Am I Drinking Too Much? A Self-Assessment You Can Take Privately
Alcohol screening means answering a short, standard set of questions about your drinking to see whether your pattern falls into a low-risk, risky, or possibly dependent range. Two tools are used worldwide for this: the four-question CAGE questionnaire and the ten-question AUDIT (Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test), developed by the World Health Organization. Both are screening instruments. Neither one diagnoses anything.
MBBS, DPM (Psychiatry),Abhasa Rehab and Wellness
Clinical Lead with 20 years of experience in addiction psychiatry
Dr. Naveen Kumar V
MBBS, DPM (Psychiatry),Abhasa Rehab and Wellness
Clinical Lead with 20 years of experience in addiction psychiatry
- Last Medically Reviewed: 2026-08-10
- Published: 2026-08-10
- Last Updated: 2026-08-10
- 19 min read
Key Takeaways
- This page gives you two validated screening questionnaires (CAGE and the WHO's AUDIT) that you can score yourself, on paper, in about five minutes.
- Screening is not diagnosis. A high score doesn't mean you have a condition. It means a conversation with a doctor is worth having.
- Every score band below routes to a real next step. No sales pitch attached to any of them.
- If you drink daily and heavily, please don't stop suddenly on your own after reading this. Sudden withdrawal can be dangerous. Speak to a doctor first.
- Nobody sees your answers. Not us, not your family. This page has no form and no scoring server.
Most people who type that question into a search bar aren’t doing it casually. They’ve usually been circling it quietly for a while, late at night, usually without telling anyone. That’s an uncomfortable place to be. And it’s a far more common one than you’d guess.
According to the AIIMS-NIMHANS National Survey (2019), 5.7 crore Indians have harmful or dependent alcohol use.[9] Among those with alcohol dependence specifically, only about 2.6% ever report receiving treatment a gap flagged by India’s Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, which commissioned the survey.[9]
The WHO’s 2024 Global status report on alcohol and health and treatment of substance use disorders puts the global toll at around 2.6 million alcohol-linked deaths a year (WHO, 2024).[11] Big numbers. They don’t tell you anything about you, though.
Screening is what this page offers. Below you’ll find both questionnaires in full, with their scoring, so you can work through them privately and arrive at an actual number rather than a vague worry. Then you’ll find what each score band genuinely means, and what a sensible next step looks like at that level.
One promise before you begin: this article will not tell you that you have a problem. It can’t. No questionnaire can. What it can do is tell you whether your drinking pattern sits in a range that doctors would want to look at more closely.
How Do I Know If I Have a Drinking Problem? Screening vs. Diagnosis
QUICK ANSWER
You can’t know from a questionnaire alone. Screening tools like CAGE and AUDIT sort drinking patterns into risk ranges. A diagnosis of alcohol use disorder is made only by a clinician, through an interview against defined criteria, plus a physical assessment and history. Screening points you toward that conversation. It never replaces it.
Here’s the difference in plain terms.
A screening test is a filter. It’s designed to be quick, cheap, and slightly over-inclusive on purpose, so that fewer people who need help slip through. That’s why a screening score can flag you even when nothing serious is going on. It’s built to catch, not to conclude.
A diagnosis is a clinical judgement. For alcohol use disorder, the NIAAA describes eleven criteria drawn from DSM-5,[8] covering things like craving, loss of control, tolerance, withdrawal, and continuing to drink despite it damaging your health, work, or relationships.
A clinician checks how many of those eleven apply to you over the past year, and how severely. Meeting two or three points to a mild disorder; six or more points to a severe one.
A ten-question form simply can’t do that job. It doesn’t ask about your medical history. It doesn’t know what else is going on in your life.
Screening is also completely routine medicine. The US Preventive Services Task Force (JAMA, 2018) recommends that clinicians screen all adults aged 18 and older for unhealthy alcohol use in primary care, and offer brief counselling to those who screen positive.
Being asked about your drinking by a doctor isn’t an accusation. It’s standard practice, the same as a blood pressure check.
