It bottomed out in the late 1990s at 2.45 gallons per person, or about 523 drinks. While alcohol plays an important social role in many cultures, and the occasional drink is considered harmless, excessive consumption has adverse effects. Alcohol is classified as a depressant because it can slow down motor function, speech, and reaction times. When consumed in low amounts, alcohol can help people “loosen up” socially or relax; however, the more alcohol consumed, the more the depressant effects set in. These include loss of balance, double vision, “spins” or dizziness, slurred speech, and more. Young adults were initially quicker than older Americans to embrace the idea that drinking is detrimental, possibly because they hadn’t been as exposed to earlier advice that moderate drinking, particularly wine, is heart-healthy.
Share of adults who don’t drink alcohol
Data from school surveys generally indicate that drug use is higher among Indian youth compared with non-Indian youth for nearly all drugs and that marijuana use in particular is significantly higher among Indian youth. Unlike the rates of illicit drug use, which tend to fluctuate over time, alcohol use among Indian youth has remained stable since 1975. Although tribal differences in drinking exist for adults, Indian adolescents seem to drink at similar levels regardless of tribe.
Check your drinking
Alcohol is one of the few legal substances that leads to nearly half a million lost lives every year in the U.S., whether from organ failure, accidents, or violence. With 178,000 lives lost annually, it contributes more daily deaths than certain cancers or infectious diseases. The constant pace—20 deaths every hour—signals that this is not a seasonal or isolated issue but a chronic public health emergency. South Carolina has more alcohol-related deaths per capita than the average state, and those deaths are 18.1% more likely to involve underage drinkers. Nebraska ranks below average in the rate of alcohol-related deaths per capita but above average in underage deaths.
Heavy drinking sessions
Targeted prevention efforts can reduce the prevalence of alcohol misuse and delay or avert progression to full-blown alcohol dependence. Alcohol addiction treatment is widespread and can be customized to your specific needs. If you or someone you know needs help, do not hesitate to contact us for more information about treatment programs near you.
Data source and methods
- Teenagers in Nebraska are 15.03% less likely to have used drugs in the last month than the average American teen.
- One size does not fit all and a treatment approach that may work for one person may not work for another.
- Encouraging earlier intervention, expanding treatment resources, and promoting evidence-based prevention strategies will be cornerstones of reducing alcohol-related harm for individuals, families, and communities at large.
- Among adolescents in particular, considerable “experimental” drinking likely occurs in the absence of any psychiatric problem and probably is more social in nature (Oetting et al. 1998; Austin et al. 1993).
In response to this theory, many alcohol prevention and treatment programs address those psychological problems. The link between psychological problems and alcohol abuse may be stronger among adults than among adolescents. The data clearly demonstrate that the health consequences of alcohol abuse have a much greater effect on the Indian population than on the non-Indian population. The ratio of drinkers to abstainers in Indian and non-Indian populations is not well documented, however. May (1995) suggested that a greater percentage of Indian adults may abstain from alcohol compared with non-Indian adults. Therefore, the higher levels of problems within the Indian population may indicate that those who do use alcohol drink at exceptionally high levels.
How do the best treatment programs help patients recover from addiction?
- Alcohol abuse, alcohol use disorder, alcohol addiction, and binge drinking are all serious and should be treated as soon as possible.
- Therefore, programs to reduce alcohol consumption that presume that all drinkers have an emotional problem probably will be ineffective with the largest group of alcohol users.
- Teenagers in South Carolina are 1.80% more likely to have used drugs in the last month than the average American teen.
- Nevada’s alcohol-related death rate per capita is high, but it has a very low rate of underage deaths.
Second, geographic isolation means fewer treatment facilities, which makes recovery harder to access. According to SAMHSA, some rural counties in Montana and the Dakotas have no specialized addiction services within 100 miles. According to NIAAA (2022), a “standard drink” in the United States contains 0.6 fluid ounces of ethanol. Thus, the 2021 national annual per capita consumption level of 2.51 gallons of ethanol equates to a person aged 14 or older consuming approximately an average of 535.5 standard drinks in a year. Population refers alcoholism statistics to the demographic characteristics, including size, composition, and distribution of its inhabitants. This category includes metrics such as population growth rate, age structure, gender balance, and urbanization.
