CDC: 1 In 10 Adult Deaths In US Caused By Excessive Drinking 454
An anonymous reader writes: According to new research from the CDC, 9.8% of deaths in working-age adults (22-64 years old) in the U.S. from 2006 to 2010 were "attributable to excessive drinking." This makes excessive drinking the fourth leading cause of preventable death in the U.S. The study included deaths from medical conditions, such as liver disease and alcohol-induced strokes, as well as deaths from alcohol-related events, like car accidents, homicides, and fall injuries. However, it did not account for cases where excessive alcohol consumption was a factor in contracting conditions like AIDS, pneumonia, and tuberculosis, so the count may actually be higher. Many western states with low population spread out over a large area showed the highest alcohol-related death rates, while states from the east coast and the midwest tended to be on the lower end of the spectrum. The study also tracked years of life lost, which is higher for alcohol-related deaths than for most other types of death. Researcher Robert Brewer said, "One of the issues with alcohol that is particularly tragic is the extent to which it gets people in the prime of their lives."
Self Medication (Score:5, Interesting)
Having had an alcoholic step dad and grandfather I can say there's many reasons that people drink. Mostly it's one because they want to and if they don't have alcohol they'll use something else smoking, drugs whatever may be available. Alcohol allows people to self medicate and avoid things in life or help to forget things in life, like the fact that their lives didn't turn out as planned. For others it's just an activity because others are doing it around them and they can't stop because they get addicted to it.
Re:Reinstate the Prohibition (Score:3, Interesting)
a lot of the alcohol deaths were due to impairment, not outright overdose. as pot becomes more overt, these numbers will increase too, as they already have in Colorado.
i do agree with your point, and i'm quite sure that pot is still notably safer, but we'll be seeing more and more articles like this on cannabis.
Re:Self Medication (Score:5, Interesting)
Self-medication with alcohol can be useful, though. I found out a long while back that consuming 1 ounce of liquor (rum, whiskey, brandy) every 2-3 days fixed my clinical depression. I took to occasionally sipping a shot of whiskey out of a sniffer over 3-4 hours, or drinking a beer or two now and then. Didn't need to booze out on it, and it really did last days.
The baseline behavior was a severe downward spiral of emotion in reaction to any negative emotion stemming from a failed expectation or a trivial mistake. The corrected behavior was minor upset bounded to the degree of the original stimulus, with no avalanche effect. I decided 2-3 beers a week was probably safer than Zoloft or such, so did that for a while.