If you’d prefer a broader, substance-agnostic starting point rather than an alcohol-specific one, Abhasa’s general self-assessment do I need rehab? covers the same ground more generally.
Before You Start: What Counts as "One Drink" in India?
QUICK ANSWER
The AUDIT counts a “standard drink” as roughly 10 grams of pure alcohol, following the WHO’s definition.[1] India has no official standard drink measure. A 60 ml large peg of spirits at about 42.8 per cent strength works out to roughly 20 grams of pure alcohol, so it counts as about two standard drinks, not one.
The stakes here are higher than they sound. Get the conversion wrong and your whole score is wrong.
The AUDIT was written for international use, so it uses the WHO’s 10-gram standard drink. Some countries define it differently (the US uses 14 grams, for example).
India, as of this writing, does not publish an equivalent national standard, and pour sizes vary enormously between a home, a bar, and a family function.
Here’s a working conversion you can use while scoring yourself. Treat it as approximate, because strengths differ between brands.
| What you drank | Rough pure alcohol | Counts as (WHO standard drinks) |
|---|---|---|
|
What you drank
Small peg of spirits (30 ml, ~42.8 per cent)
|
Rough pure alcohol
~10 g
|
Counts as (WHO standard drinks)
1
|
|
What you drank
Large peg of spirits (60 ml, ~42.8 per cent)
|
Rough pure alcohol
~20 g
|
Counts as (WHO standard drinks)
2
|
|
What you drank
One 330 ml bottle of beer (~5 per cent)
|
Rough pure alcohol
~13 g
|
Counts as (WHO standard drinks)
about 1.3
|
|
What you drank
One 650 ml bottle of strong beer (~8 per cent)
|
Rough pure alcohol
~41 g
|
Counts as (WHO standard drinks)
about 4
|
|
What you drank
One 150 ml glass of wine (~12 per cent)
|
Rough pure alcohol
~14 g
|
Counts as (WHO standard drinks)
about 1.4
|
|
What you drank
One quarter bottle of spirits (180 ml, ~42.8 per cent)
|
Rough pure alcohol
~61 g
|
Counts as (WHO standard drinks)
about 6
|
Gram figures are calculated from the WHO’s 10-gram standard drink definition (Babor & Higgins-Biddle, WHO, 2001) applied to typical Indian pour sizes and alcohol strengths; treat them as working estimates, not lab measurements.
So a friend who says “I only had three drinks” may have had six. And a strong beer on the way home is closer to four standard drinks than one.
Count honestly. You’re the only person who’ll see the number.
The CAGE Screening Test: 4 Questions
CAGE is the shorter of the two. It was published by Dr. John Ewing in JAMA in 1984,[3] and it’s still in wide clinical use precisely because it takes under a minute.
The name is a mnemonic: Cut down, Annoyed, Guilty, Eye-opener.
Answer each question yes or no, scoring 1 point for every yes and 0 for every no.
| # | Question | Yes | No |
|---|---|---|---|
|
#
C
|
Question
Have you ever felt you should cut down on your drinking?
|
Yes
1
|
No
0
|
|
#
A
|
Question
Have people annoyed you by criticising your drinking?
|
Yes
1
|
No
0
|
|
#
G
|
Question
Have you ever felt bad or guilty about your drinking?
|
Yes
1
|
No
0
|
|
#
E
|
Question
Have you ever had a drink first thing in the morning (an eye-opener) to steady your nerves or get rid of a hangover?
|
Yes
1
|
No
0
|
Your CAGE score is out of 4
| Score | What it signals | Sensible next step |
|---|---|---|
|
Score
0 |
What it signals
No screening flag raised.
|
Sensible next step
Nothing needed. If your drinking changes, re-check.
|
|
Score
1
|
What it signals
Worth noticing, not worth panicking about.
|
Sensible next step
Keep a two-week honest record of what you actually drink.
|
|
Score
2 or more
|
What it signals
This is the point at which a doctor would want to talk it through with you. Ewing's original paper set two as the cut-off.
|
Sensible next step
Raise it with a doctor. Not urgently, but genuinely.
|
|
Score
4
|
What it signals
All four answered yes.
|
Sensible next step
Worth booking a proper clinical assessment. Also read the withdrawal safety note in the score-bands section below.
|
Two honest limitations, because you deserve them.
