Drinking Statistics

People make a wide variety of choices about drinking, including whether to drink at all, and how much to consume if they do decide to drink. Here are some general trends in the United States.

**How many American adults (ages 18 and over) drank in the past year and how much did they drink?** (Source: Wave 2 NESARC, conducted by NIAAA's Laboratory of Epidemiology and Biometry)
	Men	Women
Percentage who had at least one drink	59.6%	71.8%
Percentage who have never drank -- lifetime abstainers	22.5%	11.6%
Percentage of binge drinkers -- drinkers who consumed 4+/5+ (women/men) drinks within 2 hours at least once	28.8%	43.1%
How many drinks did drinkers usually consume on a drinking day?
1 drink	48.2%	28.7%
2 drinks	29.9%	29.0%
3 or more drinks	21.9%	42.3%

**How frequently did American adults (ages 18 and over) drink in the past year?** (Source: Wave 2 NESARC, conducted by NIAAA's Laboratory of Epidemiology and Biometry)
Percentage who drank:	Women	Men
Daily	2.45%	5.78%
Nearly every day	2.39%	4.98%
3-4 times a week	5.55%	10.00%
2 times a week	5.82%	10.46%
Once a week	6.77%	10.33%
2-3 ties a month	8.27%	9.55%
Once a month	7.19%	6.72%
7-11 times in the past year	4.44%	3.51%
3-6 times in the past year	9.26%	5.67%
1-2 times in the past year	8.73%	4.91%
Never in the past year (former drinker or lifetime abstainer)	39.13%	28.09%