Alcohol use disorder (AUD) is also prevalent with ~10% of all Americans having active disease. Obviously, the overlap between AUD and all stages of hepatic disease is large; ~30% of all alcohol-associated deaths are due to liver disease, 50% of liver transplants are done for ALD. (this site, screenshotted below, has a cogent display of current AUD epidemiology – https://drugabusestatistics.org/alcohol-abuse-statistics/).
Alcohol-Related Illness and Death
Nearly 100,000 annual deaths are attributable to alcohol abuse. More than half of them are due to long-term use.
- Alcoholic liver disease is the leading killer, causing 19.1% of all alcohol-related deaths.
- 53.7% of alcohol-related deaths are due to chronic misuse.
- 52.4% of chronic misuse deaths are attributable to alcohol alone; 47.6% include additional factors, such as other chronic health issues or drug abuse.
- Alcohol poisoning another leading killer, causing 32% of acute alcohol-related deaths.
- 22.5% of acute-alcohol related deaths are due to suicide.
- Suicides involving alcohol kill more people than car accidents involving alcohol, which account for 16.1% of acute-alcohol related deaths.