Alcohol Facts from the United States

Alcohol Use in the United States:

• Prevalence of Drinking: In 2013, 86.8 percent of people ages 18 or older reported that they drank alcohol at some point in their lifetime; 70.7 percent reported that they drank in the past year; 56.4 percent reported that they drank in the past month.¹
• Prevalence of Binge Drinking and Heavy Drinking: In 2013, 24.6 percent of people ages 18 or older reported that they engaged in binge drinking in the past month; 6.8 percent reported that they engaged in heavy drinking in the past month.²

Alcohol Use Disorders (AUDs) in the United States:

• Adults (ages 18+): 16.6 million adults ages 18 and older³ (7.0 percent of this age group⁴) had an AUD in 2013. This includes 10.8 million men³ (9.4 percent of men in this age group⁴) and 5.8 million women³ (4.7 percent of women in this age group⁴).
  • About 1.3 million adults received treatment for an AUD at a specialized facility in 2013 (7.8 percent of adults who needed treatment). This included 904,000 million men (8.0 percent of men in need) and 444,000 women (7.3 percent of women who needed treatment).⁵
• Youth (ages 12–17): In 2013 an estimated 697,000 adolescents ages 12–17⁶ (2.8 percent of this age group⁷) had an AUD. This number includes 385,000 females⁶ (3.2 percent of females in this age group⁷) and 311,000 males⁶ (2.5 percent of males in this age group⁷).
  • An estimated 73,000 adolescents (44,000 males and 29,000 females) received treatment for an alcohol problem in a specialized facility in 2013.⁸

Alcohol-Related Deaths:

• Nearly 88,000⁹ people (approximately 62,000 men and 26,000 women¹⁰) die from alcohol-related causes annually, making it the third leading preventable cause of death in the United States.⁹
• In 2013, alcohol-impaired driving fatalities accounted for 10,076 deaths (30.8 percent of overall driving fatalities).¹¹

Family Consequences:

• More than 10 percent of U.S. children live with a parent with alcohol problems, according to a 2012 study.¹⁶

Taken from the NIAAA

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Standard Measure for Alcoholic Beverages

Standard Measure of Alcohol In the United States, a standard drink is any drink that contains 0.6 ounces (13.7 grams or 1.2 tablespoons) of pure alcohol. Generally, this amount of pure alcohol is found in 12-ounces of regular beer or wine cooler. 8-ounces of malt liquor. 5-ounces of wine. 1.5-ounces of 80-proof distilled spirits or liquor (e.g., gin, rum, vodka, whiskey).

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This is important information to have. I once dated a girl who told everyone she generally only drank three or four glasses of wine a night.  She said it might be little too much but certainly not problematic.  She neglected to tell people they were oversized table glasses.  This can be used to confront high functioning alcoholics
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Short-Term Health Risks

Excessive alcohol use has immediate effects that increase the risk of many harmful health conditions. These are most often the result of binge drinking and include the following:

• Injuries, such as motor vehicle crashes, falls, drownings, and burns.^6,7
• Violence, including homicide, suicide, sexual assault, and intimate partner violence.^6-10
• Alcohol poisoning, a medical emergency that results from high blood alcohol levels.¹¹
• Risky sexual behaviors, including unprotected sex or sex with multiple partners. These behaviors can result in unintended pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV.^12,13
• Miscarriage and stillbirth or fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASDs) among pregnant women.^6,12,14,15

Long-Term Health Risks

• Over time, excessive alcohol use can lead to the development of chronic diseases and other serious problems including:
• High blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, liver disease, and digestive problems.^6,16-21
• Cancer of the breast, mouth, throat, esophagus, liver, and colon.^6,22
• Learning and memory problems, including dementia and poor school performance.⁶
• Mental health problems, including depression and anxiety.^6,23
• Social problems, including lost productivity, family problems, and unemployment.^6,24,25
• Alcohol dependence, or alcoholism.⁶

Above information from CDC
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Did You Know?

