Binge Drinking increases Heart Attack Risk by 70%

Extreme drunken behavior is a pretty common phenomenon in several counties of the USA. And it is a problem that has mounted in recent years.

Binge drinking and heavy consumption of alcohol are a sad commentary on the loss of control and irresponsibility shown by several individuals in society. This sort of self-destructive and dangerous behavior has increased with the passage of time especially with the inclusion of females among the ranks of the imbibers.

Especially, Americans tend to engage in hard drinking and the women are catching up with the males. At the level of counties alone, this reckless leisure-time activity has gone sky high. And it was not like this in the past. While, the overall level of alcohol consumption patterns have remained almost the same, from 9/11 to recent times, the alcoholism trends at the level of counties has sharply risen.

This of course is cause for alarm. The figures include Yanks who are young adults as well as their seniors. The study report that got published awhile back shows some important markers of the rise in heavy consumption of alcohol. The overall rate has skyrocketed by 17.2%.

Excessive amounts are: one drink for females and two for males. While 8.2% were heavy consumers of alcohol, 18.3% were binge drinkers. Madison County, Idaho has the least amount of binge drinking among its ranks while Menominee, Wisconsin had the highest rate of wild ones who go crazy the second they see a bottle of Jim Beam.     

Meanwhile, Hancock County, Tennessee had the least number of heavy drinkers while Esmeralda County, Nevada had the greatest number of the same. The criteria for binge drinking are different from heavy drinking.

Four drinks for women and five drinks for men is the binge drinking average scale according to which such a phenomenon is judged. Women are taking to the bottle like rats to a pumpkin. Overall a 17.5% increase in binge drinking among women was noticeable. On the other hand, only 4.9% was visible among men.

The fact that females are the leading purveyors of such behavior is a shocking revelation. In most of the counties across the US of A, about a fourth of all people are into binge drinking. Such trends spell doom for the future since by then things will have probably gotten much worse as far as statistics are concerned.

The only means of offsetting this pattern is to concentrate on the localities. Programs to educate and spread greater awareness among the drinking population are thus of paramount importance.