Sobriety Calculator

days sober = today − date of last drink; drinks not drunk = days sober × drinks per day; pure alcohol not drunk = drinks not drunk × grams per drink; calories not drunk = grams × 7; money saved = drinks not drunk × price per drink

days sober

The number of whole days between your last drink and today, counted on the calendar rather than in hours. It is the one figure on the page that changes every day on its own, and it is the multiplier behind all three accounts (days)

drinks per day

How many drinks you would have had on a typical day — a habit, not a single occasion. Half a drink a day is allowed, and the products stay whole numbers: 14 days at half a drink each is 7 drinks, not 7.5

grams per drink

14 grams of pure alcohol on this English page — the United States standard drink, which is one 355 mL can of 5 per cent beer. Definitions elsewhere run from 8 grams in the United Kingdom to 20 grams in Austria, and the Chinese version of this page uses 10 grams (g)

calories per gram

About 7 kilocalories for every gram of alcohol, the factor food labels use alongside 4 for carbohydrate and 9 for fat. Alcohol is metabolised first, so these are calories the body does not get to spend on anything else (kcal)

price per drink

What one drink costs you in whatever currency you spend. The result carries no currency symbol, because one specification serves every language — read the money row in the currency you typed the price in

Use it when a date is easier to hold on to than a total: the first week, the first month, a year, or the morning after a night you would rather not repeat. The triple account is the point — the day count is what you are keeping, and the drinks, alcohol, calories and money are what the day count is worth. Do not use it to decide whether you can drive, which is a question about alcohol still in your blood rather than about time elapsed; the blood alcohol calculator on this site takes the weight, the drinks and the clock time that this page deliberately does not ask for. If you are cutting down rather than stopping, put your reduced number in the drinks per day box and the accounts will still be honest, because every row is a multiplication of it.

1. Two drinks a day, last drink on 1 January

   1. From 1 January to 15 January is 14 whole days, whether or not either day is counted as a drinking day
   2. 14 days × 2 drinks = 28 drinks
   3. 28 drinks × 14 grams = 392 grams of pure alcohol
   4. 392 grams × 7 kilocalories = 2744 kilocalories
   5. 28 drinks × 8 = 224 in whatever currency you typed

   This is the combination the page opens with, so a fresh screen shows these numbers. Read the calorie row slowly: 2744 kilocalories over a fortnight is around a third of a day's energy every day, arriving in a form that carries no nutrients at all. The steps are written out because every row here is one multiplication away from the one above it — checking the arithmetic by hand is the point of showing the middle rows.

2. A year at one drink a day

   1. 15 January 2025 to 15 January 2026 is 365 days — a year that contains no 29 February
   2. 365 days × 1 drink = 365 drinks
   3. 365 drinks × 14 grams = 5110 grams of pure alcohol, a little over five kilograms
   4. 5110 grams × 7 kilocalories = 35770 kilocalories
   5. 365 drinks × 10 = 3650

   One drink a day sounds like nothing, which is exactly why this example is here. The pages write 365 days; the seconds behind it are an exact 31536000, because the input is a date and not a time — there is no fractional day to round. Change the drink to 20 grams, the Austrian definition, and the alcohol and calorie rows grow by nearly half while the days, the drinks and the money stay exactly where they are.

3. Last drink yesterday

   1. From 14 January to 15 January is 1 day, not 2 — the day you drank on is behind you, not counted as a sober day
   2. 1 day × 2 drinks = 2 drinks
   3. 2 drinks × 14 grams = 28 grams
   4. 28 grams × 7 kilocalories = 196 kilocalories
   5. 2 drinks × 8 = 16

   The smallest useful reading on the page, and the one to check the convention against: the count starts at the day after your last drink. Enter today's date instead and all six rows show zero, which is a correct answer rather than a broken calculator — it means the clock has not started yet.

4. Half a drink a day

   1. 14 days at half a drink a day is 7 drinks
   2. 7 drinks × 14 grams = 98 grams
   3. 98 grams × 7 kilocalories = 686 kilocalories
   4. 7 drinks × 6 = 42

   Cutting down is the case this page was built not to punish: the box accepts a fraction, and the accounts follow it. Note what does not happen — the drinks row stays a whole number, because half of 14 grams is 7 grams and there is nothing to round. A page that forced whole drinks would either refuse the input or quietly round it up to a full one a day.