First, CAGE asks about your lifetime, not the last year. A “yes” about something that happened fifteen years ago still scores a point. That’s useful clinically, but it can make an old, resolved problem look current.
Second, CAGE is better at picking up dependence than at picking up heavy or risky drinking that hasn’t yet caused visible trouble.
A review by Dhalla and Kopec in Clinical and Investigative Medicine (2007), which pooled the reliability and validity studies on CAGE, found its performance dropped noticeably when the goal was detecting hazardous drinking rather than established dependence.[4]
Which is exactly why the next tool exists.
The AUDIT Alcohol Test: The WHO's 10 Questions
The AUDIT was developed through a World Health Organization collaborative project and published by Saunders and colleagues in Addiction in 1993,[2] with the WHO’s primary-care guidelines (Babor et al., 2nd edition, 2001) still serving as the reference manual.[1]
It asks about the last 12 months, and it covers three areas: how much you drink, signs of dependence, and harm that has already happened.
Ten questions. Maximum score 40.
Circle the number next to your answer. Add them up at the end.
Questions 1 to 3: How much and how often
| # | Question | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
#
1
|
Question
How often do you have a drink containing alcohol?
|
Never
|
1
Monthly or less
|
2
2–4 times a month
|
3
2–3 times a week
|
4
4+ times a week
|
|
#
2
|
Question
How many standard drinks do you have on a typical day when you are drinking?
|
1 or 2
|
1
3 or 4
|
2
5 or 6
|
3
7 to 9
|
4
10 or more
|
|
#
3
|
Question
How often do you have six or more standard drinks on one occasion?
|
Never
|
1
Less than monthly
|
2
Monthly
|
3
Weekly
|
4
Daily or almost daily
|
(If you answered “Never” to question 1 and scored 0 on questions 2 and 3, you can skip ahead to questions 9 and 10.)
Questions 4 to 6: Signs of dependence
| # | In the last year, how often... | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
#
4
|
In the last year, how often...
...have you found you were not able to stop drinking once you had started?
|
Never
|
1
Less than monthly
|
2
Monthly
|
3
Weekly
|
4
Daily or almost daily
|
|
#
5
|
In the last year, how often...
...have you failed to do what was normally expected of you because of drinking?
|
Never
|
1
Less than monthly
|
2
Monthly
|
3
Weekly
|
4
Daily or almost daily
|
|
#
6
|
In the last year, how often...
...have you needed a first drink in the morning to get yourself going after a heavy drinking session?
|
Never
|
1
Less than monthly
|
2
Monthly
|
3
Weekly
|
4
Daily or almost daily
|
Questions 7 and 8: Harm already happening
| # | In the last year, how often... | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
#
7
|
In the last year, how often...
...have you had a feeling of guilt or remorse after drinking?
|
Never
|
1
Less than monthly
|
2
Monthly
|
3
Weekly
|
4
Daily or almost daily
|
|
#
8
|
In the last year, how often...
...have you been unable to remember what happened the night before because you had been drinking?
|
Never
|
1
Less than monthly
|
2
Monthly
|
3
Weekly
|
4
Daily or almost daily
|
Questions 9 and 10: Consequences (scored 0, 2 or 4 only)
| # | In the last year, how often... | 0 | 1 | 2 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
#
9
|
In the last year, how often...
Have you or someone else been injured because of your drinking?
|
No
|
1
Yes, but not in the last year
|
2
Yes, during the last year
|
|
#
10
|
In the last year, how often...
Has a relative, friend, doctor or other health worker been concerned about your drinking, or suggested you cut down?
|
No
|
1
Yes, but not in the last year
|
2
Yes, during the last year
|
Add all ten numbers. That’s your AUDIT score, out of 40.
