Two national surveys from the last decade and a half (2001-02 & 2012-13) have found that Americans have become very heavy drinkers with the greatest rise has been among women, older people and ethnic minorities. But it’s not just that we are drinking more (high-risk drinking and alcoholism sharply rose from 2001 to 2012), a JAMA Psychiatry report shows the number of teetotallers has fallen as well. 1
(The high-risk category for men is “five or more standard drinks on one day at least once a week” and for women, it’s “four or more in a day per week.” 2)
“The first survey in 2001-02 questioned about 43,000 people on their drinking habits, while the second questioned 36,000 people. These large samples aimed to include people from all walks of life in the US to make sure they painted an accurate picture of the national population.
The number of people who had consumed alcohol in the past 12 months went up 11.2% in the time between surveys. High-risk drinking went up by almost 30%.”3
To give you an idea of what those percentages mean, around 29.6 million Americans have a drinking problem that might impact their health. And yet, despite these numbers, Americans seem to be unaware of the crisis.
By far, the biggest change in numbers was the “severe alcohol use” category. During the years 2001- 2013, the number of people who received an alcoholism diagnosis rose by 49%. That’s 1 in 8 Americans.
Previous research shows that interventions highlighting dangerous behavior work to reduce alcohol abuse so there is hope. However, if we continue to ignore the issue it’s going to come back to bite us in the form of emergency room visits, impaired children needing ongoing intervention, and higher costs for jails and prisons.4 We need to start making progress now and encouraging our loved ones to make smart drinking choices.
