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Alcohol Use USAThe tables below show the latest statistics of alcohol use USA. The first table shows the age that respondents said that they had their first alcoholic drink. The impression given by the tabloid On first glance it looks as if respondents are drinking younger as more 12-17 year olds say that they had their first drink at 13 years or younger. However when we look at the other age bands we can see that across all age groupings (except 50 years and older) around 37% had had a drink by age 15. So if children are drinking at a younger age these statistics suggest that it is not a new phenomenon but has been ongoing for nearly 40 years. Where do you fit on this table, did you drink under-age, did it harm you? Maybe what is new is that we are more aware of it as we are more exposed to teenage drinking statistics in the media. Unfortunately the tabloids just report the raw statistics without placing them into any kind of context that would allow us to decide whether things are improving or deteriorating. Perhaps the main, but unsensational, statistic that should command our attention is that more than half (57.8%) of the young people in this survey had never had a drink. If, as some sources would have us believe, today's children are all swilling alcohol, smoking and high on drugs, this statistic is an antidote to that picture. Clearly many children are not indulging and this situation has changed little in the last few decades.
When it comes to the number of days drinking in a year, the above statistics are supported as so many young people say that they have not consumed any alcohol. Beyond that point the statistics are more or less as would be expected with about a quarter of the population drinking between twice a month to twice a week.
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