Alcohol not necessary to have a good time
There is an opioid epidemic, a fact that anyone knows who has read this newspaper, looked at its website or has switched on a television or radio.
The preponderance of heroin and other opioids in our communities has been a drain on public resources and a pernicious killer. It’s estimated somewhere in the neighborhood of 60,000 people died of drug overdoses in the United States last year, more than the number of Americans who died in Southeast Asia during the bloody and protracted Vietnam War.
However, heroin and its pharmaceutical cousins are not the only substances impairing or ending lives in this country. Research published earlier this month in the journal JAMA Psychiatry has found the United States has a growing problem with alcohol.
OK, we are not yet following in the wobbly-kneed, zig-zagging footsteps of our former colonial overlords, the British, who have been grappling with a binge-drinking culture in recent years that has made pubs and city centers no-go zones on certain nights – that is, unless someone particularly enjoys dodging puddles of vomit or stepping over people who have fallen flat on their faces. But, according to the study conducted by Columbia University, New York State Psychiatric Institute and National Institute on Alcohol and Alcoholism, close to 30 million Americans engage in behavior when it comes to alcohol that experts consider dangerous and unhealthy.
The researchers looked at 40,000 Americans, first in 2001 and 2002, and again in 2012 and 2013, and found alcohol use leapt by 11 percent, and that what has been classified as “alcohol use disorder” skyrocketed by 49 percent. The groups seeing the biggest increases were those aged 65 and older, women and African-Americans. Groups with lower incomes and less educational attainment have also seen increases.
An editorial in JAMA Psychiatry framed it as “a crisis with alcohol use, one that is currently costly and about to get worse,” and noted increases in hypertension and cirrhosis of the liver could be pegged to increased alcohol abuse.
Marc Schuckit, a psychiatrist at University of California-San Diego School of Medicine, told New York magazine that “once a substance is made legal and becomes generally acceptable, you’re going to have a heck of a time getting people to restrict their use of it. It’s so common, with a fairly low effect per dose – the effect is not as dramatic as, say, a line of cocaine. It’s been around a long time, and been acceptable for many, many generations. That interferes with people looking at themselves and seeing that they have a problem.”
What has caused the uptick in problem drinking? The researchers pointed to increased rates of depression, widening income inequality and the financial strains that come with it, and the Great Recession.
Of course, many Americans are content to sip a drink here or there, or consume no alcohol at all. And, no, the days of bathtub gin and Prohibition will not be making a comeback, and nor would we want them to. What can be done?
Certainly, efforts to educate young people early about the health effects of excessive alcohol use could help. The message needs to be imparted that alcohol is not necessary to relax, have a good time, forget everyday problems or engage in lively conversation.
Given our populist instincts, Americans sometimes like to leave Europe and its customs at arm’s length, whether it’s embracing universal health care or rabid soccer fandom. But the continental approach of having a drink or two with dinner, and keeping it at that, is something the United States might do well to emulate.