Ever wonder which states have the highest alcohol-related death rates in the US? Wonder no more. According to a new report published by the journal Preventing Chronic Disease, New Mexico leads the pack, with 16.4 percent of alcohol-related deaths. Colorado and other Mountain-area states are also frequently-drunk ones; coming in “several points higher than the national average of one in 10 deaths” due to alcohol. Congrats, guys.
Actually, that one-in-10 figure is alarmingly high, and honestly it’s pretty scary. Apparently the causes of death for that number include some kinds of cancer, car accidents, violence, alcohol poisoning, and heart disease.
When There’s a Loser, There’s Also a Winner
The state with the lowest number of drinking-related deaths is Maryland, my sister state (I’m in DC). But researchers say excessive drinking kills an average of a whopping 88,000 people in America every year, and it “shortened the lives of those who died by an average of 30 years.” Additionally, around 70 percent of the deaths involved adults ages 20 to 64; i.e. folks who were in the prime of their lives.
Regardless, those deaths could actually be an underestimate (!!), because “deaths from pneumonia, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS and hepatitis C weren’t part of the analysis,” and those unfortunate conditions can be a result of ingesting excess amounts of alcohol (excess equals eight or more drinks per week for women, and 15 for men). “So even though it’s a big number, we really think this is a significant underestimate,” the lead researcher noted, terrifyingly.
The End Result
What does this mean for us regular Joes (or Jills) who prefer the coasts to the mountains? Not a lot, necessarily, but we should probably try to heed it as a brutal reminder of just how common, deadly and insidious alcoholism can be; it’s also important to remember that there’s a lot of great stuff that could result from people choosing to drink just a little less. The reminder that those conditions are often inevitable—and can be fatal—will, hopefully, only help steel our resolve to abstain from picking up the bottle again anytime soon.
At least we can hope.
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