Alcohol Statistics
Alcohol statistics describe how often people drink, how many have a drinking disorder and the harm linked to alcohol. For anyone concerned about their own drinking or someone else’s, clear years, age groups and definitions make the numbers useful rather than misleading.
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Alcohol Statistics and Alcohol Abuse Facts
In the 2025 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), a national U.S. survey, 129.1 million people aged 12 or older (44.4%) reported drinking alcohol in the past month.[1]
An estimated 25.7 million people aged 12 or older (8.9%) had alcohol use disorder in the past year.[1] Alcohol use disorder (AUD) is a medical condition involving difficulty stopping or controlling drinking despite social, work or health consequences.[2]
The dataset year matters. The estimates come from several years, with the year shown beside each measure, including the separate treatment and medication figures. These figures answer different questions, rather than describing one shared year.
- NSDUH defines binge drinking as five or more drinks for males or four or more for females on one occasion, on at least one day in the past 30 days.[1]
- NSDUH defines heavy alcohol use as binge drinking on five or more days in the past 30 days, so everyone counted in heavy use is also counted in binge use.[1]
- The survey measures AUD over the past year, not just the past month used for its drinking estimates.[1]
- U.S. estimates of deaths from excessive drinking include liver disease, cancers and accidents, not only alcohol poisoning.[3]
How Common Are Drinking and Alcoholism in the United States?
The 2025 national survey covers the U.S. civilian population aged 12 or older who were not living in institutions.[1] Its percentages below use that whole population as the denominator—the group each percentage is calculated from—not only people who drink.
| Measure and Time Window | Share | People, Millions |
|---|---|---|
| Any alcohol use, past month | 44.4% | 129.1 |
| Binge drinking, past month | 19.5% | 56.8 |
| Heavy alcohol use, past month | 5.0% | 14.5 |
| AUD, past year | 8.9% | 25.7 |
Do not add these counts together. The drinking groups overlap: heavy use is included within binge use, and binge use is included within any alcohol use.[1] AUD is a separate measure of a disorder, with a longer time window.
An Alcohol Drinking Pattern Is Not an AUD Diagnosis
For its AUD estimate, NSDUH assessed respondents who drank on at least six days in the previous year and classified those meeting at least two diagnostic criteria as having AUD.[1] A binge-drinking count alone does not establish that diagnosis. For the condition rather than population totals, see our guide to alcohol use disorder.
For an illustrative comparison, someone who meets the binge threshold on one occasion in a month meets NSDUH’s binge-use definition. Meeting that threshold on five separate days also meets its heavy-use definition.[1] Our binge drinking guide provides a separate place to examine that pattern.
“Heavy Drinking” Can Mean Different Things
The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) uses a different heavy-drinking definition: five or more drinks on any day or 15 or more per week for men, and four or more on any day or eight or more per week for women.[2] The 5.0% survey estimate above uses NSDUH’s repeated-binge definition, not these daily or weekly thresholds.[1]
NIAAA defines a U.S. standard drink as a beverage containing 14 grams, or 0.6 fluid ounces, of pure alcohol.[2] When comparing your own drinking with a threshold, check the alcohol amount rather than assuming every glass or container represents the same amount.
Which Age Groups Have the Highest Alcohol Use Rates?
In 2025, adults aged 26 or older had the highest rate of any past-month drinking, while young adults aged 18 to 25 had the highest rates of binge drinking, heavy use and past-year AUD among the survey’s three broad age groups.[1]
| Age, Years | Any Drinking | Binge Drinking | Heavy Use | AUD |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12–17 | 5.9% | 3.0% | 0.3% | 2.8% |
| 18–25 | 46.2% | 26.7% | 6.3% | 13.1% |
| 26 or Older | 48.4% | 20.2% | 5.3% | 8.9% |
A higher percentage does not necessarily mean a larger number of people. The survey estimated 4.7 million young adults aged 18 to 25 with past-year AUD, compared with 20.3 million adults aged 26 or older.[1] The younger group had the higher rate, but the older group contained more people with AUD.
Underage Drinking Includes Ages 18 to 20
Underage drinking means alcohol use before age 21.[2] NSDUH’s underage estimates cover ages 12 to 20, which is a different group from adolescents aged 12 to 17 or young adults aged 18 to 25.
Among people aged 12 to 20 in 2025, 5.4 million (13.7%) reported past-month alcohol use, 3.1 million (7.9%) reported binge drinking and 701,000 (1.8%) met the heavy-use definition.[1] The binge and heavy-use counts are included within the total for any underage drinking.
Underage past-month drinking decreased from 15.6% in 2021 to 13.7% in 2025.[1] However, the report classified underage binge and heavy use as showing no change across that period.[1] The improvement in any drinking therefore should not be presented as an improvement in every underage drinking measure.
Have U.S. Alcohol Use and AUD Changed Over Time?
