3.9 schooners of full strength beer, four glasses of white wine, three shots of vodka and a tiny sip of cider every week, ABS data shows.

If you are exclusively a beer drinker, your quota of our nation’s annual consumption would be four schooners or six pots of full strength a week, adding up to almost 10 slabs a year.

For the avid drinker, the weekly quaff would be 10 glasses of red or 11 glasses of white, which over 12 months would result in a pile of 102 empty bottles of red or 116 of white. A spirits connoisseur would probably gulp 15 shots a week or 36 bottles of Scotland’s finest over the year to make up their share.

Of course, not everyone is such a big drinker.

The most common group of drinkers are those who imbibe weekly (37.3 per cent), but those who drink less than weekly are a close second (34.5 per cent), AIHW data shows.

Those who have never drunk (13.8 per cent) and who have given up entirely (eight per cent) easily outnumber the 6.5 per cent who don’t go a day without alcohol.

Drinking less

While the recommended guidelines may be far too idealistic, our average consumption is gradually declining.

In the past half-century, our boozing peaked in the 1970s and 1980s at a little over 13 litres of pure alcohol per person, ABS data shows.

We still drink more now than in 1963, when average consumption was 9.5 litres per person per day, but at 9.9 litres per capita we have drastically improved in the last three decades.

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How to drink smarter

Given the risks, it pays to drink in moderation, as recommended by a number of Australian health organisations. Here are some of the tips suggested by public health campaigns:

• Drink water or soft drink between rounds
• Eat before or while you drink
• Get a drinking buddy who looks out for you
• Set and stick to limits
• Avoid drinking rounds
• Wait until you are 18 to have your first drink
• Avoid mixing alcohol with other drugs