• The average age of first experimentation with drugs is 13, and for alcohol it is even younger. Drug use has been classified as a major problem for kids as early as fourth grade by the students themselves.
• Alcohol is the most widely used drug in America. It is the third largest cause of death in the United States, second only to heart disease and cancer. Alcohol and tobacco use are a significant “risk factor” in heart disease and cancer. It accounts for over 100,000 deaths per year in this country alone. It is also the leading cause of death for people between the ages of 15 and 24.
• Alcohol and other drugs contribute to over 50 percent of all suicides and over 50 percent of all violent crimes.
• Over 60 percent of admissions to emergency rooms are either directly or indirectly due to drug or alcohol usage.
• Over 50 percent of all traffic accidents involve the use of drugs or alcohol, with many of these being fatal.
• It is estimated that drugs and alcohol are a factor in at least 80 percent of domestic violence incidents.
• Alcohol and drug use contributes to 60 percent of all sub-standard job performance and at least 40 percent of all industrial accidents.
• Alcohol and drug addiction are treatable. However, it is our most untreated disease in the United States. It is estimated that 35 out of 36 alcoholics never receive treatment of any kind. This number is increased significantly when drug addiction of all kinds is included.
• More than 60 percent of college women who have contracted sexually transmitted diseases, herpes or AIDS were intoxicated at the time of infection.
• 28 percent of all college dropouts are alcohol users.
• Between 1986 and 1996, Driving While Intoxicated (DWI) arrests were highest for 21-year-olds.
• Individuals between the ages of 16 and 24 are involved in more than one-third of all alcohol related traffic accidents.
• 95 percent of all college campus violence is alcohol related.
• More than 40 percent of all college students with academic problems are alcohol users
  from Florida Institute of Technology
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  Facts About Alcohol in America

  Alcohol and drug addiction have grown to be significantly more prevalent in America. The series of movie stars going into and also exiting treatment (frequently multiple times) seems unending. Additionally, young people are subjected to more than 1,000 beer and wine commercials on tv annually. They will also see several thousand situations where drinking is fictional as well as glamorized.

  As day to day tensions escalate in peoples’ day-to-day lives, together with the convenient availability of liquor offering up a fast fix, lots of people are going to the bottle to blot out their problems.

  Addiction statistics are staggering and a somber wake up call that something needs to change.

  It is estimated that upwards of fifteen million Americans are dependent on alcohol. It doesn’t merely imply that these people drink; it means that they cannot get through their day without a drink. Of this 15 million, 500,000 of these alcohol addicts are between the ages of 9 and 12. This is certainly attributed, to some degree, to the almost $2 billion marketing dollars the spirits companies spends each year to promote the consumption of alcohol. People in America gladly respond to this kind of enticement by spending more than $90 billion bucks on booze per year.

  Drinking and driving is a deadly fusion. Everybody knows that it’s unsafe and might kill but, seemingly these truths seem to be generally not considered given that in Fifty percent of all motor vehicle fatalities, booze is a factor. It is approximated that in the US alone, someone is killed in a auto collision having alcohol as a aspect every half an hour.
  Considered one of the most detrimental aspects of the way that alcoholic drink is freely marketed, is in its effect on our young people. College students on a yearly basis blow $5.5 billion on booze (amazing alcohol fact, where do they get the money). This is somewhat more than they devote to soft drinks, tea, coffee or books all together. Fifty six percent of kids in grades 5 through Twelve state that the advertising by alcohol corporations influences them to drink.

  At work alcohol addiction is often debilitating. 6.6% of employees who keep full-time employment report that they drink heavily. This translates that they consume 5 if not more alcohol based drinks per incident or on 5 or more days in the previous month. Even so, what’s genuinely disheartening is that 12.2% of big drinkers, as characterized here (this is the largest percentage), are the out of work individuals that are between the ages of 26 and 34.
  It needs to also be observed in this write-up that by far the most alarming alcohol fact or statistic yet; In the year 2000, roughly 7 million individuals were binge drinkers. The thing which is most stunning regarding this group is that they ranged in age from 12 to 20 years old. This indicates that one in five persons who’re beneath the legal drinking age were binge drinkers.

  In the United States alcohol is the top drug problem. Substance addiction stats show that Forty three percent of American citizens have had to deal with addiction to alcohol inside their families. The list seems endless, but the message is obvious. Alcohol consumption can start a vicious cycle of alcohol addiction with dreadful final results. The alcoholic wounds friends, family and themselves.
  More on America’s Alcohol Facts by PBS.

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