US alcohol epidemic: 500 deaths per DAY from booze in latest numbers…more than COVID now!

Nearly 500 people a day were dying from alcohol during the pandemic, according to new official data.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report shows that from the start of 2020 through 2021, 178,000 Americans died from alcohol-related conditions, the most since 1999. Causes of death included liver failure and cancer, or from more immediate causes such as alcohol. poisoning or driving under the influence.

Officials said it confirmed that the spike in binge drinking during the first year of the Covid pandemic had continued, which was linked to the daily disruptions caused by the pandemic, as well as the rise of alcohol delivery services.

The 488 average alcohol-related deaths per day in 2021 represents a 29 percent increase from before the pandemic.

It also makes booze one of the country’s biggest killers. By comparison, according to figures from the first week of February, an average of around 270 people die from Covid every day. Fentanyl kills an average of 200 people a day, while stroke kills about 400 people a day.

Alcohol has become one of the leading causes of death among Americans every day, although far lower than deaths from heart disease, cancer, diabetes and accidental injuries. The figures come from government sources and advocacy groups and reflect the most recent years for which data are available. Most recent years range from 2020 to 2023. Covid deaths are recent as of the first week of February

Psychiatrists and addiction experts believe that the stress of the global pandemic, including anxiety and isolation, has led to a sharp increase in alcohol-related deaths.

Two-thirds of alcohol deaths in 2021 were due to chronic conditions resulting from long-term use, including cancer and liver disease, while a third resulted from binge drinking, such as car accidents, multi-drug overdoses and suicides.

The number of deaths due to excessive alcohol consumption rose by almost 23 percent from 2018-2019 to 2020-2021. This increase was about four times greater than the previous increase of 5 percent between 2016–2017 and 2018–2019.

The CDC said they expect these numbers to increase in the future.

Alcohol consumption has been on the rise since the mid-1990s, reversing a decline of about a decade. In 1995, each person consumed an average of about 2.1 liters of alcohol throughout the year.

The CDC application called the Alcohol-Related Disease Impact (ARDI) assesses average alcohol use-related deaths, usually over a five-year period.

While 178,000 deaths were recorded between 2020 and 2021 – 488 per day – 138,000 were recorded between 2016 and 2017, an increase of 29 percent.

And by 2024, excessive drinking led to approximately 4 million years of life being lost prematurely. On average, people who died from excessive alcohol consumption lost about 23 years of their lives.

Dr. Daniel Lieberman, a psychiatrist and neuroscience researcher at George Washington University, told DailyMail.com: ‘These numbers are indeed worrying. We’re seeing evidence of rising mental illness among Americans, including depression, anxiety, and now, with this data, problems with alcohol use.

‘It is a reflection of the growing stress in our daily lives, caused by the many ways in which the pandemic and lockdowns have affected our lives. Rising food and house prices and increasing political tensions are also likely to play a role.’

Researchers from the CDC and the Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research have identified a total of 58 causes of death that are directly or indirectly linked to excessive alcohol consumption. Those directly related to alcohol include alcoholic liver disease, alcohol poisoning, and suicide.

This incidence was higher in men, but rates rose most rapidly in women.

The daily death toll from alcohol in 2020, while paling in comparison to that of Covid, is higher than the number of daily Covid deaths today – around 269

The graph above shows that alcohol consumption has been increasing since the mid-1990s, after previously experiencing a sharp decline in about a decade. Chart courtesy of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism

The number of daily deaths from alcohol that year exceeded the number of daily deaths from fentanyl that year, which was 154. It is also much higher than the current number of daily deaths from fentanyl, which is approximately 202 per day.

It also exceeds the number of daily deaths from pneumonia – about 113 – and more than the number of deaths from the flu in 2019, which was around 68. The daily number of stroke deaths now stands at 383.

Dr. Lieberman added, “As a society, we seem more willing to use risky means to cope with the rapid and sometimes frightening changes happening around us.

“Many states are legalizing marijuana and other recreational drugs, but alcohol is the drug people use most often. Because it is so widely used, people may underestimate the risks of using it to cope with stress.”

Drug abuse and addiction skyrocketed during the pandemic. From April 2020 to April 2021, during the first year of widespread lockdowns and quarantine orders, a total of 100,306 Americans died from drug overdoses, the first time more than 100,000 overdose deaths were reported in a twelve-month period.

At the same time, nearly a third of U.S. adults experienced worse depression symptoms in 2021, compared to about 28 percent in early 2020 and 8.5 percent before the pandemic.

And the number of binge drinkers also increased. Sixty percent of Americans increased their alcohol consumption during the lockdowns, and 46 percent reported increased stress as the reason for their increased alcohol consumption.

Dr. Lieberman said, “I hope this report will be a wake-up call.”

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