Alcohol Facts and Statistics

• National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
• National Institute of Health
• Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration

• Inability to limit alcohol consumption
• Anxiety
• Depression
• Suicidal thoughts
• Heart attack
• High blood pressure
• Liver damage
• Increased risk of cancer

In addition, severe alcohol dependency leads to a battle with withdrawal, a series of physical and emotional strains users experience after the abrupt removal of a substance from their daily routine. Dependency affects the body and the brain, so much that the brain also begins to crave alcohol to function normally. Deviation or withdrawal from alcohol can cause serious and sometimes fatal consequences including:

• Sweating
• Tremors
• Nausea
• Restlessness
• Seizures
• Insomnia

• Women of Native American descent die from cirrhosis of the liver more than any other ethnic group in the United States
• Fetal alcohol syndrome is three times more prevalent in Native Americans than the national average
• Caucasians drink little over 10 percent more than African Americans
• More than 20 percent of Hispanics are binge drinkers
• Of every ethnic group in the United States, Asian-Americans are the least likely to drink
• African Americans are more likely to experience a myriad of health issues from alcohol abuse, including cirrhosis, cancer and heart disease than other races

• Men are more likely to drink excessively than women
• Men have a higher rate of alcohol-related hospitalizations than women
• Men are more likely to binge drink than women
• Women have higher alcohol levels in their blood than men because it takes longer to metabolize
• Women are more likely to have long-term health issues from drinking, including liver disease and cancer
• Close to 10 percent of women drink alcohol while pregnant

• More than 10 percent of children live with parents suffering from alcoholism
• Underage drinkers on average consume more alcohol per occasion than adult drinkers
• Underage drinking increases the risk of alcoholism later in adulthood; youth who begin drinking before the age of 15 are more than five times more likely to develop alcohol dependence later in life compared to those who begin drinking at the legal age of 21
• 97,000 students between the ages of 18 – 24 are sexually assaulted in an alcohol-related incident
• About 20 percent of college students struggle with alcohol abuse

• Alcohol-related incidents are responsible for almost 6 percent of deaths in 2012 worldwide
• More than 80,000 people die from alcohol-related incidents every year
• Alcohol is the fourth leading preventable cause of death in the United States
• 31 percent of driving fatalities were directly linked to alcohol-related impairment in 2014
• Men are more likely to commit suicide than women after drinking alcohol