I just want to see whether I can do anything to lower the absurd amount of CPU usage.
A screenshot might help, as might also be helpful is what are you doing at the time ?
You also don't say what Avast Program/s and build number/s you are running ?
At times my Avast process barely feature in the CPU/RAM usage of the Processes screen. But currently I'm only browsing and posting here, so I wouldn't expect it to be high. Avast is generally light on CPU?RAM, but it really does rely on what you are doing.