This page counts three things and stops. The first thing to be clear about is what it cannot say: alcohol already drunk is eliminated from the body at a rate that differs by more than 30 per cent between people, and this page never asks when you stopped, what you drank, or how much you weigh, so it cannot tell you whether any alcohol is still in your blood. A long day count is not a driving permit — use the blood alcohol calculator for that question, which takes the inputs this one deliberately leaves out. The second is the unit. Fourteen grams per drink is the United States definition; the same words mean 8 grams in the United Kingdom and 20 in Austria, so a page that said only a drink would be inviting you to compare numbers that are not the same quantity. Read this page's rows with this page's definition in mind. The third is the calorie row, which is an average: 7 kilocalories per gram is the factor food labels use, individual absorption varies, and alcohol calories are not the whole energy story of a drink — a sweet cocktail or a beer carries carbohydrate on top, and this page counts none of that. The fourth is the timekeeping: days are counted on the calendar in UTC, so in the few hours after local midnight in some time zones the page may still be on yesterday's date. Nothing here is medical advice, and a page that rewards not drinking with a nice number is still a page that cannot tell you whether anything you are feeling is withdrawal — if you have been drinking heavily and stop abruptly, that is a conversation to have with a clinician rather than a spreadsheet.

How much alcohol is one drink here?

On this English page, 14 grams of pure alcohol — the United States standard drink, which is one 355 mL can of 5 per cent beer, a 150 mL glass of 12 per cent wine, or a 44 mL shot of 40 per cent spirits. The definition is not universal: the United Kingdom counts 8 grams, Austria 20, and 10 grams is the single most common value across national guidelines, which is what the Chinese version of this page uses. Any number of drinks you read here should be read with the 14 gram definition attached, because a drink is a unit of alcohol rather than a container size.

Can this tell me whether I can drive?

No, and it is worth being blunt about why. This page counts time since a date; it never asks your weight, what you were drinking, or when you actually stopped, and those are the inputs a blood alcohol estimate needs. Alcohol is eliminated at a rate that varies by more than 30 per cent from person to person, so elapsed hours cannot stand in for a measurement. If that is the question, use the blood alcohol calculator, which asks for the weight, the drinks and the clock time — and remember that feeling fine is not the same as being under a limit.

Are the calories worth counting at all?

They are, and the reason is the 7 kilocalories per gram of alcohol — nearly twice what carbohydrate or protein gives per gram, and second only to fat. A 500 mL bottle of 5 per cent beer holds about 20 grams of alcohol, which is roughly 140 kilocalories before any of the sugar in it is counted. Alcohol is also metabolised before the rest of a meal, so those calories do not replace anything on the plate. This page counts the alcohol's energy and nothing else: mixers, sugar and the food that comes with drinking are outside its arithmetic.

What if my last drink was today?

Then every row is zero, and that is the right answer rather than a fault. The count starts the day after your last drink, so entering today's date means the clock has not started yet — the page is showing you a countdown of zero days, not failing to read the date. A future date is different: that is rejected outright, because a negative number of sober days would turn the drinks, alcohol, calories and money rows negative at the same time and quietly print nonsense.

How does it decide what today is?

It takes the calendar day in UTC, the same convention this site's other date tools use. That keeps the arithmetic identical wherever the page is opened and however the reader's device is set, and the cost is a few hours of disagreement around local midnight: if you are east of Greenwich and it is already tomorrow where you are, the page may still be counting from yesterday until UTC catches up. A day either way changes each account by one day's worth of drinks, so a number that looks stale at one in the morning will be right by breakfast.

What does the money row assume?

Only the price you type. It multiplies your drinks per day by the days and by that price, and it prints the result without a currency symbol, because one specification serves every language on this site and a dollar sign on a page read in yuan would be worse than no symbol at all. Read the figure in whatever currency you entered the price in. If the drinks were sometimes free and sometimes not, put the average in — the row is a straight multiplication, so an average price gives the average total.

Does a longer streak make me healthier?

This page cannot answer that, and it is the one place where it would be easy to over-read it. It counts what did not happen: drinks not drunk, alcohol not drunk, calories not drunk, money not spent. Those are real, and for many people the count is the part that helps. But risk from alcohol is not a single score that resets, nobody's liver is reading the streak, and dependence is a medical matter rather than a running total. If you have been drinking heavily and are stopping, the first days are the ones worth doing with a clinician's advice.

• What Is A Standard Drink? — National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) — the 14 gram standard drink used on this page, with the beer, wine and spirits equivalents that make up one
• Governmental standard drink definitions and low-risk alcohol consumption guidelines in 37 countries — Kalinowski A, Humphreys K — Addiction, 2016;111(7):1293-1298 — the survey of national definitions behind the 8 to 20 gram range quoted above, and the finding that 10 grams is the most common single value
• 中国居民膳食指南（2022）准则五：少盐少油，控糖限酒 (Guideline five of the Chinese Dietary Guidelines 2022: less salt, less oil, less sugar, limited alcohol) — Hubei Provincial Health Commission — a republication of the guideline that sets the daily alcohol ceiling at 15 grams for adults who drink, which is how a 10 gram drink and a 15 gram limit can be mentioned in the same breath