National Drug Early Warning System (NDEWS)
Statistics indicate Georgia has a higher rate of underage drinkers than the majority of states. Alaska has the nation’s second-highest number of alcohol-related deaths per capita. Alabama has the third-highest rate of under-21 deaths related to excessive alcohol use.
- This report updates the 2010–2020 population estimates using revised estimates of the July 1 resident population from the Vintage 2020 and 2021 postcensal series (Single-race Population Estimates 2022).
- Alcohol problems also may be prevented through policies regulating the sale and use of alcohol in Indian communities.
- It’s estimated 17% of adults binge drink, and about a quarter of those reported binge drinking multiple times per month.
- Underage drinkers are slightly less common among alcohol-related deaths in Washington.
- Screening by a primary care provider or other health practitioner (e.g., pediatrician) provides an opportunity to identify problems early and address them before they escalate.
The chart shows direct death rates (not including suicide deaths) from alcohol use disorders across the world. The death rates are typically higher in Eastern Europe and lower in North Africa and the Middle East. By contrast, states with stricter policies, such as higher alcohol taxes, reduced sales hours, or stronger enforcement of DUI laws, tend to have much lower death rates. For example, Utah, which has some of the strictest alcohol regulations in the country, consistently reports among the lowest alcohol-related mortality rates. This contrast underscores how policy decisions and cultural attitudes directly shape public health outcomes.
Binge drinking can cause health problems, vehicle accidents, alcohol poisoning, other preventable issues, and even deaths. You and your community can take steps to improve everyone’s health and quality of life. They include deaths where the primary (or underlying) cause of death listed on the death certificate was one of 58 alcohol-related causes. Underage drinkers are slightly less common among alcohol-related deaths in Washington. South Dakota has an elevated rate of alcohol-related deaths per capita and a high rate of under-21 deaths. North Carolina has a low rate of alcohol-related deaths per capita and a low rate of under-21 deaths.
May (1992) and Bellamy (1985) examined the effects of the then-current prohibition laws by comparing “wet” and “dry” reservations with a number of factors, such as health indices and accident rates. For the most part, the researchers found few differences between wet and dry reservations. However, May raised the issue of whether prohibition actually created more problems, because people who went off the reservation to drink were more susceptible to death and injury from exposure and from driving under the influence. While it might stand to reason that rates of alcoholism would correlate closely to overall alcohol consumption per country or possibly with drinking age by country, these correlations are not always present. This means that the U.S., while being 51st on the list of countries with the highest rates of alcoholism, was 33rd on the list of countries with the highest alcohol consumption per capita in 2021.
In lieu of such a consensus, it would be impossible for any one responsible community faction to “enforce” a common standard. All visualizations, data, and code produced by Our World in Data are completely open access under the Creative Commons BY license. You have the permission to use, distribute, and reproduce these in any medium, provided the source and authors are credited. The total estimated number of deaths by country from 1990 to 2019 is found here. When we look at the variance in prevalence across age groups, we see that globally, the prevalence is highest in those aged between 15 and 49 years old. Increasing the number of people achieving long-term recovery from SUDs is a national policy priority and a major goal of…
Alcohol, crime, and road deaths
Because addiction can affect so many aspects of a person’s life, treatment should address the needs of the whole person to be successful. Counselors may select from a menu of services that meet the specific medical, mental, social, occupational, family, and legal needs of their patients to help in their recovery. When people enter treatment, addiction has often caused serious consequences in their lives, possibly disrupting their health and how they function in their family lives, at work, and in the community. Behavioral therapies help people in drug addiction treatment modify their attitudes Sobriety and behaviors related to drug use. As a result, patients are able to handle stressful situations and various triggers that might cause another relapse.