Short on time? Questions 1 to 3 on their own form a validated three-question version called AUDIT-C, described by Bush and colleagues in the Archives of Internal Medicine (1998).[5]
On AUDIT-C, a score of 4 or more for men and 3 or more for women is generally treated as a positive screen worth following up.
What Your AUDIT Score Means and What to Do Next
QUICK ANSWER
The WHO’s AUDIT manual (Babor & Higgins-Biddle, World Health Organization, 2001) sorts scores into four risk zones: 0–7 low risk, 8–15 risky drinking, 16–19 harmful drinking, and 20–40 possible dependence.[1] These are risk bands for guiding action, not diagnostic categories. Your score tells you which conversation to have, not what you have.
Find your band below, and read only yours if you like.
Your pattern falls in the range the WHO manual associates with low-risk drinking or abstinence.[1] Nothing here needs acting on.
One caveat worth holding the AUDIT is a snapshot of the past year. If your drinking has climbed recently, or if it climbs after a stressful stretch, the honest thing is to re-take this in six months rather than assume the number is permanent.
Next step: none required. Bookmark this page if you want a baseline to compare against later.
Score 8 to 15 is the most common band, and the most misunderstood one. It does not mean dependence. It means your drinking sits at a level where harm becomes more likely over time, and where small changes now work remarkably well.
The evidence for acting at this stage is genuinely good. A Cochrane systematic review by Kaner and colleagues (Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 2018) found that brief interventions delivered in primary care, often just a short structured conversation with a GP, produced meaningful reductions in how much people drank compared with no intervention.[7]
A short conversation. That’s the whole treatment at this level for many people.
Next step: mention your score at your next GP appointment and ask for a brief intervention. In the meantime, set a specific weekly limit rather than a vague intention, and track what you actually drink for a fortnight.
A note for women and adults over 65: the WHO manual states that a lower cut-off (a score of 7) may be more appropriate for these groups, because the same amount of alcohol carries more risk for them [13] (Higgins-Biddle & Babor, American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse, 2018). Clinicians commonly extend that same caution to people with existing liver disease.
Clinical guidance on screening for alcohol use in liver disease supports that [15] (Murthy et al., Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hepatology, 2022), even though the WHO manual doesn’t name that group specifically. If you fall into any of these groups and scored 7, treat yourself as being in this band.
At this level, the WHO manual recommends brief counselling plus continued monitoring, not simple advice alone [1] (Babor & Higgins-Biddle, WHO, 2001). Harm is likely already occurring, even if it hasn’t shown up in a blood test yet. That’s a description of a drinking pattern, not a description of you.
Harmful drinking is also the band where people most often tell themselves they’ll handle it privately. Some do. Many find the pattern re-establishes itself within a few weeks, which isn’t a character flaw. It’s what happens when a habit has physiological momentum behind it.
Next step: book a proper appointment with a doctor rather than raising it in passing. Ask specifically for an assessment of your alcohol use and for baseline liver function tests.
If your mood, anxiety or sleep are tangled up in this, say so. Abhasa’s page on co-occurring mental health conditions explains why those often need treating together.
The WHO manual recommends referral to a specialist for full diagnostic evaluation and treatment at this level [1](Babor & Higgins-Biddle, WHO, 2001). That’s the recommendation attached to the score. It isn’t a verdict on you.
Please read this part carefully. If you drink heavily and daily, stopping abruptly on your own can be genuinely dangerous. Severe alcohol withdrawal can cause seizures and delirium tremens, a medical emergency.
Schuckit’s clinical review in the New England Journal of Medicine (2014) describes it as a condition requiring urgent, supervised management.[10] Withdrawal is very manageable when it’s supervised. It’s the doing-it-alone part that carries the risk.
Next step: speak to a doctor or psychiatrist before you change your drinking. Not after. Abhasa’s medically supervised detoxification page explains what supervised withdrawal actually involves, and the alcohol addiction treatment options page covers what comes after it.
