Alcohol contributes to 100,000 deaths annually, making it the third-leading cause of preventable mortality. Nearly 13.8 million Americans have problems with drinking, including 8.1 million people who are alcoholic. People who begin drinking before age 15 are four times more likely to develop alcoholism than those who begin at age 21. Nearly one-fourth of all persons admitted to general hospitals have alcohol problems or are undiagnosed alcoholics being treated for the consequences of their drinking. Alcohol is typically found in the offender, victim or both in about half of all homicides and serious assaults and in a high percentage of other violent crimes.
Alcoholics are nearly five times more likely than others to die in motor vehicle crashes.
Fetal alcohol syndrome, which can occur when women drink during pregnancy, is the leading known environmental cause of mental retardation in the western world. An estimated 6.6 million children under the age of 18 live in households with at least one alcoholic parent. Separated and divorced men and women are three times more likely to say they had previously been married to an alcoholic or problem drinker. But this was no joke. That's how cunning, baffling, and insane this disease is.