Alcoholism….It’s Still a Problem
Originally posted on Pinnacle Treatment Centers Alcoholism seems to have lost its place as the number one addiction problem in America. The opioid epidemic is front and center in our minds when the topic of addiction comes up in discussion. But has alcoholism really gone anywhere? Not according to the statistics reported by the National Institute of Health (NIH). According to the 2018 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), 14.4 million adults in the U.S. ages 18 and older (5.8% of this age group) had a diagnosis of Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD). This includes 9.2 million men and 5.3 million women. Only about 7.9 percent of these people received treatment in the past year. An estimated 88,000 people die from alcohol-related causes annually, making alcohol the third leading preventable cause of death in the U.S. The first is tobacco, and the second is poor diet and physical inactivity. In 2015, nearly half of the 78,529 liver disease deaths involved alcohol, which is only on