Beer at a ball game tournament. Cocktails at dinner. Champagne toast at a wedding.
For most Americans, alcohol is a harmless part of everyday life, so commonplace that we don’t even think about it. But the country’s everyday drugs are also the culprit behind one of the country’s longest-running and overlooked drug crises.
Alcohol, especially excessive drinking, causes an epidemic of injury, illness, and death in the United States. Despite recent declines in alcohol consumption, alcohol remains the most deadly drug in the United States, more deadly than opioids, fentanyl, methamphetamine, and heroin.
Alcohol kills 178,000 Americans each year and causes countless illnesses. Yet most citizens, businesses, lawmakers, and federal officials act as if the problem doesn’t exist. This widespread denial pervades the Trump administration, which is more attuned to the burden of addiction than any administration in recent memory.
A new investigative series by STAT, “The Deadliest Drug,” reveals that the country is failing in key areas.
Mismatch detection
Screening for heavy drinking and related health problems is inconsistent and tends to flag only severe cases. Many health care providers remain uncomfortable imposing drinking levels on patients, referring them to treatment, or prescribing medications known to help patients reduce or eliminate alcohol intake.
rely on personal willpower
When Americans seek help, they often encounter a one-size-fits-all approach. America remains overly dependent on individual willpower and the ideology and practices of 12-step programs like Alcoholics Anonymous. The group has helped millions of people become sober, but its sometimes arbitrary approach has failed many people who rejected its God-centered thinking, experienced emotional or physical abuse at the hands of their sponsors, or wanted to cut down on alcohol rather than cut it out completely.
Fragmented treatment infrastructure
More broadly, the country’s treatment infrastructure for excessive alcohol consumption remains fragmented, medicines are underutilized, and harm reduction strategies long employed in other countries remain taboo. Although most cases of alcohol use disorder are mild or moderate, many Americans who seek treatment label themselves as “alcoholic” and are forced to choose between never drinking again or forgoing treatment altogether.
Although the United States is not alone in experiencing high rates of alcohol-related harm, we face unique and troubling twin epidemics of alcohol use and metabolic disease. The ongoing crisis of obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and alcohol use has created a liver nightmare. More young Americans than ever before are dying from liver disease, even as drinking rates among people under 50 have fallen to historic lows. A growing number of experts believe that the reason is a combination of alcohol and poor diet.
old problems remain
More than one in 10 pregnant women in the United States drinks alcohol, and experts worry that an increasingly relaxed attitude toward alcohol during pregnancy could lead to a wave of neurodevelopmental problems estimated to be more common than autism. Despite the risks of alcohol consumption during pregnancy being widely understood, about 25% of pregnant women who drink report having four or more drinks at a time, according to a STAT analysis of federal data. They are particularly at risk of falling through the cracks of the health care system, as are children who have been impaired by exposure to alcohol.
Industry influence
STAT also found that lawmakers, regulators, and administration officials have balked at proposals focused on public health. Approaches such as increasing state-level fees and updating labels could put a dent in alcohol abuse and its myriad dangers. But even in an era of “Make Americans Healthy Again” when Americans are concerned about their health, the administration has kept alcohol and its many risks out of the spotlight. In important respects, leaders have made it easier for the alcohol industry and its allies to bend science, making it harder for people to understand how much they should drink or the risks of alcohol use.
In more than 100 interviews, experts told STAT that these and other alcohol-related problems will continue to plague the country if left unchecked. Ultimately, Americans’ health is unlikely to improve if the Trump administration ignores or continues to ignore the problem drinking and addiction epidemic.
“There would be no MAHA without mental health and addiction,” former congressman and addiction treatment advocate Patrick Kennedy, a cousin of the health secretary, told STAT.
STAT’s chronic health coverage is supported by a grant from. bloomberg philanthropy. our financial supporter It has no role in any of our journalism decisions.
