Fas­ci­nat­ing arti­cle break­ing down the stats on alco­hol use in the Wash­ing­ton Post in 2014.

Here are the two pieces that strike me: The “top 10 per­cent of drinkers account for over half of the alco­hol con­sumed in any giv­en year” and this top 10 rep­re­sents peo­ple who drink an aver­age of 10 drinks per day.

I’m not a tee­to­taler and I’m glad stats also show that most Amer­i­cans are light on the alco­hol — 30 per­cent don’t drink and anoth­er 30 per­cent are mod­er­ate. But 10 drinks per day aver­age is a seri­ous alco­hol prob­lem — with seri­ous social impli­ca­tions and costs. Half of the indus­try prof­its come from these drinkers. The arti­cle quotes an expert:

If the top decile some­how could be induced to curb their con­sump­tion lev­el to that of the next low­er group (the ninth decile), then total ethanol sales would fall by 60 percent.”

Amaz­ing.