Are we drinking ourselves to death? Statistics over two recent decades reveal that alcohol-related deaths in this country have nearly doubled to forty-nine thousand in the latest year of the study. Every age group suffered increases, but the most alarming was the nearly four-fold spike in those between twenty-five and thirty-four. Both men and women experienced significant increases in alcohol-related deaths, but men had the highest rates from the CDC’s online research. Co-author Dr. Charles Hennekens says globally and in the United States high levels of alcohol consumption are closely linked to premature deaths. He says the difference between consuming small amounts of alcohol daily and larger amounts could be the difference in preventing and causing premature death.