Americans Are Drinking Themselves to Death at Record Rates

Americans are drinking themselves to death at a record-breaking rate, according to a report.

More than 30,700 people in the country died in 2014 from alcohol-related causes, including alcohol poisoning, the Washington Post reports, citing new federal data. Last year’s rate of 9.6 deaths per 100,000 people is an increase of 37% since 2002, according to the newspaper.

More people died from alcohol in 2014 than from overdoses of prescription painkillers and heroin combined, the Post said. Those causes did not include deaths from drunk driving or homicides committed while drunk.

Excessive alcohol use is a leading cause of preventable death, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It accounted for about 88,000 deaths each from 2006 to 2010, health officials said.

[Washington Post]