Alcohol Use Disorder is the official name for what has been called alcoholism. By whatever name, it is responsible for several illnesses and even deaths.
We rightfully worry about deaths from opioid overdoses (50,000 deaths per year) but alcohol kills more people (95,000 deaths per year). These statistics are from the Addiction Center.
Alcohol causes a large number of medical and psychiatric disorders. These include cirrhosis of the liver, malfunction of the cerebellum causing tremor and poor balance, depression, heart disease, liver cancer, high blood pressure, and others.
Alcohol can impair judgment, lead to impulsivity, and produce disinhibition so people may do things they otherwise wouldn’t do.
This impaired judgment and impaired inhibition is why “96.5% of teenagers who die from excessive alcohol usually die from acute causes, such as suicide or car accidents, as opposed to chronic conditions, such as liver diseases” (National Center for Drug Abuse Statistics 2023).
In 2022, 29.5 million people had an Alcohol Use Disorder, 27.2 million had a different Substance Use Disorder, and 8.0 million had both. [Statistics are from www.samhsa.gov.]
Men tend to drink more alcohol than women, and men are 3 times more likely to die from alcohol use than women.
However, men can drink more alcohol than women before becoming intoxicated. This is because men typically have a greater volume of body fluid to dilute the alcohol and they have larger livers to metabolize alcohol than women.
Although men generally drink more alcohol than women, among people age 12 to 17, females drink more alcohol than males. The reason is unclear.
Alcohol Use Disorder remains a serious cause of illness, disability, and death. Probably because it is legal and used by a majority of adults, people don’t see it as much of a problem as it really is.
Fortunately, there are good treatments available including several medications, numerous AA meetings, individual and group therapy, and both outpatient and inpatient care options.
Peter M. Hartmann, MD
Family Medicine & Psychiatry
