Alcohol Use Statistics

Below is a list of startling alcohol related statistics for you to ponder. It's surprising the depth at which alcohol affects our lives:

• Each year, your typical U.S. young person will see more than a thousand beer and alcoholic beverage commercials and several thousand drinking incidents on TV.
• Alcohol is a factor in half of all driving deaths.
• In our country, almost 50 times a day somebody dies in an alcohol related traffic accident.
• Over 15 million U.S. citizens are dependent on alcohol. 500,000 are under the age of 13.
• Every year the liquor industry spends almost two billion dollars on advertising and encouraging the consumption of alcoholic beverages.
• Each year, people in the U.S. spend over $90 billion dollars in all on alcohol.
• Each year an average American may consume the equivalent of 133 beers, 10 bottles of wine, and 64 shots of distilled spirits.
• Pregnant women who drink are feeding alcohol to their babies. The terrible thing is that a baby's undeveloped liver can only metabolize alcohol at half the rate of its mother, so the alcohol stays in the baby's system twice as long.
• Every year students consume $5.5 billion worth of alcoholic beverages. This is more than they spend on soft drinks, tea, milk, juice, coffee, and books combined.
• 56% of children in in junior high and high school report that alcohol advertisements make them more likely to drink alcohol.
• One in fifteen of workers who work full time say they drink heavily. This is defined as drinking 5 or more drinks per occasion on five or more occasions in the past month.
• The biggest concentration of heavy drinkers (1 in 8) is found among unemployed adults between the age of 26 to 34.
• Almost two in five of all industrial fatalities and close to half of industrial accidents with injuries can be associated with drinking and alcoholism.
• In 2000, almost 7 million people aged 12 to 20 are binge drinkers. That means that approximately one in five persons under the legal drinking age are a binge drinkers.
• A recent study shows that twenty five million (1 in 10) of Americans said that they drove while drunk. This report shows an increase of 3 million over the previous year. Among young adults 25 and under, almost a quarter drove under the influence of alcohol.
• Drunk driving is showing to be even more deadly than what we previously know. The most recent death statistics released by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), using a new method of calculation show that 17,488 people where killed in in accidents where alcohol was involved last year. This report says that nearly 800 more people where killed than the prior year.
• In the U.S. alcohol is the Number One drug problem
• Over 40% of Americans have alcoholism in their families.
• Nearly 25% people in the U.S. entering a hospital as a patient have problems with alcohol or are undiagnosed alcoholics who see a physician for alcohol related consequences.
• Alcohol and drinking related issues is costing our country's economy at least $100 million in health costs and lost productivity every year.
• 40% of criminals say that alcohol is a factor in violent behavior.
• Among victims of spousal abuse, three out of four incidents were reported to have involved alcohol use by the offender.
• In 1996, local law enforcement agencies made an estimated 1,467,300 arrests throughout the nation for driving under the influence of alcohol.