A quick comparison of the two tools
| CAGE | AUDIT | |
|---|---|---|
|
Questions
|
CAGE
4
|
AUDIT
10
|
|
Time frame asked about
|
CAGE
Lifetime
|
AUDIT
Last 12 months
|
|
Score range
|
CAGE
0–4
|
AUDIT
0–40
|
|
Common cut-off
|
CAGE
2 or more
|
AUDIT
8 or more
|
|
Better at detecting
|
CAGE
Dependence
|
AUDIT
Risky drinking and dependence
|
|
Source
|
CAGE
Ewing, JAMA, 1984
|
AUDIT
WHO / Saunders et al., Addiction, 1993
|
|
Diagnostic?
|
CAGE
No
|
AUDIT
No
|
A head-to-head comparison of the two tools in primary care patients (Bradley et al., Journal of General Internal Medicine, 1998) found broadly similar performance, with AUDIT somewhat better than CAGE at picking up risky drinking that hasn’t yet become dependence. [16]
How Many Drinks a Day Is Too Much?
QUICK ANSWER
There’s no single safe number screening tools flag risk patterns, not daily limits. AUDIT question 3 marks six or more standard drinks in one sitting as a risk signal, confirmed reliable by NIAAA-funded research [16] (Simon et al., NIAAA Spectrum, 2024). The WHO’s 2024 report adds that no level of alcohol consumption is free of health risk.
People want a number here. I understand why. But the honest clinical answer is that risk depends on your body weight, sex, liver health, medications, mental health, family history, and how the drinking is spread across the week.
What the screening tools do give you are useful markers:
- Six or more standard drinks in a single sitting, happening monthly or more often, scores points on AUDIT question 3.
- Needing a morning drink at all scores on both CAGE and AUDIT. That one is a dependence signal, not a quantity signal.
- Memory gaps after drinking (AUDIT question 8) indicate blood alcohol levels high enough to interfere with how memories are formed.
Notice that two of those three aren’t about quantity at all. They’re about control and consequence. That’s deliberate. Two people can drink the same amount and carry completely different risk.
The more useful question isn’t “how much is too much.” It’s “is alcohol doing something in my life that I’d rather it didn’t.” If you find that question easier to answer than the numbers, that’s information too.
When a Self-Assessment Isn't Enough
There are situations where scoring yourself simply isn’t the right tool, however carefully you do it.
When you can’t answer honestly. Not from dishonesty. Underestimating your own intake is extremely common, and it’s part of how the condition works rather than a moral failing. If you found yourself hesitating over question 2, that hesitation is worth more than the score.
When someone else is worried. Question 10 exists for a reason. If a spouse, parent, or colleague has raised it, an outside view is often more accurate than an inside one. Families looking for guidance can start at Abhasa’s family support resources.
When there’s something else going on. Anxiety, depression, trauma, chronic sleep problems, and grief all change what drinking is doing for a person. Treating the alcohol alone, when it’s functioning as self-medication, tends not to hold. Abhasa’s article on whether alcohol use is contributing to anxiety walks through that loop.
When your body is already showing signs. Morning shakiness, sweating, nausea before the first drink, or sleeping badly without alcohol are physical withdrawal signs, and no questionnaire captures them well. The alcohol withdrawal symptoms article covers what these look like. If you recognise them, please speak to a doctor rather than acting on a score.
How Abhasa Supports People at This Point
If your score has left you unsure, an assessment is a reasonable next step. Here’s what that actually means at Abhasa Rehab and Wellness, without any of it being a commitment.
Assessment is psychiatrist-led. Dr. Naveen Kumar (MBBS, DPM Psychiatry) heads a clinical team that includes psychiatrists, clinical psychologists, and psychiatric social workers, and the first step is a structured conversation, not an admission decision. Screening scores are a starting point in that conversation, never the end of it.
What the conversation covers: your drinking history, your physical health, whether withdrawal risk is present, whether anything else (mood, anxiety, sleep, past trauma) is feeding the pattern, and what level of support genuinely fits.
Sometimes that answer is outpatient support. Sometimes it’s structured residential care. Sometimes it’s neither, and what a person actually needs is a plan and a follow-up date.
