Third of Americans Have Alcohol Problems at Some Point

Treatment often delayed or not sought, experts say.

By Steven Reinberg
HealthDay Reporter
Monday, July 2, 2007; 12:00 AM

Copyright © 2007 ScoutNews, LLC. All rights reserved.

MONDAY, July 2 (HealthDay News) -- More than 30 percent of Americans say they have had problems with alcohol, a new study shows.

Among those with drinking problems, 17.8 percent say they have alcohol abuse problems, and 12.5 percent are alcohol-dependent, according to the report in the July issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry.

"At some time in a person's life, 30 percent of the population in the United States will develop alcohol dependence or alcohol abuse," said lead researcher Bridget F. Grant, chief of the Laboratory of Epidemiology and Biometry at the U.S. National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

The hallmarks of alcohol abuse are interpersonal problems, financial problems and problems in daily living due to excessive drinking, Grant said. Alcohol dependence is more serious, she said. "That's where a person has a compulsion to drink as well as impaired control," she explained.

Grant noted that another major finding in the study is that there is an eight- to 10-year delay in treatment for alcohol problems after the problem starts. "That 10 years can be devastating," she said.

In addition, there is a big treatment gap, Grant said. "Only 24 percent of people who had alcohol dependence are ever treated," she said.

There are many new medications and behavioral treatments, Grant said. "But most people, including physicians, don't realize the new state-of-the-art treatment," she said. "Basically, we need a national campaign to educate physicians and lay people that there are treatments out there, and they are effective."

In the study, Grant's team analyzed data on 43,093 U.S. adults. The data were collected from interviews done between 2001 and 2002. In the interviews, people were asked about symptoms of alcohol abuse and dependence and diagnosed for depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety disorders, substance abuse disorder and other psychiatric problems.

In the year before the interview, 8.5 percent of adults reported having an alcohol use disorder, including 4.7 percent with alcohol abuse and 3.8 percent who were alcohol-dependent, Grant's group found.