Overall rates were lower in 2025 than in 2021. The 2025 report identifies decreases in past-month drinking, binge use, heavy use and past-year AUD among people aged 12 or older.[1] The year-by-year figures show that a decrease over the whole period does not mean a decrease every single year.
| Year | Any Drinking | Binge Drinking | Heavy Use | AUD |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 47.4% | 21.7% | 5.7% | 10.6% |
| 2022 | 48.7% | 21.7% | 5.7% | 10.5% |
| 2023 | 47.5% | 21.7% | 5.8% | 10.2% |
| 2024 | 46.6% | 20.1% | 5.0% | 9.7% |
| 2025 | 44.4% | 19.5% | 5.0% | 8.9% |
Any drinking fell by 3.0 percentage points, from 47.4% to 44.4%, while AUD fell by 1.7 percentage points, from 10.6% to 8.9%.[1] A percentage-point change is the difference between two percentages, not the same as a relative percentage reduction.
These comparisons use the 2025 report’s updated 2021 estimates. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), the agency that conducts NSDUH, changed the survey to a mix of in-person and web interviews, and says estimates from 2021 onward are not comparable with estimates from 2020 or earlier.[1] Joining those older numbers to this table would create a misleading trend.
How Many U.S. Deaths Are Attributed to Excessive Drinking?
Excessive alcohol use was responsible for an estimated annual average of about 178,000 U.S. deaths in 2020–2021, approximately 5% of all deaths.[3] This is a yearly average across those two years, not their combined total and not a count for 2026.
The estimate was approximately 29% higher than the estimate for 2016–2017.[3] That mortality comparison concerns a different period and measure from the 2021–2025 survey trends in drinking and AUD.
What Alcohol-Attributable Deaths Mean
In this U.S. estimate, alcohol-attributable deaths are deaths estimated to result from excessive alcohol use. The U.S. estimate includes alcohol-associated liver disease, heart disease and stroke, poisonings involving alcohol alone or with other drugs, accidents such as falls and car crashes, and cancers such as colorectal and breast cancer.[3]
This is a population estimate spanning several causes of death. It is not the percentage of people with AUD who will die from drinking, and it cannot predict one person’s outcome.
Alcohol’s Toll Extends Beyond Liver Disease
In 2022, alcohol contributed to more than 4.2 million emergency department visits, or 3.5% of such visits.[3] In 2023, there were 12,429 alcohol-impaired-driving fatalities, representing 30% of overall driving fatalities.[3] These measure visits and crash deaths, respectively, and should not be added to the annual excessive-drinking death estimate.
Liver disease remains part of alcohol’s mortality burden, but it is not the whole picture. For a closer look at another major category, see our guide to alcohol and cancer risk.
What Do Global Alcohol Estimates Show?
The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 400 million people aged 15 or older, or 7% of that global population, lived with alcohol use disorders in 2019.[4] Within that total, an estimated 209 million lived with alcohol dependence, a category WHO reports within alcohol use disorders.[4] The dependence figure is not an additional group to add to the AUD total.
WHO estimates that alcohol caused 2.6 million deaths worldwide in 2019: 1.6 million from diseases that are not spread through infection, 700,000 from injuries and 300,000 from communicable, or infectious, diseases.[4] This global estimate concerns alcohol consumption, while the U.S. estimate above specifically concerns excessive alcohol use.
WHO also reports a 20.2% decrease in alcohol-attributable deaths per 100,000 people globally from 2010 to 2019.[4] A worldwide death rate over that period cannot establish whether U.S. drinking or AUD increased or decreased in 2021–2025.
Why Global and U.S. Rates Should Stay Separate
The global AUD estimate covers people aged 15 or older in 2019, while the latest U.S. survey estimate covers civilian, noninstitutionalized people aged 12 or older in 2025.[1][4] Different populations, years and sources prevent a like-for-like comparison. Do not average the two rates or interpret their difference as a change over time.
Common Drinking Does Not Mean Risk-Free Drinking
WHO explains that alcohol risk depends on the amount consumed, drinking frequency and pattern, personal health and the context of drinking. Most alcohol-related harms come from heavy drinking episodes or ongoing heavy drinking, but even low levels carry risks.[4] A survey threshold is a counting rule, not a guarantee that drinking below it is harmless.
WHO reports that alcohol plays a causal role in more than 200 diseases, injuries and other health conditions, although available evidence allows the global burden to be quantified for only 31 health conditions.[4] Those are different questions: how broadly alcohol can cause harm, and how much harm can be reliably counted.
How Many People Receive Alcohol Treatment or Medication?
According to NIAAA’s summary of the 2024 NSDUH, 2.1 million people aged 12 or older with past-year AUD received alcohol use treatment in the past year.[5] That was 7.6% of people with past-year AUD in that age group.[5] The denominator is people with AUD, not everyone who drank alcohol.