Abhasa’s how we treat page explains the clinical approach in more detail, and the why Abhasa page covers the team and philosophy behind it.
No obligation attached to asking. Genuinely.
Frequently Asked Questions
Both, and the mismatch is informative. CAGE asks about your lifetime AUDIT asks about the last twelve months. That combination often means something was a problem in the past and isn’t currently active. Still worth mentioning to a doctor.
No. There’s no form on this page, no submit button, and no scoring server. You add the numbers yourself, and nothing is transmitted or recorded.
Worth taking seriously rather than treating the score as a rebuttal. Question 10 on the AUDIT exists precisely because other people’s concern is itself a recognised risk marker. A short conversation with a GP settles it either way.
Usually a longer assessment interview, sometimes blood tests to check liver function, and a discussion of options. At the risky-drinking level that’s often a brief counselling conversation, and at higher levels it may involve structured treatment. Abhasa’s admission guide explains what a formal process looks like if it goes that far.
Taking the Next Step
Whatever number you arrived at, you did something most people don’t. You looked.
Saying that plainly matters, because the hardest part of this is rarely the questionnaire. It’s the willingness to answer question 4 honestly when nobody’s watching. If you managed that, you’ve already done the part that takes courage.
A score in the low band is genuinely reassuring, and you can leave this page and get on with your evening. A score in the middle bands means a short conversation with a doctor is likely to be enough, and the evidence says those conversations work.
A score in the high band means something needs proper attention, and it also means treatment for this is well established and effective.
People recover from this every day. Ordinary people, with ordinary jobs and families.
If you’d like to talk it through with someone before deciding anything, a confidential conversation with Abhasa carries no obligation and no pressure to commit to anything. You can also call or WhatsApp the team directly at +91-73736-44444 whenever that feels easier than filling in a form.
And if you’re not ready for that yet, that’s all right too. Keep the number. Re-take the questionnaire in a few months. Nothing about this has to be decided tonight.
Continue Learning
- Understanding the Alcohol Addiction Spectrum: the wider picture of alcohol dependence, treatment pathways, and how Abhasa's assessment process works.
- Alcohol Addiction Signs: what the day-to-day signs of a drinking problem look like, beyond a single screening score.
- Symptoms of Alcohol Dependence: the physical and behavioural markers of dependence, explained in plain language.
- How to Stop Drinking Alcohol: practical next steps if your score has you thinking about cutting down or stopping.
Talk to Abhasa’s clinical team confidentially.
Call +91-73736-44444 or Email info@abhasa.in. Our compassionate team understands what you’re going through.
References
[1] Babor TF, Higgins-Biddle JC, Saunders JB, Monteiro MG. AUDIT: The Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test. Guidelines for Use in Primary Care. 2nd ed. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2001. https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/67205/WHO_MSD_MSB_01.6a.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
[2] Saunders JB, Aasland OG, Babor TF, de la Fuente JR, Grant M. “Development of the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT): WHO Collaborative Project on Early Detection of Persons with Harmful Alcohol Consumption, Part II.” Addiction. 1993;88(6):791-804. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8329970/
[3] Ewing JA. “Detecting alcoholism: The CAGE questionnaire.” JAMA. 1984;252(14):1905-1907. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/6471323/
[4] Dhalla S, Kopec JA. “The CAGE questionnaire for alcohol misuse: a review of reliability and validity studies.” Clinical and Investigative Medicine. 2007;30(1):33-41. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17716538/
[5] Bush K, Kivlahan DR, McDonell MB, Fihn SD, Bradley KA. “The AUDIT alcohol consumption questions (AUDIT-C): an effective brief screening test for problem drinking.” Archives of Internal Medicine. 1998;158(16):1789-1795. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9738608/
[6] US Preventive Services Task Force. “Screening and Behavioral Counseling Interventions to Reduce Unhealthy Alcohol Use in Adolescents and Adults: US Preventive Services Task Force Recommendation Statement.” JAMA. 2018;320(18):1899-1909. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30422199/
