Alcohol Statistics & Drug Rehabilitation

Each year, a typical young person in the United States is inundated with more than 1,000 commercials for beer and wine coolers in addition to several thousand fictional drinking incidents on television.

Alcohol is involved in 50% of all driving fatalities.

In the United States, every 30 minutes, someone is killed in an alcohol related traffic accident.

Over 15 million Americans are dependent on alcohol. 500,000 are between the age of 9 and 12.

Each year the liquor industry spends almost $2 billion dollars on advertising and encouraging the consumption of alcoholic beverages.

Americans spend over $90 billion dollars on alcohol each year.

On average, Americans may consume over 25 gallons of beer, 2 gallons of wine, and 1.5 gallons of distilled spirits each year.

Pregnant women who drink are feeding alcohol to their babies. Unfortunately the underdeveloped liver of the baby can only burn alcohol at half the rate of its mother, so the alcohol stays in the baby's system twice as long.

Each year, students spend $5.5 billion on alcohol. That is more than they spend on soft drinks, tea, milk, juice, coffee, or books combined.

56% of students in grade 5 to 12 say that alcohol advertising encourages them to drink.

6.6% of employees in full time jobs report heavy drinking, defined as drinking five or more drinks per occasion on five or more days in the past 30 days.

The highest percentage of heavy drinkers (12.2%) is found among unemployed adults between the age of 26 to 34.

Up to 40% of all industrial fatalities and 47% of industrial injuries can be linked to alcohol consumption and Alcoholism.

In 2000, almost 7 million persons age 12 to 20 were binge drinkers. That means about one in five persons under the legal drinking age were binge drinkers.

The 2001 survey shows 25 million (one in ten) Americans surveyed reported driving under the influence of alcohol. This report is nearly three million more than the previous year. Among young adults age 18 to 25 years, almost 23% drove under the influence of alcohol.

Drunk driving is proving to be even deadlier than what we previously knew. The latest death statistics released by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), using a new method of calculation, shows that 17,488 people where killed in alcohol related traffic accidents last year. This report represents nearly 800 more people were killed than the previous year.

Alcohol is the number 1 drug problem in America.

43% of Americans have been exposed to Alcoholism in their families.

Nearly 1 out of 4 Americans admitted to hospitals have alcohol problems or are undiagnosed alcoholics being diagnosed for alcohol related consequences.

Alcohol and alcohol related problems are costing the American economy at least $100 million in health care and loss of productivity every year.

Four in ten criminal offenders report alcohol as a factor in violence.

Among spouse violence victims, 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 nationwide for driving under the influence of alcohol.

Alabama	Alaska	Arizona
Arkansas	California	Colorado
Connecticut	Delaware	Florida
Georgia	Hawaii	Idaho
Illinois	Indiana	Iowa
Kansas	Kentucky	Louisiana
Maine	Maryland	Massachusetts
Michigan	Minnesota	Mississippi
Missouri	Montana	Nebraska
Nevada	New Hampshire	New Jersey
New Mexico	New York	North Carolina
North Dakota	Ohio	Oklahoma
Oregon	Pennsylvania	Rhode Island
South Carolina	South Dakota	Tennessee
Texas	Utah	Vermont
Virginia	Washington	West Virginia
Wisconsin	Wyoming

A pregnant woman who uses heroin should not attempt to suddenly stop taking the drug. This can put her baby at increased risk of death. She should consult a health care provider or drug treatment center about treatment with a drug called methadone. Although infants born to mothers taking methadone also have withdrawal symptoms, they can be safely treated in the nursery and generally do better than babies born to women who continue to use heroin.

According to police, the price of a dose of cocaine that would give a user a 20 minute high will buy enough meth to keep a user buzzed for a day or two.

Many scientists had attempted to isolate cocaine, but none had been successful for two reasons: the knowledge of chemistry required was insufficient at the time, and the cocaine was worsened because coca does not grow in Europe and ruins easily during travel.

Heroin overdose takes the lives of many users each year. It is not a surprise that those who abuse heroin are at an increased risk of death. Their excess mortality rate ranges between six to twenty times their peers who are of the same age and gender and have not abused heroin. The causes of this excess mortality are manifold, including HIV/AIDS, hepatitis and violence. Despite the HIV pandemic among injecting drug users, deaths attributed to overdose remain a major cause of mortality for heroin users, and in many countries is the leading cause of death. Typically, males are the most predominant casualties of a heroin overdose. With around 80% of heroin overdose deaths reported being male.