The 2024 treatment measure includes inpatient and outpatient treatment or counseling, medication, telehealth treatment and treatment received in correctional settings.[2] It should not be read as a count of people who entered residential rehab.
The 2025 Medication Figures Use Two Denominators
The newer 2025 survey reports medication prescribed to help reduce or stop alcohol use in the past year.[1] It gives two related, but different, answers:
- Among all people aged 12 or older, 1.1 million people, or 0.4%, received medication for AUD in the past year.[1]
- Among the 25.7 million people aged 12 or older with past-year AUD, 679,000 people, or 2.6%, received medication for AUD in the past year.[1]
Why is the first count larger? It includes everyone aged 12 or older who received this medication, not only people with past-year AUD.[1]
SAMHSA also notes that someone may have met AUD criteria more than 12 months before the interview but not been classified as having AUD in the past year because they were receiving medication.[1] The total medication count therefore is not limited to people who currently meet the survey’s past-year AUD definition.
SAMHSA excludes medicines used for withdrawal symptoms—symptoms after reducing or stopping alcohol—or to stop an overdose from its AUD medication measure.[1] This figure concerns medication intended to help reduce or stop ongoing alcohol use.
The 7.6% treatment figure is from 2024, while the 2.6% medication figure is from 2025.[1][5] They measure different forms of help in different years, so subtracting one from the other would not show how many people received counseling without medication.
NIAAA, citing SAMHSA, notes that changes to the 2024 inpatient and outpatient treatment questions limit comparisons with earlier treatment estimates.[5] These figures describe treatment receipt. They do not explain every reason people did not receive treatment or establish a comparable long-term treatment trend.
What Alcohol Statistics Mean for Your Next Step
The national numbers cannot decide whether you have AUD, how much risk you personally face or which treatment fits your needs. Rather than asking only, “Am I above the average?”, consider what concerns you about your drinking and what you would like help changing.
Treatment Does Not Have to Mean Residential Rehab
NIAAA’s Alcohol Treatment Navigator challenges the idea that help for alcohol problems means only Alcoholics Anonymous or residential rehab. It describes professionally led talk therapy and medication that can be combined and tailored to individual needs, including outpatient options that may allow people to maintain their regular routines.[6]
A licensed therapist can help someone build coping strategies and skills to stop or reduce drinking. A primary care clinician or addiction doctor can prescribe medications to help stop drinking and avoid relapse.[6] These are concrete forms of help to ask about, not a promise that one approach fits everyone.
NIAAA explains that an assessment of alcohol problems and complications helps guide the appropriate intensity of care. Lower-intensity outpatient options are appropriate when an assessment supports them.[6] Our guide to alcohol rehab is a place to examine care options without assuming you must choose a residential stay.
Questions to Ask About Alcohol Treatment
Before an appointment, consider writing down recent drinking occasions, how much you drank and what prompted your concern. You do not need to prove that you fit a statistical category before asking for an assessment.
Useful questions for a clinician or treatment provider include:
- How will you assess my drinking and other health concerns?
- Would counseling, medication or a combination be worth considering?
- What makes the proposed setting appropriate for me?
- How will we review progress and adjust the plan?
- What are the costs, insurance arrangements and staff qualifications?
If you want to compare providers, use Find Treatment as a starting point, then confirm services, costs and provider fit directly. Asking about options is a next step, not a commitment to a particular program.
If you are concerned about someone else, you can start with a specific observation rather than arguing about whether their drinking is “normal.” An illustrative opening is, “I’m worried about what happened after you drank last weekend. Would you be willing to talk with someone about it?” The goal is a useful conversation, not winning a debate over a percentage.
Frequently Asked Questions About Alcohol Statistics
What Percentage of Alcoholics Die From Alcoholism?
For people with alcohol use disorder (AUD), these sources do not provide that percentage. The U.S. death estimate concerns excessive alcohol use across the population in 2020–2021, while the latest AUD estimate concerns past-year disorder in 2025.[1][3] Dividing those totals would not measure the chance that a person with AUD will die from alcohol.
Is Heavy Drinking Defined the Same Way Everywhere?
No. NSDUH uses repeated binge drinking within the past 30 days, while NIAAA also defines heavy drinking through daily or weekly amounts.[2] Check the definition attached to a statistic before comparing it with another report or your own drinking. Identical labels do not necessarily mean identical measures.
Do These Statistics Show How Many People Are Drunk Right Now?
No. The survey reports whether people drank during a defined period, such as the past month, rather than how many people are intoxicated at a particular moment.[1] A count of past-month drinkers cannot be converted into a real-time intoxication count.
Can I Ask About Alcohol Treatment Without Choosing Rehab First?
Yes. NIAAA describes help through therapists and primary care clinicians, including counseling and medication, with the setting guided by an assessment of individual needs.[6] You can ask for an assessment and discuss options before deciding on a program. Confirm the proposed services, costs and reasons for the recommended setting.
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