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Substance Use

Excessive Drinking and Consequences

Los Angeles County Substance Abuse Prevention and Control (SAPC) announced a new resource titled Medical Director’s Report, which will include a monthly Medical Director’s Brief meant to bring useful information to the public in a “visually appealing” way. The first brief released is Excessive Drinking and Consequences. It is, indeed, visually appealing, and the data would come as a shock to individuals that do not work in the substance abuse field and even some that do. One would hope, anyway.

The fact is that most people don’t want to think about the consequences of heavy drinking when they’re out for a night of fun. Why ruin a good time? When you don’t see the negative effects of alcohol abuse every day, you can’t feel the impact until something negative occurs in your face. If someone binge drinks at events, friends will usually laugh at his antics, make sure he doesn’t drive, and possibly express concern. But the effort to get help for that friend rarely gets serious until problems mount or when he gets a DUI.

Those of us who work with alcoholics and abusers can fall into the same trap with loved ones, even though we know the signs and consequences of excessive drinking. We either keep mum or go into a rage because we are too close to the situation. We’re very good at telling clients and friends-of-friends that they should tone it down because there’s an emotional separation. We can’t fix everyone, so public awareness of the negatives of alcohol abuse is badly needed.

In this month’s brief, linked above, we learn that alcohol-related tangible costs in LA County include almost $1 billion in healthcare costs in 2014. The estimate of lost productivity at work is $7.7 billion. When we include other costs like Criminal Justice, vehicular accidents, and property damage, the total rises above $10 billion. Considering that the cost of treatment is only a portion of the healthcare costs, it seems silly that we don’t place more value on it in society.

Let’s talk lives now. Alcohol is involved in about 39% of the collision fatalities in LA County and across California in 2013. There were 246 deaths in LA County alone and 1197 statewide. Injuries from alcohol-related accidents were above 23,000. Some may say that these numbers seem pretty low in a state of 38 million and a county of 10 million people. They would all be alive and unharmed if it hadn’t been for some people that mixed alcohol and driving, though, so even 1 death is a large number in this context.

This is all from excessive drinking, meaning a binge (5 or more in one sitting for men and 4 or more for women) to a pattern of abuse and up to alcohol dependence. It certainly depends on the person, but having 1 or 2 drinks at an event is unlikely to put them into the above statistics. If everyone was to seriously consider that they or their loved ones could get severely injured or die during any random binge drinking session, maybe we could put a dent in the numbers. If they helped a friend into treatment, we could see some significant improvements.