Alcohol is driving deaths on and off our roads

“It wasn’t supposed to be this way,” an NYPD chaplain lamented as he eulogized 30-year-old Officer Emilia Rennhack, one of four people killed last month when a suspected drunken driver plowed through the front of a Deer Park nail salon.

Fatal car crashes are on the rise and as lawmakers and safety advocates debate stricter enforcement, ignition interlock technology, and lower DWI thresholds, we’re overlooking the fact that alcohol use, especially excessive drinking, is causing death, disability, disease and despair on the roadways and behind closed doors.

Prosecutors said the defendant in this most recent calamity admitted drinking 18 beers the night before the crash. If that sounds like a lot, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention agrees.

The federal health agency defines excessive alcohol use for men as consuming five or more drinks in one sitting, or more than 15 drinks in a week. For women, who metabolize alcohol differently, more than four drinks per occasion or eight drinks per week is considered excessive. The CDC stresses that any drinking by those who are pregnant or under the age of 21 is potentially harmful.

After decades of contradictory research into whether a glass or two of red wine with dinner helps or hurts, the World Health Organization recently clarified that avoiding alcohol altogether is the healthiest approach and the more you drink in a single session or over time, the more harmful it is.

Alcohol sales in the U.S. increased more during the COVID-19 pandemic than in the last 50 years, and while overall alcohol consumption has returned to pre-pandemic levels, nearly 29 million Americans surveyed in 2022 self-identified as having an alcohol use disorder. That is, they can’t stop or control their drinking, despite negative consequences. Approximately 17% of American adults admitted episodes of binge drinking, while 7% reported heavy drinking.

As more Americans drink excessively, they are killing others in motor vehicle crashes and killing themselves with liver disease, strokes and dozens of other alcohol-related conditions, including certain cancers and alcohol-related suicides. Fatalities attributable to alcohol have surged almost 30% in recent years and excessive drinking is responsible for nearly 500 deaths per day.

Alcohol, in fact, kills more people than fentanyl. At a time when the federal Drug Enforcement Administration is warning the public that “one pill can kill,” alcohol erroneously seems less dangerous.

New York State lawmakers should explain why, during an opioid epidemic that’s now intertwined with a youth mental health crisis, they recently made alcohol more accessible by extending liquor store hours on Sundays, allowing hard liquor to be served alongside beer and wine in movie theaters, and making COVID-era carryout cocktails permanent.

Instead, government should refresh stale educational efforts that focus not just on impaired driving, but on the dire health and mental health consequences associated with one of America's most ubiquitous drugs. That starts with educating kids in schools, patients in doctors' offices, and our co-workers, friends and families who use alcohol to celebrate victories, mourn losses and everything in between.

We can delay drinking among young people and encourage adults to rethink their relationship with alcohol by showing them the science and giving them some coaching tools. Let’s also make addiction treatment more accessible, and push for common-sense policies that better balance pleasure with public safety. That’s how we prove to a population under the influence that it doesn’t have to be this way.

This guest essay reflects the views of Jeffrey L. Reynolds, president and chief executive of the Garden City-based Family and Children’s Association.