[7] Kaner EFS, Beyer FR, Muirhead C, et al. “Effectiveness of brief alcohol interventions in primary care populations.” Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. 2018;(2):CD004148. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29476653/
[8] National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. “Alcohol Use Disorder: A Comparison Between DSM-IV and DSM-5.” NIAAA; 2021. https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/brochures-and-fact-sheets/alcohol-use-disorder-comparison-between-dsm
[9] Ambekar A, Agrawal A, Rao R, Mishra AK, Khandelwal SK, Chadda RK, et al. “Magnitude of Substance Use in India.” Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, Government of India / National Drug Dependence Treatment Centre, AIIMS New Delhi; 2019 (AIIMS-NIMHANS National Survey). https://socialjustice.gov.in/writereaddata/UploadFile/Survey%20Report.pdf
[10] Schuckit MA. “Recognition and Management of Withdrawal Delirium (Delirium Tremens).” New England Journal of Medicine. 2014;371(22):2109-2113. doi:10.1056/NEJMra1407298. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25427113/
[11] World Health Organization. Global status report on alcohol and health and treatment of substance use disorders. Geneva: WHO; 2024. https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240096745
[12] Babor TF, Higgins-Biddle JC. Brief Intervention for Hazardous and Harmful Drinking: A Manual for Use in Primary Care. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2001. https://iris.who.int/server/api/core/bitstreams/73594f41-3a01-4301-9ba8-877e781957b7/content
[13] Higgins-Biddle JC, Babor TF. “A Review of the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT), AUDIT-C, and USAUDIT for Screening in the United States: Past Issues and Future Directions.” American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse. 2018;44(6):578-586. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29723083/
[14] Bradley KA, Bush KR, McDonell MB, Malone T, Fihn SD. “Screening for Problem Drinking: Comparison of CAGE and AUDIT.” Journal of General Internal Medicine. 1998;13(6):379-389. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9669567/
[15] Murthy P, Shadakshari D, Mahadevan J, Chand PK. “Management of Alcohol Use Disorder in Patients With Alcoholic Liver Disease.” Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hepatology. 2022;12(6):1514-1526. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36340303/
[16] Simon CB, McCabe CJ, Matson TE, Oliver M, Bradley KA, Hallgren KA. “High Test–Retest Reliability of the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test–Consumption (AUDIT-C) Questionnaire Completed by Primary Care Patients in Routine Care.” Alcohol and Clinical Experimental Research (Hoboken). 2024;48(2):302-308. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38099421/
- Medically Reviewed by
- Senior Consultant Psychiatrist & Medical Director
- Abhasa Rehab and Wellness
Medical Disclaimer: This article is for education and self-reflection, not a substitute for professional medical advice. It is not a diagnosis, and it is not medical advice for your specific situation. The CAGE and AUDIT questionnaires reproduced here are screening instruments, not diagnostic ones. Only a qualified clinician can diagnose alcohol use disorder, and only after a proper assessment.
If you are physically dependent on alcohol, do not stop drinking suddenly without medical supervision.
If you need immediate help:
- Tele-MANAS (Government of India national mental health helpline): 14416 or 1-800-891-4416, available 24×7
- Emergency services: 112
- For a medical emergency such as seizures, confusion, or severe agitation during withdrawal, go to your nearest emergency department immediately.
Editorial and Review Information
Written by: Abhasa Rehab and Wellness Clinical Content Team.
Medically reviewed by: Dr. Naveen Kumar, MBBS, DPM (Psychiatry), Sr. Consultant Psychiatrist and Medical Director, Abhasa Rehab and Wellness.
Helplines offer emotional support and guidance. They do not replace emergency medical care. When the warning signs described on this page are present, medical care comes first.
Review cycle: This page is reviewed at least every 12 months, and sooner if clinical guidance changes.
How we source our content: Every clinical claim on this page is attributed inline to a Tier 1 or Tier 2 source, listed in full in the References section above. Read our editorial policy for how we research, review, and update medical content.
Corrections and questions: If you believe something on this page is inaccurate or out of date, please contact us. We take corrections seriously.
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