Threats, harassment, destruction of property, physical assault, road accidents, financial or family problems … Each year, one in five Americans suffer directly from the consumption of alcohol by someone they know, according to a new study published in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs last June 30. This would correspond to 53 million people, according to the estimates of the scientists who conducted the research.
To conduct this study, the researchers analyzed data from two US telephone surveys on alcohol, conducted in 2015. 8,750 people aged 18 and over were interviewed. The results show that during the year, approximately 21% of women and 23% of men have been harmed by someone else’s drinking. The most common breaches were threats or harassment, reported by 16% of respondents.
A considerable risk for women
Women were more likely to report that their partner or a family member harmed them after drinking. They also indicated more financial and family problems. Men, on the other hand, would report more harm due to the consumption of a stranger. They were more prone to destruction of property, vandalism or physical assault. It exists “a considerable risk for women who are heavy drinkers, often men, and for men who consume when they are not with their family “, summarize the researchers.
The age and consumption of the person were also taken into account. Those under 25 were at greater risk of harm. In addition, almost half of alcohol enthusiasts said they had been injured by someone who had been drinking in the past. Even people who drank little or moderately doubled or tripled their risk of being harassed, threatened, or having a road accident than abstainers.
The authors of the study thus qualify the damage inflicted on others by alcohol as a “serious public health problem”. According to them, their consequences on those around the drinker are comparable to those of the passive smoking on the smoker’s relatives. They therefore plead for an increase in taxes on alcoholic beverages in the United States. In France, Public Health France recently launched an awareness campaign encouraging the French to drink less. The health agency recalled that the benchmarks of lower risk alcohol consumption amount to ten drinks per week and two drinks per day (and not every day).
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