Americans dying from alcohol at record rates

As we move into the boozy holiday season, a word of warning: According to CDC numbers, Americans are killing themselves with alcohol at rates not seen since 1980.

This tally of alcohol-induced fatalities excludes deaths from drunk driving, other accidents, and homicides committed under the influence of alcohol.

If taken into consideration, alcohol-related deaths would have been nearing the 90,000 mark, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In recent years, United States health experts have focused extensively on overdose deaths from opioid drugs like heroin and prescription painkillers, which have risen quickly since the early 2000s. But data showed that in 2014 more number of people died from alcohol-induced causes than from overdoses of prescription painkillers and heroin combined, said the CDC.

Patterns of alcohol use and deaths vary widely from state to state, for reasons that are sometimes unknown. Also, alcohol-related deaths and drug-related deaths often follow very different patterns, contrary to what one might think. New Jersey’s drug-death rate (14 per 100,000, just below the national average) was down slightly in 2014 after several years of rapid increases. One way to rein in problem drinking would be to simply raise federal alcohol taxes, which are now at historically low levels. In the city, the relationship is flipped.

A Duke professor named Philip J. Cook, has been studying alcohol consumption for a long time.

The number of people having at least two drinks per month has steadily increased over the last decade by about two percent, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, with women showing a greater increase in drinking since 2002 than men. Cirrhosis occurs if a person drinks more than two glasses of alcohol every day for a number of years. The percent of women drinking monthly or more rose from 47.9 in 2002 to 51.9 in 2014. Once you adjust for age, the increase in alcohol-deaths “could plausibly be accounted for by the growth in per capita consumption”, Cook said.

According to the Post, the spike in alcohol-related deaths could be because Americans are drinking more in general, or because alcohol-related diseases disproportionately affect older people, and our population is aging.

Many Americans love alcohol – we drink a few beers while watching sporting events, enjoy wine with dinner, and have a scotch to relax.