Health security

Deaths from alcohol overuse continue to climb

Alcohol misuse accounted for 35,823 deaths in 2017, an increase of nearly 46 percent over almost two decades, according to a Washington Examiner analysis of mortality data.

The data, which come from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, show that alcohol-related deaths have climbed steadily from the 19,469 deaths recorded in 1999. Deaths from misusing alcohol did not decline at any time since that period, and they included not only alcohol poisonings but also alcoholic liver disease and cirrhosis. They do not include deaths from accidents people have while they are drinking, because in these instances, the cause of death would be drowning, a car accident, or a fall.

Deaths from such heavy drinking patterns are contributing to the lower life expectancy trendthat has been observed in the U.S. in recent years, an issue compounded by opioid overdose deaths and suicides. These alcohol deaths are still lower than those caused by opioids such as heroin, which were responsible for 47,600 deaths in 2017, and suicides, which accounted for 47,173 deaths. When combined with deaths from accidents where people have been drinking, however, they climb to 88,000 deaths a year, federal reports show.