American Indians and Alaska Natives (AI/AN) tend to abuse substances more than other racial demographics, and also suffer from more mental health concerns than the general American population. The CDC publishes that the highest percentage of people reporting fair or poor health were of the AI/AN race demographic.
Looking at the amount of alcohol consumed per person aged 15 years or older, the Seychelles is in first place with around 20.5 litres of alcohol drunk per person per year, according to Our World in Data; studies show that young male peer groups primarily drink high amounts of alcohol in the Seychelles.
We observed ethnic, gender and age-specific differences in the alcohol consumption patterns. Asian respondents were consistently the least likely to engage in drinking behavior, and non-Hispanic white respondents the most likely.
Among the nation's largest racial and ethnic groups, White adults aged 18 and older (68%) are more likely than Hispanic adults (59%) or Black adults (50%) to report they drink.
In North America, Native Americans have the highest probability of developing an alcohol use disorder compared to Europeans and Asians. Different alcohol tolerance also exists within Asian groups, such as between Chinese and Koreans.
Which country drinks the most in Europe? In 2019, the top 10 European countries with the highest alcohol consumption per capita were Czechia (14.3 litres), Latvia (13.2), Moldova (12.9), Germany (12.8), Lithuania (12.8), Ireland (12.7), Spain (12.7), Bulgaria (12.5), Luxembourg (12.4), and Romania (12.3).
Belarus, a small landlocked country in Europe, consumed the greatest average number of liters of pure alcohol per capita. On average, its citizens consumed 14.4 liters each year, over 1.5 times more than Americans.
People in South Korea are the most prolific drinkers in Asia, according to the WHO. South Koreans over the age of 15 on average drink 10.9 litres of alcohol a year.
The Eastern Mediterranean Region, consisting of the Muslim countries in the Middle East and North Africa, is by far the lowest alcohol consuming region in the world, both in terms of total adult per capita consumption and prevalence of non-drinkers, i.e., 87.8 per cent lifetime abstainers.
“Australia tops the world in both the number of times people report getting drunk and in seeking emergency medical treatment for alcohol,” explains Caterina Giorgi, CEO of The Foundation For Alcohol Research & Education, on a rather sobering note.
Andre the Giant drank 7,000 calories of booze every day. Andre would drink 2 dozen quarts of beer as a warm-up before a wrestling match. Andre would drink a case of beer chased down with a couple of bottles of vodka thrown in for good measure... every ninety minutes.
According to the World Health Organisation, Austria, Ireland and the Czech Republic are the world's biggest binge-drinkers. That term is defined as consuming more than six units or three pints of lager on one occasion over the past 30 days.
The teetotaler (0 drinks/week) and the excessive drinker (8+ drinks/week) were projected to live to 92 and 93 years old, respectively. The same person having one drink per week was projected to live to 94, and the moderate drinker (2-7 drinks/week) was projected to live 95 years.
Source: Eurostat. The EU country with the biggest share of its population drinking alcohol on a weekly basis is the Netherlands (47.3 per cent), Luxembourg (43.1 per cent), and Belgium (40.8 per cent).
Moderate drinkers and nondrinkers report similar rates of sadness, but both groups are slightly less likely than heavy drinkers to experience sadness. Still, while heavy drinkers and nondrinkers report similar levels of positive emotions, heavy drinkers report experiencing more negative emotions than nondrinkers.
In fact, 64 percent of the world's nations have legal drinking ages of 18. The youngest legal drinking age in the world is 15, with both Mali and the Central African Republic allowing folks to drink at that time.
Australia was above the OECD average for litres per capita of alcohol available for consumption by people aged 15 and over, at 9.5 compared with 8.4 litres per capita in 2021 (OECD 2022).
The report ranks consumption volume by country and region. China tops the list, reporting over 38 million kiloliters (some 10 billion gallons) drank in 2021.
Thus, after having been second only to France in terms of per capita alcohol consumption, Italy is now one of the high-income countries with the lowest levels of alcohol drinking worldwide (La Vecchia et al., 2014; WHO, 2014a; Gallus et al., 2015).