Alcohol-related deaths in U S. jumped 29 percent in 5 years. Heres why, according to experts
Alcohol-related deaths disproportionately affect males and older adults, with a concerning increase in death rates over recent years. Drug overdose rates were highest among American Indian/Alaska Native people at 65.2 deaths per 100,000 people, adults ages 35 to 54 (59.4 deaths per 100,000), Black people (47.5 deaths per 100,000), and males (45.6 deaths per 100,000). Between 2002 and 2022, combined rate of deaths due to alcohol, drugs, and suicide have increased by 142 percent from 74,003 deaths in 2002 to 207,827 deaths in 2022. A decrease in the alcohol-induced mortality rate led to a slightly lower combined rate of all U.S. deaths due to alcohol, drugs, and suicide in 2022, but the long-term trend of such deaths is still alarmingly high. These drugs also have a high potential for abuse; this may or may not be due to addictive properties.
Miscellaneous Death Rates due to Alcoholic Consumption

Moreover, rising economic distress has intersected with rising family distress and marital dissolution and long-term demographic trends of lower marriage rates, increasing single-parent families, and increasing multiple-partner fertility (Burton et al., 2013; Child Trends DataBank, 2015). Collectively, these factors may mean that growing shares of the U.S. population are feeling isolated, disconnected, unstable, and without purpose or meaning in their lives. Several studies, moreover, have found evidence of worsening psychological health among U.S. working-age adults. Using self-report data from the 1993–2019 BRFSS surveys, Blanchflower and Oswald (2020) found that the proportion of the U.S. population in extreme distress (measured as reporting major mental and emotional problems in all 30 of the past 30 days) rose from 3.6 percent in 1993 to 6.4 percent alcohol overdose in 2019.
Drug Use Disorders
The increase in crude rate between 2019 and 2021 was slightly higher among females than males (+39% for females, + 36% for males); and similarly, between 2019 and 2024 (+16% for females, + 8% for males). These figures imply that, nationwide, mortality increased significantly at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, and that while crude rates have begun decreasing, in 2024 they are still larger than they were in 2019. Building on reports of accelerated alcohol-related deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic 23,25,39, we performed a detailed monthly trend analysis (rather than a yearly analysis) to gain better insight of the impact of alcohol-induced what is Oxford House mortality across demographic groups between 2018 and 2024. We also wish to determine for which groups, if any, mortality rates have decreased or returned to pre-pandemic levels. Specifically, we apply Rbeast to monthly crude rates to identify possible upward TCP jumps in mortality trends. We find that statistically significant TCP jumps arise for both genders and all age groups below 75 years in Spring 2020, concurrent with the onset of COVID-19.

Indiana Alcohol Abuse Statistics
- In 2019 the county with the highest crude rate was recorded in McKinley County (NM) with 115 fatalities per 100,000 and Roosevelt County (MT) with 109 fatalities per 100,000.
- In a presentation to the committee in October 2019, she described how—in a context in which family ties are fragile, opportunities for mobility seem scarce, and social safety nets have diminished—her respondents often had turned to drugs, alcohol, and even food to cope with life’s disappointments, the lack of economic opportunity, and hopelessness about the future.
- Despite the government and community efforts to reduce addiction throughout the state, almost 700,000 Ohio residents ages 12 and above require drug rehabilitation services and treatment every year.
We conducted a cross-sectional study using the Underlying Cause of Death files from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (Wide-ranging Online Data for Epidemiologic Research (WONDER) database, 2021) which covers the years 1999–2020. The national mortality data in WONDER is provided by the National Center for Health Statistics and is based on death certificate records for US residents. Theoretically, “despair” or other forms of psychological distress may help to explain substance-related deaths because they reflect behaviors of individuals who are potentially depressed, distressed, and without hope for the future (Baines, Jones, and Christiansen, 2016; McLean, 2016). A formal definition of “despair” as a https://sakura178.com/my-top-five-female-recovery-memoirs/ noun is “the complete loss or absence of hope” or “a cause of hopelessness”; the verb “to despair” means “to lose or be without hope,” and “to lose all hope or confidence” (Merriam-Webster, 2020; Lexico.com, 2020).