Which Is More Dangerous: Alcohol or Drugs?
Perhaps we’d have a better chance if we ditched the whole alcohol vs drugs sideshow battle altogether. And frankly, quibbling about stats is pretty much meaningless. It’s important to remember though that alcohol remains a serious killer of Americans; at least as serious of a killer as drugs. So when it comes to mandates and legislation and studies and — above all — treatment, it’s equally important to treat alcohol equally.
Upon take in, we will provide a mental and physical well-being test to put you on the right road to recovery. The Global Information System on Alcohol and Health (GISAH) has been developed by WHO to dynamically present data on levels and patterns of alcohol consumption, alcohol-attributable health and social consequences and policy responses at all levels. Individual factors include age, gender, family circumstances and socio-economic status.
Record number of people died from alcohol and drug use during the pandemic: StatsCan
The interactive map citing the above percentages shows four states are predicted to show an actual decrease in overdose deaths (three of those have already reported so). That’s right, overdose deaths are predicted to drop in South Dakota (-6.9%), New Hampshire (-2.1%), New Jersey and Delaware (-.04% each). Those findings would be remarkable under even normal circumstances; during Covid they’re absolutely astonishing. Then things really got interesting (and not in a good way either). A full 25.8% of the above 18 and overs reported binge drinking over 2019.
It’s more than quite likely that once the pandemic is figured into the equation, the number of alcohol-related fatalities will unfortunately rise even further. County-level mortality rates included total alcohol- and drug-related mortality (“total mortality”), alcohol-related mortality, alcohol vs drugs and drug-related mortality. We included all alcohol- and drug-induced deaths, or deaths determined to be attributable to alcohol use1 and drug use2. Per CDC policy, county-level counts of less than 10 deaths in the full 10-year period were suppressed for confidentiality reasons.
The Blurred Lines Between Alcohol Use and Alcohol Addiction
Data were from the 2008–2017 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention WONDER Multiple Causes of Death data set, American Community Survey, and Rural Urban Continuum Codes, including all four border states. Spatial lag models tested differences across on- and off-border counties in total alcohol- and drug-related mortality (“total mortality”), alcohol-related mortality, and drug-related mortality. From 2019 to 2020, forty states experienced statistically significant increases in their drug overdose death rates. Those ranged from the smallest increase of 12.9 percent in Connecticut (from 34.7 deaths per 100,000 people in 2019 to 39.1 in 2020) to the largest increase of 54.8 percent in Mississippi (from 13.6 deaths per 100,000 people in 2019 to 21.2 in 2020) (Figure 3). In people with AUD who stop drinking suddenly, alcohol withdrawal can be dangerous, even deadly. Still, psychologists can work with patients to help them consider their alcohol use and take steps to reduce drinking, even if abstinence is not their goal.
Even though alcohol is a legal substance, it is just as dangerous as any illegal street drug you may encounter, which is easy to see when you compare alcohol deaths vs other drugs. It is hard to go a day without passing a bar or seeing alcohol at a restaurant. Find up-to-date statistics on lifetime drinking, past-year drinking, past-month drinking, binge drinking, heavy alcohol use, and high-intensity drinking.
Trends in alcohol use
A 2018 review paper in The Lancet, including more than 1,200 studies worldwide, found that while light drinking offers some protection from heart disease, the harmful effects of alcohol on health start with even low-volume drinking. For example, alcohol use had a significant link to cancer in people over 50, especially women. Twenty-seven percent of cancer deaths in women and 19% of those in men were linked to their drinking habits. The study, which included nearly 5 million people, found that low-volume drinkers had a significantly lower mortality risk than did lifetime abstainers.
Bivariate estimates for border effects in the total sample were also in a direction consistent with the hypothesis, but smaller and nonsignificant. This pattern seems to suggest that mortality rates in off-border counties were greater than could be expected given that these counties generally have characteristics protective of mortality. Indeed, off-border counties had higher proportions of college-educated residents and higher urbanicity (both protective against total mortality) and lower likelihood of HIDTA designation (a risk factor for total mortality). Regardless, protective effects for border status on all three outcomes were also significant when controlling for state alone (analysis not shown), supporting the robustness and broader significance of our findings.
Treatment for Polysubstance Use
To begin with, it estimated 93,331 drug overdose deaths in the United States over the course of 2020. That’s a 29.4% increase from the 72,151 deaths predicted for 2019. In 2015, over 66 million people aged 12 or older reported binge drinking.
Massage therapy, swimming pools, basketball courts, waterfalls, golf, and meditation zones allow you to diversify from the challenges of recovery. Enjoy a game of basketball with one of your peers or have a home-cooked meal with a friend! Park access or a jog down the beach with a therapy dog can relieve stress during your return to finding inner peace and health. Rediscovering health and finding tranquility has never been easier with our luxury accommodations at Resurgence Behavioral Health.
Alcohol Related Deaths by Age
Among adults under 65, more people died from alcohol-related causes in 2020 than from Covid-19 (White, A. M., et al., JAMA, Vol. 327, No. 17, 2022). The current study makes an important contribution in light of the limited literature examining alcohol- and drug-related mortality. There are no known studies relating area-level characteristics to alcohol-related mortality.
Alcohol is the third-leading preventable cause of death in the United States. Alcoholism and drug addiction have similar symptoms and can be treated using the same techniques. Alcohol addiction is simply a form of the larger category of drug addiction, so they each are intertwined together. It is a priority for CBC to create products that are accessible to all in Canada including people with visual, hearing, motor and cognitive challenges. “I think what we’re seeing here is in line with what provincial level data has been telling us,” added Naimi. “I also think it speaks to the fact that people are unaware of the significant harms that can result from their alcohol use.”
